TV08: EVERYTHING ELSE

Well, if the network executives hadn't been so ricockulously stupid as to not return series to the air directly after the writer's strike, in effect encouraging viewers to find something better to do that watch TV, there'd have been more stuff to choose from for the TV08 series. Still, there was some stuff I didn't get around to for one reson or another. Some of which follows.

30 Rock. Despite my love of the Fey, I elected not to do sitcoms. I don't write them, I don't look at them with much of a critical eye, I just hate most of them and love a few of them. Besides, I couldn't pick out just one. I thought about doing one on "MILF Island," but I decided to just let it go.

I thought about doing one for the first episode of Heroes this season. I actually enjoyed that first one when I saw the preview at SDCC. I thought it was well-placed, answered questions left from season two well while posing new and potentially interesting questions for the season two come. But that might send the wrong message. That Heroes is currently watchable. From 3x02 on, was just...ugh...in fact, I've taken the rare step of stopping watching it all together. Conscious decision. I'll still get the DVD's though. I'm a little obsessive about completeness in my massive collection, and academically I view it as an education in what not to do.

I just never got around to writing it up, but I was going to do a post for Battlestar Galactica: "Sine Qua Non." I was going to go on at length about the dead cat. Perhaps better left unwritten, but that was my favorite Galactica of the half-season.

The thing I debated most about was doing a post about Doctor Horrible's Sing-A-Long Blog. Time Magazine put it on their list, but I have some hesitation in calling this TV. It made me realize too late that I should have broadened the scope of my year end list and included all entertainment media. I could have included Buffy comics, The Dark Knight, maybe the Ambush Bug miniseries, I don't what else. It's not TV. It's a web series or a web event. It has different rules, it functions entirely differently and, in fact, the DVD calls it a film. It really is, it's a short film that got split up over three initial viewings.

And notable, it defies even like, the prime web series rule...well, rules of thumb. It goes well beyond the three-to-five minutes that seems to be the max attention span of people at computers. Plus, you know, it's Whedon. It wasn't cheap, it was even shot partially on a studio lot. It had every possible advantage. Certainly, it will and already has inspired no-budget filmmakers, which the web is really kinda of for in a way, and it served to send a message to the media companies that it can be done without them, but I don't see this as a real test.

What might be a better test is something like Ed Brubaker's Angel of Death, because Ed's not quite the name Whedon is. Unless you're into comics, you probably don't know him. He's got a crime series coming up with ten minute installments, so longer...meatier...but less star power (though Lucy Lawless is in it, but not featured as the star). The problem though, is it's a corporate gig. It's part of Sony's crackle.com.

No, the best test is to see what happens when a good, connected writer with some money or access to it does something on their own like Whedon, but without the rabid fanbase or the cachet his name carries. What if, for example, Darin Morgan did something like this. He's fucking awesome, but...Darin who? Only hardcore TV geeks know his name, but he won an Emmy for an X-Files episode. What about some writer outside of sci-fi (mostly) tried to do something like this. Like, maybe...Kevin Falls or Tom Fontana or Kurt Sutter did this. Can it get the internet's attention on just idea alone. Yeah, I guess it depends on the idea, but...I want to see more done outside of the corporations.

I would like to note though, that I inaugurated by new flat panel TV with the Dr. Horrible DVD.

TV08: GENERATION KILL: "Screwby"

Continuing my review of my favorite episodes of stuff from the last calendar year. Not necessarily the best of the year, but ones I liked for one subjective reason or another.

GENERATION KILL: "Screwby"
Teleplay by Ed Burns
Story by David Simon and Ed Burns
Bravo Company awaits for their next orders for a recon mission, having survived its first trial by fire; whilst scoping out a roadside firefight, they watch in shock as a regimental combat team arrives with guns blaring, and they watch on as the hamlet is obliterated; Encino Man requests an artillery strike on a phantom RPG team; Fick tries to take control of a dangerous situation; Ferrando issues a new, more urgent order shortly after Alpha Company shells Ar Rifa.

There will be spoilers.
I totally identified with this episode. Not because I have personal experience shooting accidentally unarmed civilians, taking airfields or otherwise engaging in military operations in Iraq. Or, you know...anywhere. Aside form my mercenary experiences in the former Rhodesia in the mid-to-late seventies.

The thematic base of the episode tapped in to powerlessness, frustration and lack of a voice to speak while also having those elements of not having all the information to judge, but all the information you do have says everything is wrong.

And these are elements that I think most of us probably have experience with, generally in some form of employment. I know that when I watch something set in a war zone, there's a part of it that I'm watching for the interest in subject matter and, yes, even a sense of adventurism. I'm not in the military, never have been. So there's a little disconnect in the way I see these things...perhaps in the way most people see these things, given that most people haven't been in the sandbox. But in "Screwby," I was able to tap into some of the same feelings as the soldiers involved. Certainly none of the more profound ones, but when their superior officers do...just...stupid things. We've been there.

When the LT directly informs his superior officer, who was, first of all, ignorant of relevant intel by not being on the comms (and risking his career by not standing by like a good little robot) that the RPG team was dispatched and that there is no threat and that officer, "Encino Man," ignores to word of the guy who was just handing the shit and gives an artillery order that endangers the unit, except for being directly endangered, I've been there. Encino Man is that middle manager that doesn't know what the fuck is going on, thinks he does and won't listen to you because you do know what's going on and you're, in fact, the one doing it.

Then you've got the Sergeant Major who orders the supply truck left behind. From one stance, it's causing a delay in the mission and his responsibility is to keep moving, but all the grunts know that they need those supplies and that, in fact, leaving a supply truck full of M-16's, ammo and 400 pounds of C-4 and chow is, essentially, arming the enemy. And none of them can say a damn thing because that man has the power to seriously fuck their lives. In the recent past, I've had this displeasure of working for a management team with a blistering inability to think even one step beyond their immediate decisions. Theirevery improvement, is two detriments.

And in that case, it's made all the more assinine because the mission was to ninja an airfield from under the British, who were much better equiped to do the job anyway.

But when the unit stands up to their Colonel when a young boy that they very probably shot is close to death and needs to be evacuated, they're faced with several ugly truths. One, they themselves have not considered the big picture. They're thirty miles behind the lines and don't have adequate resources to get the boy to help. Second, the rules of engagement say that the boy isn't entitled to the same level of aid that they would be in the same position. The frustration that you thought you knew the rules and you didn't. I know that. And that the rules that exist, fucking suck. I know that.

But this was Burns and Simon form The Wire, which was half about higher-ups defeating their own purposes for political reasons wile the lower-downs are just trying to their job. They've kinda got a niche in that sense. Be it B'mo or the box, shit all falls down the same.

So for these reasons that I can apply to just about anytime I've ever worked for a jackass or in less than ideal conditions, I rate this episode as one the better empathic, realistic war stories I've seen. Watch that D-Day sequence of Saving Private Ryan all you like. Unless you've been fired on, you don't know what it's like and be thankful that you never will.

And be thankful that there are guys who did so.

TV08: THE SHIELD: "Family Meeting"

Continuing my review of my favorite episodes of stuff from the last calendar year. Not necessarily the best of the year, but ones I liked for one subjective reason or another.

THE SHIELD: "Family Meeting"
Written by Shawn Ryan
In the series finale, the Barn looks into a woman's disappearance and the arrival of a major drug shipment. Shane and Vic find ways out of their respective problems.

There will be spoilers.
When at the end of the pilot, Vic Mackey put a bullet in Detective Terry Crowley, you knew that not only defined who Vic was for the rest of the series, it would be the key to the end of the series, whenever that came.

Well, it came...and it was...a little.

At the time I thought for sure that when the final episode came, Vic would go down for the murder and get locked up with a bunch of guys he out away. Or something like that. And because that's what I thought would happen, it was exactly what I didn't want to happen. And it didn't.
Still, justice came to Vic, but in a more philosophical way. He was punished in a way only he can really understand as punishment.

There are two scenes worthy of note in this episode. One being the revelation that Shane ate a bullet after having killed his own family. One of the more horrific things seen in scripted drama in recent memory. And, unfortunately (within the story) the appropriate end of the character. You can easily see Shane thinking in that twisted and wrong way. And it's a really affecting thing, to me anyway. While largely desensitized to most crime on the news, the familial murder/suicide never fails to enrage me...quietly.

The other scene is the last four minutes. Those quiet four minutes of Vic in hell.

This is the other satisfying finale I mentioned in TV08: THE WIRE: "-30-" and also the other finale directed by Clark Johnson, bookending the series he set the tone for by also directing the pilot (and appearing in the finale as the marshal). All the characters had varying but sufficient levels of closure, but with Vic, we also got a little ambiguity. A little something to read into as the audience sees Vic.

Stuck for the next few years at a desk, having lost his family, his purpose in life even, not a cop, not on the streets...what's he planning to do with that gun. He's going to escape is what he's going to do, but as a vigilante or a suicide*.

And what was it that put him in this spot, I mean-- what part of him actually did the work of putting him in his personal hell. It wasn't all the bad in him, the killing or the stealing. It was the good in him. He admitted his crimes only when he thought that his wife was in trouble. He was first and foremost a family man. That is his only loyalty...unfortunately for Ronnie. Maybe he might have been caught had he not confessed his crimes as part of his immunity deal, but he would have just gone to prison...and been killed there. For him, easy way out. No. What he got was the only real justice he would ever get. Robbed of everything that mattered to him.

*I'm going with vigilante.

TV08: THE UNIT: "Five Brothers"

Continuing my review of my favorite episodes of stuff from the last calendar year. Not necessarily the best of the year, but ones I liked for one subjective reason or another.

THE UNIT: "Five Brothers"
Written By Frank Military
The Unit is in Lebanon when Grey is seriously wounded. They must think and act quickly to save his life. On the Home Front, Tiffy's problems continue to build when a man she met at her job tows her car. The women stand up and fight to protect her.

There will be spoilers.
Nobody talks about The Unit. I don't get it. It's got David Mamet and The Shield's Shawn Ryan behind it. It's got some great and gritty stuff. I even had spec'ed an episode of The Unit early on, tyring to get ahead of the curve on the gamble that a show by those two names would get paid attention to by more than just the typical CBS demographic (which in it's first season, it was a top 20 show).

And this one was a tight, mostly bottled, show with a lot of brains and a sense of reality behind it.

And here's something I considered about this episode. The title. It's not very revealing, but to me, it conveys a sense of impending badness. The five members of the Unit. The five brothers, This is something the producers wanted to see in the title. The concept embodied between the quotation marks, But why? Something is going to strain them and strain them hard. Will there still be five when it's done.

This is one of any reason why I wish it were standard practice to put the title of individual episodes on the screen at the beginning of the show. I don't understand why it isn't done, especially as there simply is no reason not to. In fact, I think it engenders a certain level of fandom among casual viewers. Some might be alert enough to actually refer to episodes by their titles rather than "the one where..." It's something that seems to be done most frequently with scifi shows, but Aaron Sorkin does it with his, so it's not strictly a genre thing.

This episode finds the team holing up in an apartment in Beirut after rescuing a reporter who had been held hostage for months. The only problem being that the apartment is occupied by an innocent family. Immediately, our heroes are put in the position that would generally cast them in the light of assholes at best and the bad guys at worst. They're essentially holding this family hostage and using their apartment to regroup, wait for extraction and, worst of all, tend to Grey, who suffered a serious wound. His lung is collapsed, filled with blood and through out the episode, there is the ominous sense that death is imminent. Hector is constantly having to deal with the next and the next complication as Grey gets closer and closer to the end.

Worse, is that the team is being hunted and one of the kids in the family is in someway developmentally disabled and prone to rocking, crying and yelling. Of course, the team are not bad guys and immediately recognize this and try to deal with the situation humanely. However, only the teenage son of the family speaks English and he's also the one whose impetuous and immature enough to be rude to his captors and actively attempt to do things to result in their capture rather than to try and just wait out the ordeal and come out the other end safely.

It's Bob (Scott Foley) who gets put in the position of being the bad guy to the family, constantly having to threaten them, that he will shoot them and covering the fact that that is the last thing he wants to do.

Further, when Jonas (Dennis Haysbert) is forced to take the reporter out with him because he may be able to lead them to a sat radio to call for help. The reporter, however has gone all Stockholm and pulls a weapon on Jonas.

This seems like a perfectly reasonable thing that might happen but you never really see in television, a hostage who goes completely Patty Hearst on his rescuers, so it was nice twist in the middle of the episode.

Meanwhile, in the apartment, I'm just waiting for Grey to die. He just keeps getting worse


Serious spoilers now.
Cutting to the chase, they get their extraction and make their way out of the room just as an armed search party is making their way into the building. It's at that moment that the teenager makes a break for it and is going to alert the search teams, forcing Bob to shoot him in the back.

Once out, in the troop carrier that will drive them to a waiting chopper is when death finally strikes...Hector. A sniper bullet to the neck. One second he's there, the next he's not. Random as anything.

This episode, by a television veteran whose work goes back to The Equalizer and Miami Vice (though the bulk of his work has been in the last five years) has enough tension in it, you could cut it with a stainless steel survival knife. The verisimilitude of, not just this episode, but he entire series is outstanding. Ryan, Mamet and former Delta Force dude Eric Haney see to that.

I think this series should be a lot more popular than it is. I sometimes wonder that it's the B-stories featuring the wives of the unit that might detract from the series. I often hear that cited as the weakest part when I talk with others about the show (and you'll note I didn't refer to the B story in this one). It might have been better served to just be a straight up military action show of the sort that simply doesn't seem to exist. Not since the days of something like Combat or The Rat Patrol or something. And it's frequently very topical, what with the War on Terror and all.

The show, however has changed it's status quo in the fourth season. I haven't seen the new ones yet. The Unit was the first show that I elected to not watch while it's on and just watch the DVD's when I add them to the (enormous) collection. I started that with the third season.

TV08: LEVERAGE: The Nigerian Job"

Continuing my review of my favorite episodes of stuff from the last calendar year. Not necessarily the best of the year, but ones I liked for one subjective reason or another.

LEVERAGE: "The Nigerian Job"
Written by John Rogers and Chris Downey
The CEO of an aerospace company asks Nate to lead a band of criminals to recover airplane blueprints that were stolen by a rival company. However, Nate later learns that he was deceived and must convince his "team" to steal the blueprints back.

There will be spoilers.
The only pilot that I came away from watching genuinely excited about the series. And that was a little painful because I watched it, like, six months before the premiere.

Some things are just so good, right out of the gate that it completely fouls the gauges. Up is down. Left is right. And being bad is just fucking good.

And most importantly, it's fun. It doesn't try to be dramatically-laden, it's escapist in the best sense of the word, so if you can't turn on a TV and accept some cheats int eh name of having a good time, keep moving along and stick to your period dramas and your Fox Searchlight films, we got no room for you here. Example: Actually believing that Christian Kane can take out like, five, dudes int he time it takes a duffel bag to drop four feet to the ground. Sorry, I want to believe it. Fuck your reality.

The concept is pretty basic. It's modern-era Ocean's Eleven for TV, so not eleven. Bad people doing good things to even worse people. Or if you're down with Hu$tle, you're down with this.

This pilot also sets a high bar. Care was taken to make the scam in this episode better than typical. It wasn't the umpteenth version of The Sting. In fact, it was twisty, yet simple and also current as the team actually manages to use actual law in order to crush their victim, tricking him into violating that law, but that wasn't even where the sting lay. It was too simple. It was just opening the door for his own crimes to be exposed.

While the series is most reminiscent of Hu$tle (it's Hu$tle with 'splosions), I was also put in ind of maybe a less obvious and lesser known series.

There's a scene early on where the principals meet up in a big empty warehouse after things have gone a little sideways. There's suspicion, there's gun's getting drawn and there's a fierce desire to get paid. It was during this scene that it really hit me. This show stands to be everything that Smith wasn't.

Smith was my favorite show of a the new season a couple of years ago, but it was really a show about bad guys. Not good bad guys, really unpleasant people. And being on CBS, it failed to find its audience in its three weeks on the air. It also opted for a lot of heavy drama and not enough fun. Difficult balance to strike.

Leverage doesn't have the irredeemable bad guy thing, but it's nailing enough of that wrong side of the law thing that this is a worthy, of not superior successor.

Technologically scamtastic with a biting sense of humor...a drawing blood biting. I can learn from this show, in good and bad ways.

When I watched it, I'd put off watching it because I had high hopes for it and I wanted to be in an optimal state of mind, with optimal snacking options and optimal whatever else. It lived up to and then some.

I want to spec this show.

TV08: TORCHWOOD: "Fragments"

Continuing my review of my favorite episodes of stuff from the last calendar year. Not necessarily the best of the year, but ones I liked for one subjective reason or another.

TORCHWOOD: "Fragments"
Written by Chris Chibnall
As the team are knocked unconscious we find out how Jack, Toshiko, Ianto and Owen were initiated into Torchwood.

There will be spoilers.
I'm gonna be a little more rambly and unfocused with this one, I think.

Why can't Torchwood always be this good?

Well, for one thing because you can only tell the origin story once, but it was so good and so much fun, and usually, this show only managed to score one of those at a time.

While the framing device of the members of the team reflecting on how they got to be in Torchwood while buried under the rubble of a wrecked building left a little something to be desired, the flashback's themselves were delightful.

Starting with Captain Jack himself, we get more than just what Jack was up to in the hundred plus years he's spent waiting around on Earth for a certain Doctor to show up. We get glimpses of the Torchwood organization in it's earliest days. I want to see that show. Victorian era Torchwood, hunting down aliens in the filth ridden alley's of London when there was another Jack running around being not so nice.

Then the jump to New Millennium's Eve night, and the grisly revelation of how the previous staff of Torchwood in Cardiff moved on form the job was cool, as was the former Torchwood's allusion to the opening voice over of every episode. "We are not ready."

But you know, Jack's story was fun because it's really total Torchy fanwank. So what, I say. It's fun and this show really shines the best when it goes for the fun first and not try to get heavy up front. And I can only think of one episode that melded the fun and the drama well, but it was first series, so...moving on.

While Owen's story was probably meant to be the most dramatic entry-- or heavy entry-- I was much more drawn to Toshiko's story of being coerced by technocriminal elements and imprisoned and finding Torchwood to be her only way out of jail.

Owen's story was the disappointing one, though. It was kinda of cliche. His fiancee was killed by an alien thing and Jack recruits him, but I'll give points to Burn Gorman's acting in this episode. He really conveyed the tension of trying to figure out what impossible thing just came in, destroyed his life and vanished like nothing happened.

Ianto's story was just out and out fun from a fan standpoint. The connection to the battle of Canary Wharf and carrying though to the current version of Torchwood. Though, here, as always, I felt like Ianto was a little underserviced. I'm still waiting for the definitive Ianto story.

The series still doesn't have the powerful writing that one finds in it's progenitor, Doctor Who, and, in fact the series doesn't exist in the same form anymore as it's third season will take the form of a five episode mini-series and who knows what or if the fourth series will be. But this was great cracking episode.

The next episode, the finale, was pretty damn good also, but this one has some great rewatchability.

Especially Jack's story.

Just a general and random note: This episode was written by showrunner Chris Chibnall, naturally, as the flashbacky origin shows to tend to be the purview if not the perk of showrunning. Chibnall, however, will not be returning to the show as he's been tapped for Law & Order: London.

NEXT IT WILL BE SHERLOCK HOLMES BECOMES A HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLES

A break in the TV08 series.

It seems that the zeitgeist of 2009 is centered werewolves and Sherlock Holmes.

On the Sherlock Holmes front, I'm doubly pleased. I don't mention it much, but I'm a fan of Holmes. That probably one of the reasons I like House so much. Anyone catch the Irene Adler namecheck in the recent X-mas episode.

First off, there's the Guy Ritchie Sherlock Holmes flick with Robert Downey Jr. This has as much potential for utter disaster as it has for total awesome sauce. I'm excited to see in hopes of the latter. I've got the script for it, but haven't yet read it. Perhaps over the holiday break. There's also the Sacha Baron Cohen and Will Ferrell version. I fear that one.

Now, there's a modernized one-hour BBC version by...Steven Moffat. He of the best Doctor Who eps and Jekyll. I automatically assume this one will rockest my world. Not a series though. I suspect one hour will NOT be enough for me.

As for werewolves, there's the next Twilight flick, the Benicio del Toro remake of The Wolfman and now a Fox pilot called Bitches. It sounds like Sex & The City...except they're werewolves. That time of the month? Shades of Ginger Snaps.

TV08: MAD MEN: "A Night to Remember"

Continuing my review of my favorite episodes of stuff from the last calendar year. Not necessarily the best of the year, but ones I liked for one subjective reason or another.

MAD MEN: "A Night to Remember"
Written By Robin Veith and Matthew Weiner
To win over an imported beer brand as a new client, Duck and Don try to appeal to a new market demographic. Harry's overwhelmed with his department's workload and finds assistance from an unlikely source. Father Gill convinces Peggy to become part of a pro-bono church project.

There will be spoilers
Another duplication from Time Magazine's Top Ten list of the year, which BTW, is not a bad list by any stretch.

In fact, this one gets namechecked quite a bit, so I'm not going to go at extensive length about this one. It is essentially one character plotline from this episode that puts this as my favorite Mad Men of the year. Her name is Joan Holloway. Hers isn't the "meatier" plot line of Don's marriage unraveling or Peggy being pushed to deal with her past as she fashions her future.

I will briefly mention though, that Don's manipulation of Betty in terms of winning over the beer execs was almost masterful. She figured it out, though. 9 out of 10.

In this episode, we really saw Joan shine in a professional capacity as, essentially the only member of the television department at Sterling Cooper under Harry. Make no mistake, in her current position, she rules, but that position is just being the coolest, smartest cat in the cage. Now she has her chance to get out, because not only does she find that she likes the job, she's really fuckin' good at it.

This is exactly the kind of plotline that, right as it unfolds, has my writer mind plotting the possible path's that Weiner intends to take with her over the course of the series. And with Weiner, as with the series, I'm always wrong. I really did think that maybe this was the first step in moving Joan out of her stereotypical role and into the the agency proper. I could see a path for her that would lead her to eventually be a Pete or Duck to Peggy's Don at the close of the series. That perhaps she might ride in the wake that Peggy creates. A twist on the state of their relationship in the first year.

Instead, we get the more likely and more real instance of Harry replacing her, as was the intention from the beginning. Is he just sexist or is he just oblivious to the fact that the right person for the job already has it.

In fact, I was a little disappointed that over the rest of the season that it didn't become apparent to Harry that he had made the wrong choice. It seemed very clear to me that part of Harry's success in dealing with TV advertisers stemmed from having Joan as the face of the department. Yes, there is some sexism inherent there, as surely those execs enjoyed dealing with a hot, flirty redhead, but Joan's certainly Machiavellian enough to see it as a tool to get the job done.

Anytime Joan's story gets some upfront time, the episode benefits, I think. It was also my hope that if she became more active as part of the staff, rather than support staff, she might get even more screen time. The path her story took this year, however, was certainly interesting nonetheless and I'm curious to see how (or actually if) it will be addressed next year.

By the way, I was waiting for disaster to strike in some way, shape or form. When I think of "A Night to Remember," I think of the Titanic book of the same name I suppose for Don, it did.

TV08: THE WIRE: "-30-"

Continuing my review of my favorite episodes of stuff from the last calendar year Not necessarily the best of the year, but ones I liked for one subjective reason or another.

THE WIRE: "-30-"
Story by David Simon & Ed Burns
Teleplay by David Simon
In the series finale, Carcetti reacts to a damaging report from Pearlman and Daniels, Haynes finds little support from the bosses for his concerns about a reporter's work, McNulty tries to put an end to the homeless case, Dukie seeks out an old mentor and a wake is staged for another fallen officer.

There will be spoilers.

That which goes up, must eventually come down.

Satisfying finales are hard to come by, it seems, between sudden Journey blackouts and unresolved cliffhangers, though there are two such things on my list. This is the first.

David Simon came though for us long-devoted Wire fans. The Wire has always been about the long game, and I agree with Time Magazine in the idea that it's antithetical to single out a particular episode (though their choice of "Late Editions" is a solid one, very well written within itself for Michael's story) but in "-30-" we're getting five years of payoff for our paying attention so closely for so long.

Simon really made an effort to let you know where everybody stood and was likely to continue standing for some time to come. And the bastard can put a smile on your face and break your hear in a matter of seconds. Syndor takes up the mantle of McNulty, looking out for real police work in B'mo. And Dukie, the good kid we knew would eventually break our hearts when we met him in the fourth season, chooses the needle and fulfills that destiny.

And as a fan of Homicide: Life on the Street, to which I view The Wire as spiritual sequel series, I was glad to see Clark Johnson in the show for this final year and also to close the same door that he opened by directing the finale, sixty episodes after he directed the pilot. That's also something we'll see again on this list.

Though calling this a satisfying finale is a little strange because it's typical Wire, to be sure. It's not full of win, it's win some, lose some. If it was all win, it wouldn't be right. It wouldn't be satisfying. It would suck.

And the fight is never over. This show made that clear. Good men fall on their swords for the right to see something good done, only to be replaced by those who out their ambitions and ego first. Daniels for Valchek. If one man escapes the life (Bubbles) another is sucked in (Dukie). But it works both ways. Omar may have been felled, but Michael's looking to fill those shoes. And one day, he'll end up like Omar. Baltimore goes on as does the cycle.

In that sense, I suppose the final episode reveals the cup half-empty or cup half-full side of you.

Regardless, this finally left me with enough closure for our characters, but the sense that The Wire is still going on in Charm City...just nobody's shooting it.

If you haven't seen this series, you need to. There's never going to be a another show like this.

TV08: DOCTOR WHO: "Silence in the Library" & "Forest of the Dead"

Continuing my review of my favorite episodes of stuff from the last calendar year.

DOCTOR WHO: "Silence in the Library" & "Forest of the Dead"
two parts
Written by Steven Moffat
While investigating a derelict library, the duo come face to face with the disembodied mind of a little girl, an archaeological team led by a woman from the Doctor's future, and swarms of flesh-eating creatures that are seen only as shadows.

There will be spoilers.
Fear and joy. That's what this two-parter delivers and it reinforces that the show will be in good hands when Moffat takes over the fifth series. And really, those two things are what Doctor Who really boils down to and when those two things are so brilliantly crystallized is when Doctor Who really shines.

When I read negative criticism of episodes like this, the basis for the reasoning frequently seems to emanate from this simple truism, there is no place for cynicism in watching this show. It has its darkness to be sure and that's what gives it its je-ne-sais-quoi, but this is a show wear sometimes the hero saves the day and nobody dies (though arguable in this case). It's a show that takes you on a ride, but invites you to enjoy the ride on a cerebral level, but there is a line where you can pick it apart and take away the joy of the show. Fact is, this is a family show...not a kids show (which is its origins and is still frequently thought of as such), it really is for everyone from 5 to 500 and enjoyable at every level.

This is an intriguing reach into the Doctor's life the likes of which has not been seen in the show's 45 years and one I haven't really seen on television at all. It does, though, have some element of The Time Traveller's Wife. It's first intrigues you as the Doctor meets a woman he hasn't met yet. Someone from in his future. As a Time-Lord, his chronology is usually pretty linear. He doesn't encounter things out of order within his own life. And this woman is something very special to him, and it very much remains a mystery even after the story is over, but there's room to imbue it with your own theories, which is absolutely brilliant. The common assumption is "wife," that ambiguous space lets the imagination runs wild and also serves those who grew up with and have trouble getting past the idea of an asexual Doctor.

After he intrigues, Moffat seeks to break your heart with the revelation that when she last saw her future Doctor, he knew he was seeing her for the last time, but she didn't. A bittersweet cycle of first and last meetings. And then we're brought back from the brink as the present Doctor realizes what his future self knew. She can be saved.

And that links us to the fantastically creepy bit. The idea of "ghosting." All the characters are linked by an electronic neural network and when they die, their consciousness lingers in the system briefly. When we first see this in the death of Miss Evangelista, it's profound.

Moffat is brilliant. He doesn't just scare or shock, he makes you think and when you think, then...then you feel the fear. That is of the idea if flash-eating shadows everywhere and walking skeletons in spacesuits doesn't get you behind the sofa.

I think some of the enjoyment of an episode like this comes form the shared history of characters and viewer, so I'm not inclined to try to convert others with this episode(s), but this is a story that makes me want to introduce more people to the best show currently in production.

TV08: LIFE ON MARS (US): "Things To Do In New York When You Think You're Dead"

Continuing my review of my favorite episodes of stuff from the last calendar year Not necessarily the best of the year, but ones I liked for one subjective reason or another.

LIFE ON MARS: "Things To Do In New York When You Think You're Dead"
Written by Sonny Postiglione
Sam Tyler encounters a young Fletcher Bellow, an officer Sam had considered to be his mentor in 2008. Although Bellow doesn't recognize Sam, they work with the other detectives in the precinct on a case in which an African-American girl had been thrown from a roof by a Puerto Rican.

There will be spoilers.
Godawful title aside, I like this one because this was the episode where the show proved they could stand on their own without using the framework of an original Life on Mars episode to prop themselves up. Mostly. They did pull the thing of Sam meeting his mentor when he was a young detective, but that was about it. They played it much differently.

Overall, I've been pleased with the way this US version of the show has played out, being that I was a big fan of the original. They've been infusing the original with their own sensibilities and by using the original episodes as templates, they start off keeping very true to the original. This episode was really the test case for me though, with a very American, very New York, very 70s race war brewing.

Also, Sam's man-out-of-time was this time very much his own man-out-of-time, not replaying gags from the original. His command to "freestyle" by the leader of the (not the) Black Panthers with a gun at his head that lead to him reciting "Ice Ice Baby" nearly two decades before Rob Van Winkle committed that travesty against Queen finally gave me an Jason O'Mara Sam Tyler and not an echo of John Simm (even if the echo was only in my head).

This episode played with the ongoing theme of Sam's Daddy issues interestingly, by showing us and him the father substitute he did have in the form of his mentor. Deftly in that, being still the early days of this series and it's puzzles are still being laid out and not answer, we got to see a little bending in time and reality as Sam realizes that working a case with the young Fletcher Bellow was something of a gift, because if he ever gets home, his mentor will no longer be there to greet him.

The episode had a great cast too. And I do not mean the Whoopi Goldberg stunt casting. I mean no less than three veterans of The Wire (which you will see in this TV08 series). Chris Bauer, Chad Coleman and the awesome Clarke Peters.

The show is on a winter break now, set to return paired with Lost, a much better match that Private Practice. And they left us with a cliffhanger that looks like it will definitively change the game from the UK version. Based on what I've seen so far, this episode being a strong indicator, I believe they can do right.

THE AUSLANDER IN ASTONISHING ADVENTURES

A break in the TV08 list.

Get your own - Open publication

The Auslander! He is returned!

The latest issue of Astonishing Adventures has been released and with it, yet another adventure of the Amnesiac Avenger, the Auslander. Fighting the Nazi scourge in the Western Hemisphere during those deadly days of WWII. Amazon hardcopy edition available soon. This issue also features the Mad Pulp Bastard himself, Bill Cunningham.

Fortunately for the foreigner with the shock white hair, the engine room of a freighter is scarcely short on weapons. His grease-covered opponent, who he mentally named Gunter, did as much damage to the white-haired man in being hit as he did in hitting, and the black-clad stranger resorted to whatever was at hand. Built like the hull of the ship they were both aboard, it meant nothing that when the gigantic wrench the black and white man wielded seemed to clang as though metal had struck metal when it made contact with gigantic alleged mechanic.

He didn’t feel the reverberation of the impact travel up his arm. He was still suppressing the inordinate amount of pain he’d sustained fighting the beast. What he felt was the splat of Gunter’s Nazi blood on his neck and collar. What he heard was the dull thud of the monstrous German saboteur as he hit the deck, followed by a gurgling noise that he interpreted as a familiar question. One he has heard time and again. “Who are you?”

His answer came, drenched in an accent familiar to Gunter. It was the same shade of Austrian as his own. And it was the same answer the shock-haired man gave every time it was asked. It was the only answer he had.

“Ich ben ein Auslander.”

TV08: LOST: "The Constant"

Continuing my review of my favorite episodes of stuff from the last calendar year.

LOST: "The Constant"
Written by Carlton Cuse and Damon Lindelof
Sayid and Desmond hit some turbulence on the way to the freighter, which causes Desmond to experience some unexpected side effects: His 1996 consciousness travels to 2004 and back multiple times.

There will be spoilers.
If all the episodes-- if half the episodes were as solid as this, no one would complain about Lost. Here we have all the elements. A solid sci-fi premise in time travel, done in a way that isn't even prohibited by the known laws of physics. There are, in fact, even reasonable hypothesis that make this appear to be possible (though requiring ridiculous level of power and knowledge we just don't have yet). Additionally, you get continuity checks both meaningful and double-takey. You get a character story that has weight and and episode that even comes to a satisfying conclusion while still leaving questions open to the future, but not questions resulting from that particular satisfying conclusion. I mean, there's something to the answers raising question thing, but sometimes you just want an answer.

The answer here wasn't so much to one of the many ongoing mysteries. The answer here was will Desmond and Penny be together again.

As Desmond is bounced back and forth in time (in mind only, not physically) he meets a Daniel that hasn't met him yet, and researching the time travel that he's currently experiencing. He tells him of the need for a "constant," something that is present in both times and that he sincerely cares about and can recognize. His constant is the woman he loves and lost, but must hang onto, if not for his sanity then for his very life, Penny.

You're right there with Desmond through this whole thing, you're as lost as he is and you're getting answers as he does. And being Lost, you're trying to figure things out faster, so there's a little extra tension, the kind you wish you could just write, but you have to count on an involved audience. The luxury of writing for Lost, eh? You get to metagame your audience.

And through it, you understand his plight and you feel it as he begs on Penny to not understand why, but to just do something for him. This 1996 Penny who has broken up with Desmond and want to have a clean break while he pleads for her phone number so that he can call, not tomorrow, but next month, but in eight years, but he can't tell her why.

And the phone call he finally gets to make from the freighter in 2004 to Penny (tense in itself with a ticking clock as Sayid tried to repair it after it was sabotaged) not knowing if she'll actually be there, if she'll answer, if she even cares about him at all has the most built up anticipation of any moment in the series so far and it threatens to make you cry as the two are telephonically reunited. There is such joy and relief and live in that moment...that is the satisfying conclusion to Desmond's quest, not just in the last hour of time travel, but for the series.

I'm just a little amazed that this one didn't get an Emmy nod.

TV08: HOUSE: "Frozen"

It's that time. That end-of-the-year list time. And I'm fuckin' milkin' it. Instead of just a big list right here right now, I'm just gonna recognize an episode at a time until the end of the year...on my usual irregular schedule, though I'm gonna shoot for one every two days. These are simply my favorites, for whatever subjective reason I choose. First up...

HOUSE: "Frozen"
Written by Liz Friedman
House and his team have to diagnose a case at a distance
when a researcher at a South Pole base is taken ill.

I'm a sucker for anything Antarctic, so when Mira Sorvino shows up on the show as Cate Milton, a doctor station at Amundsen-Scott, I was already way into it. And leave it to House to make a show where the two main character talk to each other only over computer monitors interesting.

How interesting? My favorite part of the show is when House gives Milton a physical exam from 9000 miles away. Here, we get the closest thing to a date that House has without shelling out some cash. With the lights down low and the fire roaring, Greg very much intends to be entertained and aroused while doing his job at the same time. But Cate's onto him. She knows him, and then proves it when she uses what she can see through the webcam of his apartment to diagnose him psychologically as he diagnoses her physically.

In five years of the show now, this is finally the closest we've gotten to the doctor getting involved with the patient episode that is standard fare on any number of lesser medical shows, and here, it's delightfully twisted, not just by being over an Internet connection. She's got all of his skills in observing and making conclusions about people, without the misanthropy. She, to a certain degree, is House, but nice...and hawt. She's also a safe bet for House. She's inaccessible, so there's no uncertainty. He knows how it'll end. Well, sort of. He gets to maintain his cynicism in the face of something more than just lust.

It's perhaps his own interest in her that allows him to see the interest that the base mechanic has in her that allows him convince him to drink her urine as part of a diagnosis and drill her skull as part of the treatment.

That's the other cool part of this episode, it is replete with MacGyver-like medicine.

It was solidly paced, it proceeded logically without any sudden realizations that come from either now where or from random non-story related occurrences. Everything fit together like a perfect little medical jigsaw. Just like last year's "Half Wit," an episode that makes me wish I'd written it as a killer spec.

ARMCHAIR NETWORK EXEC - UPDATED

In which I second guess NBC despite not actually being formally qualified to do so.

From The Hollywood Reporter:

NEW YORK -- NBC is looking at "all options" to revamp its broadcast model, including possibly cutting the number of primetime hours or even nights per week, NBC Universal chief Jeff Zucker said Monday afternoon.

"Can we continue to broadcast 22 hours in primetime? Three of our competitors don't," Zucker said during Monday's keynote at the annual UBS Global Media and Communications Conference. "Can we continue to broadcast seven days a week? One of our competitors doesn't." NBC, CBS and ABC, the legacy networks, program in primetime seven days a week for at least three hours a night. Fox programs two hours a night, seven days a week. The CW and MyNetwork TV do less.

"It's not giving up. It's not retrenching. It's not throwing in the towel," Zucker said.

First of all, MyNetwork TV. They're still around? They seem less a network and more some kind of syndication package, kinda like the old Prime Time Entertainment Network, which was kinda of like a network embryo that got aborted. CW and Fox never aimed for more than the two hour a night they have now, and being that when the first of the newer network launched, Fox, it was seemingly unfathomable, the idea of a "fourth network." He says it's not throwing in the towel, but to me, it really does reek of "we can't handle it." And I'm not looking just to two other networks who can do it, but to the current crop of executives at NBC. Maybe greenlighting a series based off a highly-rated telemovie that was so simply out of nostalgic curiosity and completely ignoring the fact that that no one who saw it actually liked it isn't the sign of someone who's on their game.

And do I even need to mention the whole "let's not bring the shows back after the writer's strike" thing. Not exclusive to NBC certainly, but it's not doing the bulk of those shows any favors. It's outright killed some sows that were quite well received last year.

He asked whether Friday and Saturday should be programmed the same way as it has been in the past. Most of the other networks don't program originals on Saturday night anymore, with the exception of CBS' "48 Hours Mystery" and NBC's "Saturday Night Live" after 11:30 p.m.
"All of those questions are on the table and are actively looking at all these options," Zucker said.

How about this. Friday night is a showkiller, but only because the shows on Friday get killed. Putting Dollhouse and Terminator there seems to be just the preliminary step before axing. Well, fact is...Friday sucks...and I understand why DVR viewage is looked down upon. You're skipping the commercials. I know you do it. But how about we harness the group of obsessive watch it when it's on because I can't wait hardcore fans of that genre to make something out of that night rather than write it off completely. Don't cancel the sci-fi. Shove it to Friday and let it live there. Yeah, it's a sci-fi ghetto, but I'll take a ghetto over a hole in the ground.

After the UBS event, Zucker told The Hollywood Reporter there are no plans to do this but that in today's media climate, the options are prudent to at least consider. But he also said he didn't want to give the wrong impression.

There have been rumors that the networks were at least looking at the possibility of cutting back on hours or days, returning them to local affiliates to program. But it seemed the first time that they had been discussed in public, to the investment community or anywhere else.

The only way I'd want to see this is if we got some good original syndication packages going on, like in the olden times of the Sam Raimi shows and the Trek franchises. That concept seems to mostly dead and the stuff that does manage to get to the air that way is usually buried at 2AM...and for good reason.

But at the same time, the ratings are down across the board for the broadcast nets. Only CBS has had relatively modest declines; the rest have seen steeper drops.

also

The NBC Uni CEO also said that digital ad sales momentum has hit a sudden wall this quarter and will not grow as much as people had predicted, not even in the area of high-end video (such as NBC.com, Hulu). "It has really, really slowed dramatically," Zucker said, and "dried up in the scatter market." Overall, the company "can't count on digital to be the big growth engine that we thought it would be in 2009," he warned.

I know there's more to it than this, but again...see the strike. Strikes are potential TV killers. And the Internet has not yet become a replacement medium. It can't seem to support anything longer than five minutes...unless you're famous...because you made some TV shows. Hulu and stuff is great and all, but it's not there yet. TV is ubiquitous, but there's still plenty of people who don't want to watch shit on the computer screens and computers and cable haven't become one thing yet.

Keyword: Yet.

Zucker expressed doubts about an often-predicted economic rebound in the back half of 2009, saying it may only come later. "I don't think we know," he cautioned. "And I don't know how anyone knows."

OK. Yeah. You can't count on a fundamental underpinning of our civilization that exists entirely in the theoretical hive mind of the planet to be rational or predictable.

Meanwhile, Zucker acknowledged the poor performance of NBC but didn't lay the blame at NBC Entertainment co-chairs Ben Silverman and Marc Graboff.

No, you assigned that to fall guys. No pun intended.

"We have not had a good fall at NBC," Zucker acknowledged. He said that none of the broadcast nets have had a strong TV season. But that doesn't give him any comfort that broadcast overall isn't in good shape.

"I don't think that's lost on Ben or Marc Graboff," Zucker said in response to a question about Silverman's status from the audience. "In no way have we lost confidence" in either Silverman or Graboff.

Fine, but I'd be keeping an eye on the confidence needle.

"We do have to continue to rethink what a broadcast network is today and what we want to be aspirationally," Zucker said. "Do we have to be the way we've always been?"

Do you want to be less than?

EDITED TO ADD:

This just announced.

In a surprise move, Jay Leno is taking over the 10 p.m. slot on weeknights on the network.

The move is a huge coup for NBC Universal chief Jeff Zucker, who has long said he wanted to keep both Leno and his replacement, Conan O’Brien, in the NBC family.

The move would be a cost-effective manner in which to essentially cut down the amount of hours it must program with fare from the entertainment division. Jeff Zucker foreshadowed the move at a UBS media conference Monday, saying that NBC has to look at options including programming less primetime hours.

This bodes poorly for more mature drama on the network. SVU at 9/8c? The drama market just shrank. There's not going to be a great deal of envelope pushing around here. I expect everything will be light fare along the lines of Chuck and Knight Rider.

Seriously, where are they gonna put SVU?

THE BLACK HOUSE - PAGE 5 & 6




• EXT. MUTANABBI STREET ROOFTOP - NIGHT
  
• Near the roof’s edge, three stories up. MISTER JORDAN (35), a big, fit guy, as should be a former Navy SEAL. In solid black special forces gear, no insignias or rank markings. He looks through high tech binoculars at a building across a wide street. Below is the bookselling bazaar district. Outside the green zone.
  
  SUPER: MUTANABBI STREET
  BAGHDAD, IRAQ
  
• Behind him, shifting around impatiently, is LAURIANO, an 17-year-old cholo in Dodgers’ blue who couldn’t be much more out of place.
  
• LAURIANO
  
• You don’t got any Scooby snacks?
  
• Mister Jordan reaches into a flap pocket and pulls out a pack of cookies and flings it over his shoulder. Lauriano catches it and starts snacking
  
• MISTER JORDAN
  
• Now shut up.
  
• Jordan’s headset BEEPS.
  
• MISTER JORDAN
  
• Jordan, go ahead.
  
• MARYA (HEADSET)
  
• Confirmation on Al-Haque. Well, sort of.
  
• MISTER JORDAN
  
• What’s sort of?
  
• MARYA (HEADSET)
  
• Just-- You don’t want to know. And I don’t want to say it. Mission is green. Fox out.
  
• Lauriano adjust his radio earpiece.
  
• LAURIANO
  
• I hear dat.
  
• Lauriano takes off his shirt, then MORPHS INTO A WEREWOLF. He’s the same size and general shape he was before, but has fur, sharp teeth, a snout and, most importantly for this, haunches.
  
• MISTER JORDAN
  
• If the Old Man is supplying Al-Haque like the intel says, then there’s no telling what heebie jeebie junk he’s got in there. Immobilize him out of the gate.
  
• Lauriano SNARLS in reply, then runs and leaps off the roof’s edge, clears the street and lands on the other roof.
  
• MISTER JORDAN’S POV - BINOCULARS
  
• Old Man’s rooftop. Lauriano lands and proceeds to a large vent.
  
• MISTER JORDAN
  
• And I don’t give a rat’s ass if your great granddad was the chupacabra. You do what I tell you. Do not kill. Yet.
  
• Lauriano looks back at Jordan across the street, acknowledging the order. He MORPHS INTO A COMMON WOLF and jumps down a vent. Image changes to THERMAL. Jordan moves his view down to a top floor window. Visible are Lauriano’s HEAT SIGNATURE moving down the vent and the Old Man’s, in the top floor window.
  
• RESUME SCENE
  
• Mister Jordan watching. Calm, then dismayed, Lowers the binocs, trying to get a look with his naked eye.
  
• MISTER JORDAN
  
• Sonuvabitch.
  
• Pun intended.
  

IMPORT TV

I spent a good chunk of Thanksgiving watching non-American television (and I started a new spec script). I watched some of the 2004 version of Canada's Murdoch Mysteries, a season of Spooks, commentaries on the second half of series four of Doctor Who and the first two hours of The Survivors, a remake of a Terry Nation series I have no interest in tracking down and watching. I'll maybe do a post on it later. For now, I'm going to talk about DVDs.

If you're a Spooks fan (or MI-5 as its known in the States) or, in fact, a fan of any BBC shows and you live in Region 1, either get a region free player or learn how to hack your current player (google it, it's not hard). Not just so you can get series not available here, but because in many cases, of the series that are available here, it's actually significantly less expensive to order the R2 version and pay for shipping than to buy an R1 version domestically, even on sale.

This is because Warner Home Video distributes BBC series stateside and WHV appears to have a certain philosophy regarding cult series. Charge the fuck out of it and rape the existing fans for it. This strikes me as very limiting. It precludes getting people to try it out, giving the product a decent and profitable shelf like. Fox doesn't do this. Firefly is an excellent example. It's was priced the same as any popular series, inexpensively. And when the faithful converted the unwashed (pun intended..think about it), those new fans went out and got their own set. One of the difficulties I face in trying to get people to visit the Doctor is the cost. It's priced to not make new fans. Especially irritating for a series that is still in production and airs here with only a slight delay after UK transmission. Even if I get them to watch some, they're not going to drop 70 bones and the disks where they might drop half that.

Even Acorn, which isn't even a proper video company (its does home accents and what-not), handles lots of British and Canadian TV with limited U.S. awareness or smaller followings and they still price very reasonably.

In the end, I think the dollar numbers would probably wash out the same, but you'd move a lot more units and there would be less need for distributor and retailers to occasionally have to strike prices on older sets, like La Femme Nikita, by up to 60% just to get some stock out.

I know a lit of people who would have bough Brisco County Jr when it came out, including myself, but the price tag was a hurdle all but one of us was interested in jumping. Even with a discount, it's 76 bucks for one slightly fat season. One sale made out of a potential five in my particular example. And that, by the way, is all people who knew the show. People who don't, who are just interested by the concept or by Bruce, they're not going near that price point for an unknown quantity.

In closing, let me pint out my expertise in this subject by saying that I have no expertise in this subject...except my Nobel Prize in Economics. Wait, that's not me...that's President Bartlet from The West Wing...distributed by Warner Home Video.