IN THE BEGINNING was the word, and it was the most important thing there was, from the Alpha to the Omega, but that word was also something else, something equally important to all that came after it. That word which begat all else was also the answer to a question, a choice made when a decision was presented.
And that was only a small part of last night’s penultimate word of Lost, the appropriately and devastatingly titled “What They Died For.” And much in the same vein as last week, but vastly more important, let’s tackle 23 stray observations about last night’s episode…
Maybe it’s just me, but I feel like we’re on the verge of something in our culture. Or, at least, our pop culture. Things are ending, clearing themselves out, making way for new things. Maybe it has something to do with this being “The Year We Make Contact,” I don’t know, but I’m really starting to feel this faint fin de siècle vapor hanging overhead as the old shocks give up the ghost and fade away. Speaking of which…
This amazed me, that it was finally ending, and the ending was an understated one. It coasted I think on the characters’ long journey to here and now, was light on the crazy trashy drama, but ultimately didn’t touch me nearly as much as the ending of The Shield, the FX network’s other big show (since I’ve only seen maybe an episode and a half of Damages) that I used to watch.
Why? Partly because Nip/Tuck probably felt like it ended a year or two ago.
The last real episode I saw before last night’s was the one where Christian and Liz come back from their honeymoon, Christian no longer has breast cancer, and cuts Liz loose. Sean is suddenly dating Rose McGowan out of nowhere. Julia was still fucking around, Kimber was still doing whatever, and Matt… Jesus. Fucking Matt had dropped out of medical school to become a mime and start robbing people. And I thought, “You know what? Fuck this.”
This show used to soar in it’s depths of ethereal trashiness and that lurid hard on of the glamorous nasty just felt forced and medicated. The high was probably the Carver storyline.
…who returned last night for the swan song. And maybe it’s a make up thing or just how Janssen has aged, but this time I really felt her character in that she looked quite, uh, tranny-like (?) to me. But she was still fantastic in her role, waxing poetic about not being a monster, but being a victim of society that craves adoration. And then there’s the pathetic Matt whom can only offer adoration to someone and nothing else.
And perhaps it should have. I think trash can always be sustained, but you can’t just keep hooking it up to an IV of dayglo filth and call it a fountain of youth, like this show. You need substance. Or, in the case of the continuing narrative of Nip/Tuck, you desperately need substance and something tangible or more to say about the evils of our society that’s so very much obsessed with looks. And when you shine a light on all of our dark places, there needs to be something there to see.
And Nip/Tuck hasn’t had that for a while. And then… it didn’t.
It’s a show that’s changed so many times, putting itself through facelift after facelift, giving you a dazzling and rapid succession of new status quos to swallow harshly. And what it really needed was some mental surgery. Beauty fades, age gracefully, and know when it’s time to go.
But perhaps there was something in there, not just about the facades we worship, or the exploitation of youth (or a depiction of one of the most continuously fucked up family dynamics on TV ever), but something crueler and more interesting: a study of severely flawed masculinity.
Could you call the ongoing saga of Doctors Christian Troy and Sean McNamara anything else? All the women that have passed through their lives, that they’ve traded like briefly interesting toys and mirrors, it’s all come back to them and how devastatingly uncomfortable they were in their own skin.
Was Nip/Tuck the end result of a truly American journey that was started in Mad Men?
Whatever. This is half a post. I just have nothing to say. It’s like this show turned upon itself, much like Christian did to Sean, and said, “Tell me what you don’t like about yourself.” And the answer?
“From one john’s bed to the next,” and here we are, sitting in our hotel suite office ordering room service and naughty adult movies, ready to ruminate on this past Sunday’s episode of Mad Men, the season 3 finale entitled “Shut The Door. Have A Seat.” And what an episode it was…
Again, normally August Bravo would join me here, but that guy just can’t learn his lesson. Remember when he didn’t heed Peggy’s mom’s advice and moved to Manhattan and then was thoroughly raped? Well, now he’s moved to Portland and while there’s a bar on every corner and someone you can buy a hanjob or coke or both from every ten feet, apparently there’s not enough of a signal to watch Mad Men on youtube via your iphone.
A brief recap (if possible): We discover that Don has been sleeping in Grandpa Gene’s room because of the strife between Betty and himself. Conrad Hilton gives him the cold brush off and informs him that PPL is being sold, and with it goes Sterling Cooper. Don tells his would be father figure where he can stick it. Then he goes and wakes up Cooper and brings Roger Sterling back to life and gets them excited about taking back their lives and their company and starting over. Together, they begin picking out their dream team from Sterling Cooper and assembling what will be their new company as Don goes around with both his dick and his tail between his legs and learning to value relationships. And sometimes valuing relationships means knowing which ones to say goodbye to, and so off goes Betty and her new boyfriend to Reno for a “quickie” (six weeks) divorce and Don discovers that he has a whole other family. But this, you see, is just a brief recap, so, as we’re told in almost every scene in this episode, “Have a seat.”
Well, Kennedy is still dead. John John’s had to make his goodbyes, and America has not quite realized it, but everything is different now. The changes are no longer coming, they’re here.
And Don starts the episode by waking in a tomb, the former bedroom of a dead man and the newborn baby who shares his name. He then goes to meet Connie, the odd kitten who’s treated Don like a ball of yarn half the season, and really wakes up when Connie cuts him loose and then gives Don a self righteous spiel about how he’s impervious to whiners who can’t earn things for themselves. But Don couldn’t give a shit. His company’s about to get sold and he doesn’t want to go work for some sausage factory.
From there on, the episode becomes just a powerhouse of awesome, giving us some truly satisfying and exciting moments dealing with Don Draper and the exiles of Sterling Cooper as they play the phoenix from the ashes of their company, but before we go there, let’s get to what we all knew was coming, especially after last week…
“The state of New York doesn’t want anyone to get divorced. That’s why people go to Reno.”
The thing is, after last week’s episode, this season finale was all set up in our minds to be the ultimate downer as the Draper castle was torn apart and washed away, and yet, back in the office, we saw excitement and joy, and more of a sense of family than we’ve seen in a long time in the cold walls of Don and Betty’s metaphorical bedroom. Just another way this show wonderfully plays with our expectations.
So, Benjamin Light hates Betty, and I can understand why, but I can still see where she’s coming from. And I’m glad she’s going. Don remains characteristically clueless about a lot of what she wants and needs, and really, she’s the same way about him. And now that she sees him, now that he’s no longer the “football hero who hates his father,” but the son of poor co-op farmers, he’s nothing to her. Everything that his double life has brought them is completely illegitimate to her, and she longs for the silver haired loser from the Rockefeller campaign instead.
In fact, I think Betty quite accurately throws it in Don’s face when he suggests that she may have to be sick to want out of their “perfect little world.” Well, actually, he just suggests that she’s had a bad year, which she has, and that she should probably find someone to talk, which she should. But her inference is also correct, I think, when it comes to Don’s real intentions there. I can defend Betty to a point, am curious to see who she’ll become as she now enters the real world that Don and her father have essentially protected her from up until this point, but she has been, and in this episode especially, a bit of a stone cold bitch.
“Why are we in the living room?” Bobby Draper asks, and he’s right. It’s the scene of Betty’s ultimate fantasy world and in it, the cathedral to which she can have those fantasies now ends as the family breaks up. This was easily one of the most heartbreaking scenes on TV, and so harsh, so cruel, so real. Don suggests this new status quo is only temporarily and Betty emphatically shakes her head no. And then there’s the kids, the real victims of the way people treat each other, and as Light suggested to me the other day, though it’s not said, you almost feel that for all the coldness they sometimes get from their father, they’d still prefer it to freezing to death with their mother.
As much of a fan of little Sally Draper as I am, the lasting image from that scene for me isn’t just Betty shaking her head no, but it’s Bobby’s ceaseless clinging to his father, clinging to his world that he barely understands as it all falls away. Oh, the fathers and sons this season. Don and Bobby, whom Don rarely shares moments with, honestly. Don getting kicked out by his pseudo-paternal figure, Hilton, which starts flashbacks of the loss of his real father (or real step father, whatever), Archie Whitman.
Which brings us to the night before the Draper family ended in their living room, when a drunken Don invades the master bedroom in the house, that his wife and their newborn baby now occupy alone, and he pulls Betty out of sleep and onto her feet, confronting her with what he’s only just learned about: Henry Francis. Don has the greatest line of the season when it comes to Betty: “Because you’re good… and everyone else is in the world is bad.” Don’s cruelty is usually cool, measured, but when he delivers these lines, it’s like he’s finally releasing some pent up venom. But it almost goes to far and we’re taken back to his imagined origins in the late night reverie from the season premiere, as he becomes his father, Betty becomes the whore, and then there’s the baby crying. It’s arguable in that scene that Don is confronted with a subtle choice as you half expect him to hit his wife: Does he want to be Don Draper or does he want to just another dick?
Which takes us back to the offices of Sterling Cooper, the kind of place that Don never expected to work at, but where he thrived, or, where he’s thrived for the last three years. With PPL being sold off and the SC along with it by their new British masters, Don is awake, and on his way to wake up Bert Cooper…
The dialogue in their scene is perfect, and I love that Cooper, who’s always kind to Don and his talents and his mysteries, and who purrs like a fat old wise and eccentric housecat with a bit of a Japanese fetish, lets Don know flat out that he doesn’t think he has the stomach for the reality of the future Don wants so brutally to regain control of…
Cooper: “Young men love risks because they can’t imagine consequences.”
Don: “And you old men love building golden tombs and sealing the rest of us in with you.”
But something begins in this scene, the start of building something, a bridge out of their indentured servitude and Cooper hits Don with one of those harsh realities he’s going to have to face: He can’t do this on his own. He’s going to need Roger Sterling.
And let me just say: Fuck Yeah, Roger Sterling.
When the highpoints of this episode was literally everything that came out of his mouth. Don and Cooper both make their pitches to Sterling about taking the tough road and starting something new and Sterling breaks it to Don: You don’t care about people. And maybe that’s why you’re so bad at being real with them. And Cooper hits Sterling with some real talk too: You need the excitement and danger of this business to survive and feel alive like you’re used to. Retire now and you might as well move into a plot in the ground with your child bride. It’s funny how enduring Jane has somehow purified Roger in our eyes, made him possibly realize that Joan is the woman for him, not the girl for him like Jane is, and put him on a better path.
From there, they go to Pryce and put forth a plan: He’ll fire them, thereby releasing them from their contracts, in exchange for shared power in their new company, and over the weekend, they’ll assemble a dream team to take with them along with any clients and supplies they can swipe from the office. And the show literally explodes into life. It became the gathering of the dream team from something like Ocean’s 11 or the start of a mission from one of those crack team of guys going on a mission World War II or something. It was perfect and it was exhilarating.
And it was a great moment for the characters to confront their own failures and move past them, to be happy beyond them. Don especially, as he does the walk of shame, first treating Peggy like dirty in assuming that she’ll just follow him blindly so he can beat her about as he pleases and then getting told off by her as she finally stands up for herself to him.
And then Pete, whom Don actually has to compliment for his eye towards the future. He’s not just wanted, he’s needed in the new company, Don tells him. And thankfully, along with Pete, will come his perfect partner, Trudy.
Sorry, August, but I guess Ken Cosgrove doesn’t make the cut.
Sadly, they took Harry Crane along too, but maybe since they’re literally sifting through the ashes of Sterling Cooper, maybe they’ll blow a little of those embers into him and ignite some potential. Or maybe he came along just so Cooper could deliver my actual favorite line of the episode, telling Harry that if he turns him down, he’ll spend the rest of the weekend tied up in the closet.
And, of course Joan is back. They’re all brilliant actors and they’re staging what could be a fascinating play, but they need a director, they need someone to coordinate them and make their needs accessible. And of course Roger knows that Joan is the person to do that.
But alas, no Sal. But in a small way, that could be a good thing. Sal may not be able to come back to the new company and the show in his old capacity, but more on that soon. Cause there’s always this:
Fuck doors. Fuck yeah.
And then there’s Don’s return and appeal to Peggy. He stops treating her like his former secretary. He stops treating her like just an employee. He actually sees her as a person. Possibly through a mirror, but still, he’s awake now and really looking at her. He’s really to lay down his sword and shield in front of her and stop holding the fact that he’s a man over her as something superior. I think one of the most realistic and truthful things Don has ever said is when he told her that she’s just like him, she’s his anima, and together they both can conjure the words, the “asa nisi masa,” if you will.
“Because there are people out there who buy things, people like you and me, and something happened. Something terrible. And the way that they saw themselves is gone. And nobody understands that, but you do. And that’s very valuable.”
When he says that, it’s not just to her that he’s confessing things, it’s to himself as well. Peggy ventures a guess that if she turns him down, he’ll cut her off forever and, baring his soul to her, he says it’s the opposite: “No. I will spend the rest of my life trying to hire you.” It’s telling that the most touching scene of the episode isn’t between Don and his departing wife, Betty. It’s between Don and himself/Peggy.
But of course Peggy is her own creature as well, and I think everyone, not just Don and Pete, are going to see it. So classic was Roger asking her for a cup of coffee and her flat out saying, “No.”
But then the long night of the weekend comes to an end and the sun comes up on Monday morning and the all stars of Sterling Cooper are gone, spirited away to their new home, an office in a hotel suite. In fact, really, all of Sterling Cooper is gone, shredded to pieces in the night…
And now:
“Good morning! Hello Sterling/Cooper/Draper/Pryce. How may I help you?” It’s nice to meet you.
“Very good. Happy Christmas!”
“He didn’t even leave a note!”
Still miss you, Sal, but you’ll have to change or die, as is often the case with history. As the always explosively brilliant Karina Longworth suggests when talking about the end of the episode as the camera captures the joy on the faces of the new SCDP employees/refugees:
The glow in the room that’s reflected on Don’s face in that shot—that is only there because they are all there, because he needs all of them to do his job, and vice versa. It’s arguable (probable, for all the lines like “we don’t have art”) that Sal could be back in Season Four and SCDP (and the show) would be better for it. But his sham marriage may need to fully deteriorate before he belongs in that hotel room.
One can only hope that Sal embraces his sexuality and himself and comes back into the fold as a contracted big time commercial director. Wouldn’t that be wonderful. Also, Fuck Lee Garner, Jr.
This episode was everything I could ever want from Mad Men. Much like us here at Counter-force, sitting her in our hotel suite/bloggitorium, at least when I’m doing my song and dance, we’re obsessed with the future. But we see it through the multi-colored lenses of the past. The past was bombs, the present is rubble, and the future is fireworks and we’re looking up at the stars, to dangle as many silly pyrotechnic metaphors in your face as I can.
The Beatles are coming. Vietnam is coming. The world isn’t done being changed and the light from the future can’t be fully seen yet, but for now, in the world of Mad Men, the characters are happy. Excited. Don Draper has perhaps finally said goodbye to Dick Whitman and is ready to move on. Trudy is showing up with sandwiches. Joan’s husband can hopefully only be guaranteed a nasty ending. There’s Peggy/Pete stuff on the horizon. There’s Joan/Roger stuff on the horizon. And there’s always fucking Jai Alai. We may never seen Suzanne Farrell again (though she’ll live on in Twix commercials). Or Paul Kinsey or Duck Phillips or Ken Cosgrove, for all we know. But what happens in this world and in Don Draper’s life could be anything.
Especially when Don places that call to Betty. He won’t fight her. She can have whatever she wants. And he hopes that she finds out what that is. “Well, you’ll always be her father,” she pathetically replies with, but I think it was meant to be a kind statement, something Betty’s always been foreign too. She’s going to leave two older children with a vastly better mom, Carla (so classy, Betty), and take baby Eugene, her youngest child and ball and chain from the past, to Reno with her new boyfriend.
And Don’s going to crawl off into the city, heartbroken maybe, but feeling lighter and hopefully optimistic. We have a general idea of the future he’s going to see, but he doesn’t, and he’s excited for it. And we’re going to go with him.
And, wonderfully, Roy Orbison is going to sing a song about the whole thing. August and I had a great time talking about Mad Men and hopefully you enjoyed it too. And hopefully it’ll only get better since, after all, “the future is much better than the past.”
We’ll be back tomorrow to talk about Sunday night’s awesome Mad Men season finale (and hopefully August will be able to join me after he figures out some technical issues), but I can tell you right now that we loved it. It was a lovely episode, a gorgeous play on our expectations as only Mad Men can pull off and an episode in which, as I teased all my west coast friends who wouldn’t see the episode until two hours after me, “everyone gets exactly what they want.”
Thinking about certain elements of the ending got me thinking about this past season of the show in general, and in particular, the season premiere, “Out Of Town,” and the then latest acquisition to Bert Cooper’s eccentric collection of art: Hokusai Katsushika’s (best known for The Great Wave Off Kanagawa, see above) 1820 erotic painting, The Dream Of The Fisherman’s Wife, or also known as Diving Girl With Octopus. See:
Well, actually that came up because I also noticed that the Picasso museum in Barcelona is doing a special exhibition “Secret Images” talking about some of Pablo’s favorite bits of erotic Japanese art. We’ll be back tomorrow, but that’s just something to think about for tonight to hold you over: Mad Men. Erotic Japanese art. Young women committing sex acts with creatures of the deep. And Pablo Picasso, who, of course, was never called an asshole…
Ugh. Lost withdrawals. Can it be next January/February already?
We’ve got all these shows that are “like Lost” about to debut, stuff like Day One and Flash Forward, but man, I just want Lost.
You feel me?
A while back, Matthew Fox was told how the show ends, something he’s been all too proud to share in the media whenever asked. Here’s what he says about the very end of the last episode:
“Yes. I literally just know that final image. I don’t think the word ‘Lost’ will come up at the end of the last [episode]. That’s how much finality it will have. Unlike any other episode ever done on Lost, I think it will just go to black and that will be it… I think the show will end in a way that there really cannot be any future of Lost. That would be my guess.”
“It’s going to be one of the last huge television shows in terms of size of cast and scope of production… Given the fact that network television is changing, it may be one of the last great rides of this kind of big epic storytelling. That’s not to say there won’t be another great big old show that is a serialized show in the future, [b]ut for awhile I think it’s going to be smaller and more procedural.”
“We’ve been planning out the final season for four years now. And of all the talks we have had about the show, [reuniting all the castaways] is the subject that has come up the most. The ending was almost where we began, and we had to figure out how to get there. It’s like a wedding where the reception is the part that requires the most planning and is the most fun to plan. We’ve exchanged our vows and I am ready to go party.”
All that and evil Locke and the return of Claire and, of course, Destiny Found. And it’s way too far away. What do you think of that, Kate?
Friday the 12th! That just sounds funny to say. So non-monumental, you know? Either way, today’s the last day of normal analog TV here in America. Here’s a graphic I stole on how people are not fully quite ready for the switch over:
Not that people didn’t have all the time they need. The switchover, which we had had plenty of warning about, was originally supposed to happen back in February but was pushed back to today.
Something about inadequate funding and people being stupid about the changing technology. Speaking of Obama up there, I was in a fast food place yesterday (sigh) ordering some lunch (but it was a salad, thankfully) and Obama was on the TV speaking somewhere or other. It was a nice bit attacking people for me thinking that he actually wanted the government to have to be responsible for multiple industries in this country. But then he attacked parents who let their kids eat junk food and drink all the soda they want and then just sit in front of the TV for hours and hours with no real excercise.
But I liked it. One of the many reasons I like Obama. Granted, he’s not the first person to throw down a little real talk about child obesity, but it’s always good to hear because you know WAKE UP, PEOPLE!
Not that I’m knocking watching TV. I fully support watching TV (though I wish what was usually on the TV was better), but whoever you are, no matter how good or how bad of shape you are in (physically)(because if we’re talking mental health, that’s a subject for another blog post, perhaps one by Benjamin Light or Peanut or Lollipop, but not me, because I’m pleasantly crazy, thank you very much), go do a little exercising. Go soak in a little nature. Eat a little healthier. Don’t torture yourself about body image or what others want/look like, but just be healthier. Do something, okay?
The rabbit ears are gone. Time to tune yourself into a better channel.
I feel like I might have to start something called the Reboot Report here or something. In this week’s entry: They’re rebooting Highlander. I never saw the movies, well, except for the one with the two of them, but shit. Seriously, guys? Highlander? I mean, who gives a shit? Remember back in the 90s, back in the glory days of syndicated sci fi ridiculousness, and this show as ALWAYS FUCKING ON. If it was on at 10 PM on channel A, then it was on at 11 PM on channel B. And channel C? No worries, they were airing it at midnight.
I wonder who they’ll get to play Sean Connery’s character. I mean, I’m sure it’ll be someone who sucks, but still, I’m curious. Weren’t they aliens in the original movie, rather than just immortal Scottish sheepfuckers? Well, if Connery’s character was a mentor type, I’m sure they can get Liam Neeson to play it. If he’s not busy doing Taken 2, in which he hunts down the manufacturers of that chairlift and makes them pay.
I remember a few years ago reading something where Joss had been asked why he wasn’t directing X-Men 3 after Bryan Singer left (at the time, Joss was writing a truly amazing run of X-Men comics) and Joss, ever the taker of the high road, said something like, “You know, I really searched my feelings, searched my heart on the matter, and I realized… They never asked me to.”
I’m just like Jerry here, I totally hated that Michael on Melrose Place back in the day. Somehow he kept getting these amazing women, and then he’d try to kill him (which is kind of a really huge jerk move when it comes to break ups) and they’d still take him back. Sigh. Heather Locklear was ehhh, and of course, everyone remembers Marcia Cross’ gross scar reveal. But my favorite character was always Laura Leighton’s Sydney.
I’m not going to lie and say it was because of any depth of character or anything, it was mostly just because she was hot. Anyway, she’s in the Melrose Place restart (a la 90210) and she dies in the first few minutes. She’s the big murder mystery that will run through the first season. Pause for a moment to think about how shocking it is that there will be a first season to a redo of Melrose Place. Have we completely burnt out on 80s nostalgia that we’re shitmining the 90s for their magic and wonder?
Other nerdy TV news: Freddie Prinze Jr. is joining 24 (wha huh?), Famke Jansen’s transsexual character is coming back to Nip/Tuck, Claire is rejoining Lost for it’s long rumored zombie last season, Tom Swift has daddy issues, somehow they won’t fucking cancel Scrubs, no Gossip Girl spinoff set in the 80s, and maybe, just maybe, Summer Glau will show up on Dollhouse. Also, a query: Who the fuck actually watches Burn Notice?
Simple, classic. I wasn’t a geek who had stuck with this show for 40 years so I have no problem with that opening at all. In fact, the nice thing about it, along with a show like The Venture Bros is that they keep the opening teaser very short, very tight, and then end it on a sharp note and then boom you right into the hard, driving title sequence (the theme was redone to be even more booming and driving in the last season with David Tennant). But, that’s that. The dorktastic news I was mentioning is that when the show changes Doctors and creative hands next season, they want to go for more of a nostalgia kick and work in the large, floaty superimposed head of the Doctor (in this case, the very scary looking Matt Smith as the next regeneration) somewhere in the credits. This kind of nostalgia, like I said, means nothing to me, and as an example of why this is bad, I give you the credits sequence of the last Doctor, Sylvester McCoy, who had it:
And he winks at you! That just makes it so much more cheesy and stupid. Ha ha! Ah, but if I could steal your attention away for a moment for cheesy but great TV show openings…
Fuck yeah MacGyver. Although the Magnum P.I. one is pretty great too. And if you don’t believe me, I will fight you to the death. Hawaii 5-0 is probably the greatest TV credits sequence ever, but I would live happily with a Magnum P.I. theme ring tone:
…starring Sasha Grey. This works as a reboot, I think. I can’t wait for the sequel when they work the whales in.
The thing about Ian McKellen is that there’s always just a certain strength and class in just about everything he does. That said, I’m going to say ehhh not so much to this teaser for The Prisoner remake miniseries (up above there), cause there’s nothing here really to be for or against, but just that it was made at all. Ugh.
The Prisoner is probably one of my favorite shows of all time. Discovering this show back in junior high did something horribly wonderful to the way my brain worked and I’ve been grateful ever since. McGoohan actually died back in January, and the remake miniseries looks… not promising. Somehow the planned movie remake hasn’t been canceled yet, so who knows what’s going to happen. It may be a bit of a fiasco, which has Caviezel as it’s No. 6. That sounds… scary. And boring in a kind of unrivaled way.
But here you can catch a little behind the scenes teaser for the new miniseries.
Let me sum up the finale to Heroes in one sentence:
WHAT THE FUCK?
Seriously. This entire fucking season was just a constant letdown. One of the main things that keeps me watching this show is Zachary Quinto. How cool of a fucking character is Sylar? Rhetorical question. But even his character the entire season had mommy and daddy issues which permitted him from being the total badass he is. Now as I know, all of you are nodding your heads in agreement as you think this show is a ridiculous waste of time. While I still enjoy the plot line, the writers definitely need to come up with a more enticing way to end, or even run, a series.
How can I incorporate one of the characters smelling like straight up mayonnaise?
Basically, the last episode consisted of a battle between Sylar, Nathan, and Peter. Nathan, flying man is virtually useless in this fight.
This is the kind of thing that marrying a Dixie Chick leads you to.
Sylar, being the pseudo badass he is, kills the motherfucker. Sweet. Finally we get some real action. It’s then just Peter and Sylar, which isn’t really a fight at all. Basically Sylar bounces only to later get conned into meeting the president. Peter, disguised as a black president, injects him with what I’m assuming is something to pass out. Although, plot hole, he shouldn’t pass out because he’s got the same powers the cheerleader has and shouldn’t be left incapacitated, but of course, he does. Whatever.
I can't die, but you can knock me out.
In one of the biggest fucking bitch moves, the writers make Matt Parkman, with the ability to read people’s minds and make them think whatever he wants, convinces Sylar, who is unconscious, that he is Nathan Petrelli. What does this do? Besides completely believing he is Nathan, who is now dead, he shape shifts, which he can do, into Nathan. Why? To convince the world, and the cheerleader, that he is still alive. WTF?
The only glimpse of hope lies in the remaining minute where Nathan, Sylar, notices one of the clocks in his office running too fast. Sylar, formerly Gabriel Grey, was a watchmaker before he was a psycho killer.
I was pretty disappointed with this ending, but what can I do? I’m a professed fan of this sometimes faltering show. Will I watch the show next season? Of course. Will I be happy about it? Probably not.
There is nothing wrong with your television set. Do not attempt to adjust the picture. We are controlling transmission. If we wish to make it louder, we will bring up the volume. If we wish to make it softer, we will tune it to a whisper. We can reduce the focus to a soft blur, or sharpen it to crystal clarity. We will control the horizontal. We will control the vertical. For the next hour, sit quietly and we will control all that you see and hear. You are about to experience the awe and mystery which reaches from the inner mind to… The Outer Limits.
I miss the idea of “behind the sofa” TV. Granted, it’s a British concept, coined because of Doctor Who, and mostly refers to when what you were seeing on the television screen was so scary that you had to hide behind your sofa. In the age of Youtube and Hulu and personal television experiences, it’s fascinating to hear about such a level of relation that one could have with what they were watching.
And we did have it ourselves, with shows like The Twilight Zone and The Outer Limits, the original versions, of course. And while Doctor Who was and still is essentially a children’s show for grown ups, in a lot of ways, so were The Twilight Zone and The Outer Limits. I know that in a lot of ways, audiences today have been allergic to good, quality writing, which is a shame, especially with almost a whole generation of America that’s been raised with the television as it’s babysitter and tutor, you’d think we’d bring back kid’s shows like that.
Because the kids still need a babysitter.
Speaking of kid’s shows, when I was looking up broadcast standards and practices on Wikipedia, which you of course know is the department at just about every television network that is responsible for the moral, ethical, and legal implications of whatever the networks airs i.e. “the censors,” I was reminded of the 90s X-Men cartoon. Growing up as a comic book geek, especially an X-Men geek, that cartoon was my motherfucking jam. Not the ones that followed it, because they were fucking crap, but that one, with all it’s flaws and deviations from the comic. I still have fond memories of it’s wonderful ridiculousness.
But apparently it was a victim to constant attention from S&P. An excerpt:
Page 4: It will not be acceptable for Mojo to call anyone ‘numb nuts.’ Also, he should not pick Spiral up by the head.
Page 11: Please substitute for Longshot’s two uses of the word ‘killed.’ Something like ‘destroyed’ or ‘take their lives’ would be acceptable.
Page 23: It will not be acceptable for Jubilee to blast January in the face. Please revise.
Page 25: Please substitute for the boulder Rogue hurls at the two hunters, since this would injure them severely. Please incapacitate them with something less harmful.
Page 29: Caution that Slagg not backhand Wolverine in the face.
Page 32: Please show that the bounty hunters are alive after the facade falls on them
Wow. Good times. But you know what I miss? Appointment TV. Water cooler shows. Other than Lost, what are the real watercooler shows out there now? The Office, maybe? I don’t know, maybe. I know that appointment TV is probably long dead in this age of the internet, but what about water cooler shows? Is stuff like American Idol a water cooler show or did the term die when Seinfeld went off the air?
There is a fifth dimension beyond that which is known to man. It is a dimension as vast as space and as timeless as infinity. It is the middle ground between light and shadow, between science and superstition, and it lies between the pit of man’s fears and the summit of his knowledge. This is the dimension of imagination. It is an area which we call the Twilight Zone.
Bottom line: There’s a part of me that will always wish that TV will be as weird as The Twilight Zone again. Not the show itself, but just the idea. I don’t want to the new Lost or the new Seinfeld (shows will damn near unrepeatable formulas), I just want the new weird original thing. I want new standards and practices out there in that fifth dimension beyond that which is known to man…
Maybe we’ll get lucky one of these days.
“It is difficult to produce a television documentary that is both incisive and probing when every twelve minutes one is interrupted by twelve dancing rabbits singing about toilet paper.”
“You know, I don’t really like to define it, but it’s like Matchbox 20 meets The Fray…”
“You don’t grab these for balance.”
I don’t have any funny quotes from 30 Rock yet (though “You have sexually transmitted crazy mouth” and “There’s no such thing as bisexual, that’s just something they invented in the 90s to sell hair products” are both pretty good) because I’m just watching this week’s season finale of it now. At the start of the season, I was thinking that 30 Rock had really really upped it’s game this year and was better than The Office this season, but in the couple of weeks, The Office has really come back and gotten good. The finale this year was a little low key, but that’s not a bad thing. It’s kind of following along a pretty standard course for a show leaving it’s fifth year and about to go into it’s sixth year…
But Parks And Recreation on the other hand is doing pretty solid in my eyes. I think a lot of people have bailed on it now because it’s essentially a remix of The Office missing the early star crossed lovers storyline and Amy Poehler‘s Leslie Knope as a little less pathetically tragic Michael Scott, but I still like it. Here’s a pretty solid mini review of the show though that sums up my feelings exactly, particularly on how Rashida Jones is played as a saint and the Paul Schneider character is fairly sleazy but likable, but still kind of sleazy.
So, the TV season is slowly coming to an end… what were your favorite shows this year and which ones are you looking forward to next year?
Two players, two sides, one is light, one is dark…
IN THE BEGINNING was the word, and it was the most important thing there was, from the Alpha to the Omega, but that word was also something else, something equally important to all that came after it. That word which begat all else was also the answer to a question, a choice made when a decision was presented.
And that was only a small part of last night’s penultimate word of Lost, the appropriately and devastatingly titled “What They Died For.” And much in the same vein as last week, but vastly more important, let’s tackle 23 stray observations about last night’s episode…
…which is 
from 
Not that I’m knocking watching TV. I fully support watching TV (though I wish what was usually on the TV was better), but whoever you are, no matter how good or how bad of shape you are in (physically)(because if we’re talking mental health, that’s a subject for another blog post, perhaps one by Benjamin Light or Peanut or Lollipop, but not me, because I’m pleasantly crazy, thank you very much), go do a little exercising. Go soak in a little nature. Eat a little healthier. Don’t torture yourself about body image or what others want/look like, but 
Of big dorky relevance to me this past week was 
from 
