While I Was Out
HBO photo: Nicole Rivelli
I actually do manage to stay fairly unplugged while on vacation, so I had a lot of late-August TV waiting for me when the family got back to the Borough of Kings. I don't have the diligence--nor, I bet, do you have the patience--for a full-scale roundup of what I missed, but:
Big Love. The finale was a decent ending to an outstanding season. I agree with some of the criticisms I read in the comments here that it seemed like there was too much going on at once; the resolution with Alby, Roman and Bill, Ana's return and Barb's decision to embrace her First Wifeiness were believable, but seemed crammed in. This is just a guess, but I recall the producers of Big Love saying at their last TV press tour session that they would not leave any cliffhangers or dangling threads at the end of this season, and I wonder if they were pressured to rush to advance a lot of stories before they intended to.
Mad Men. The episode before last--ending on that gorgeous By the Rivers of Babylon montage--was my favorite of the season so far. It even managed to pull off that most treacherous of period scenes, the beatnik club, without major embarrassment. (That Happy Days episode--"Fly away, little bird. There is no seed for you here. Only death!"--is forever burned in my memory.) Thank you, Jon88, for keeping up the Mad Men Krazy Kaptioning Follies in my absence.
Damages. Haven't caught up. Not sure I plan to. Given that the series is so resolutely focused on plot over character, I'm thinking there's no nuance I've missed in two episodes that I can't catch up on in the next "Previously on Damages." Anyone reason I should watch? ("Because it's your job" doesn't count. Probably the most important part of being a TV critic is figuring what you can get away with not watching.)
Entourage. Credit where it's due. The last few episodes actually managed not to suck quite so badly. Returning to the Medellin storyline, after episodes and episodes of mostly filler, gave the show some drive again. And it was good to finally get an answer to the question of whether Medellin was actually as bad as it looked. Billy Walsh remains an unbelievable character, though: one minute he's a passionate artist, the next he's a summer-movie-writing hack, and though the show tried to explain it away in his scene with Ana Feris, it seems more like he's just a cartoon who's there to give Ari and E agita and to have whatever eccentricity a particular episode needs him to have.
Flight of the Conchords. Fortunately FOTC will get a second season, but they ended the year with an episode that would have worked equally well as a series finale. As with Big Love, though--as with a lot of HBO series--it was the second-to-last episode that I loved. Frodo! Don't wear the ring!
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Welcome back, James! Hope you had a wonderful, restful vacation.
Question. Which shows are you gonna be covering when the fall seasons start? There's gonna be a lot to choose from. . .
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Glad you asked! I've been thinking about it! I have no idea!
I don't know if I'll have as many shows on a regular, weekly watch rotation as I did over the summer. Doing Watches over the summer helped give the blog regular content at a time where there was less major new product. In the fall, there's more, so I'll probably do more of what I did last year, namely doing shows like Heroes etc., occasionally, when they were especially interesting. Also, I plan to cover Tell Me You Love Me, even though I am prepared to be the only person on the planet who likes it. You'll just have to deal with it.
Maybe I'll do a post on this and see what The People want.
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The first episode of Tell Me You Love Me is up on OnDemand, and I thought it was fascinating. It's so well-acted that I almost felt guilty for spying on these people's lives, and it's going to make most viewers very uncomfortable. I like art that does that, and I consider myself a pretty modern, enlightened guy, but I cannot imagine watching Tell Me You Love Me with another person in the room. Not even my girlfriend. Especially not my girlfriend.
I think it's one of those HBO shows like The Wire that's just "too real" for people seeking escapism. But pretty much every network show this season is about superpowers, so I'm glad somebody is making a series about real human nature.
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I liked the Entourage finale. I agree that Walsh can be a cartoon character, but I see it as a necessary shade of black since there isn't always room for gray in the half hour format for a show that is sometimes comedy, sometimes drama.
I still disagree about the "filler" episodes being no good. By the end of the season, due to those episodes and E's initial instincts about Medellin being a flop coming true, we've got two distinct sides - E and Ari, men who know how to get business done, and Vince and Walsh, the two artistic dreamers. That sets up some interesting story lines for next season. I could see E taking a job at MillerGold.
At least Drama got the girl.
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Damages: Well, FX didn't show an episode last week (for no reason that I can see), so you'd only have one episode to catch up on. It was probably the most character-focused episode so far: it was about Tom and his relationship to Patty. I don't know if it would be enough for your liking, but it was more character-focused than usual. Also, there was a tiny bit of information about Patty - she became a lawyer because of "what her father did to her" or "what her father was like" or some phrase that implied abuse.
Flight of the Conchords: I was surprisingly upset about Murray becoming successful and the ultimate betrayal of Mel leaving their band for another (now they have no fans!).
Mad Men: No comment except to ask how does a person who doesn't know the difference between "activities" and "activity's" get anywhere near a captioning job? I don't even mind the proper noun misspellings because a lot of it is specific knowledge and/or period stuff, but come on, don't they need to take some kind of test of their English abilities? And also I think I'm beginning to actually like the show.
And welcome back, Real-James. Hope you had an excellent vacation.
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@Allison, I think the captioning has been outsourced to India. There are no English ability requirements based on my calls for support on my PC.
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I'm from India and I can type fine. So I resent that.
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I love Mad Men so this is nit-picking but that Village cafe scene was horrible! It played like 1994 not 1960. The art direction, normallly flawless, was clueless on that scene. The dialogue was horrible. It just struck me as sour.
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Anonymous,
I've read enough of your posts to know you are from Fullofbeans City, USA......but thanks for playing.
- poniewozik Loved the season. Mrs Tuned In wd have put u on the main list RT @boredtodeath Thank u for incl us in Time's Top 10. We'll take hon mention. - 6 hours ago
- poniewozik @carr2n Virgin is the best, LAX-JFK - 7 hours ago
- poniewozik Did NPR interview abt multiscreen multitasking. After, automatically reached for iPhone in pocket. Like don draper wd have for cigarettes. - 8 hours ago
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