Downtown Abbey

Typing on the iPad. Who knows how well this will work.

I love Downton Abbey. I mentioned it the weekly recap on Monday but I got the name wrong. How embarrassing. They are doing a profile of me at work. I need to fill out this survey thing and one of the questions is “Favorite Tv Show”. Normally this would be a toss up of either the Wire or Care Bears (one of those is fake and should be replaced with The West Wing). But after only four episodes I’m all about Downton Abbey.

But none of you care. Is anyone else watching this? Season three has just finished. Is you take the murder mystery and the Altman flourishes out of Gosford Park, Downton is what you have. But it isn’t just taking away elements. A series can push in closer on all the characters. And instead of a murder mystery, Downton exists as part of history.

It has an ensemble cast of at least 18 primary characters. It is a period piece set in 1912 for the first season. It is about a noble British family, their servants and their estate, Downton Abbey. It is funny, kind, mean, serious, and mostly awesome. But I don’t know anyone else who would like it.

I finish this now to go watch another episode. Let me know if anyone else is watching.

Good Things List

And so…

When I review something I always find caveats.  Nothing is ever perfect.

True nuff.  I’m not likely to read the perfect book or see the perfect movie.  Regardless I worry I sound like a curmudgeon.  ‘Cause I like stuff, don’t cha know?

So here is a list of things in the last year that I’ve liked.  No review or commentary.

1. Dr. Who – Season 6.
2. Eureka – Season 1 and 2.
3. The Good Wife – Season 2.
4. The Big Bang Theory – Season 4
5. Source Code
6. Donnie Darko
7. The King’s Speech
8. Captain America
9. Leviathan Wakes
10. A Canticle for Leibowitz
11. The Wise Man’s Fear
12. A Dance with Dragons
13. Lady Sabre and the Ineffable Aether
14. Morning Glories
15. Non Player
16. Echo

 

Treme – Season Two – Review

“I love you New Orleans and I could never leave, but you are the cause of my life’s greatest tragedies.”

I think that s the theme of the second season of Treme.  I’d said to Tim that the season seemed unfocused compared to the first, but with the airing of the final episode the thematic resonance across the season seems clear to me now.

The theme in the first was the greatness of New Orleans.  Mostly this was showcased through its people.  How despite the calamity in the wake of Hurricane Katrina they brought the should to New Orleans.  Mardi Gras, and food and jazz – these are what the city is known for, but they all stemmed from its unique people and culture.

The second season was about the possibility that New Orleans might not always be good for those people.  They loved and laughed and sang, but the town also caused them to cry, and suffer and experience loss.

That make the season sound depressing, but it really isn’t.  These are still the same characters from the first season and their drive eventually will see them through their sorrows and out of them a little bit wiser (except maybe Davis).

Plus the season is filled with music.  I think it showcases more music than the first season and the music is stronger.  If you are interested in the blues, folk and jazz from the New Orleans area then the series is worth it for that alone.  If that is not your thing you’ll surely gain an appreciation as the series progresses.

My favourite character this season was Nelson, played by Jon Seda.  Nelson came from Houston when he heard there was work in New Orleans, but Nelson isn’t a worker.  Nelson “makes deals.”  Nelson finds a demand.  Then he finds a supply to meet that demand.  Then he puts them together, greases the wheels to make the deal happen and takes between 50%-80% of the profit as his finder’s fee.  When introduced you’d think he was a vulture; in New Orleans, to siphon off restoration money into his own coffers.  But that wasn’t the character.  He developed a quick and passionate love for the city.  His work seems trivial, but he put a lot of effort into it.  And he honestly seems to think that his way is simply the way business works.

The writers also played with the idea that Nelson was good for the city, bringing in new ideas and new money to a town that is largely stuck in a rut of doing things the way they have always been done.

It is a tricky role, I think, and Seda plays it with a mix of joy and wonder with a dash of snake oil salesman.  Nelson’s own cycle brings him in to New Orleans and eventually sets him all the way back to square one.

None of the performances this year rivalled that of John Goodman or Clarke Peters from season one, but that is praising with faint damnation.  Khandi Alexander, Rob Brown, Kim Dickens, Michiel Huisman, Melissa Leo, Lucia Micarelli, India Ennenga, Wendell Pierce, David Morse – really the whole cast.  If you watched the season and said anyone of them was actually the standout performer, I’d be hard pressed arguing with you.  The best moments might go to Clarke Peters as Big Chief Lambreaux again although his overall arc wasn’t as compelling.  Come Emmy season expect to see some of those names.

Because the season gets off to a slow start, I’d be cautious in recommending it.  Start with Season one.  But if you watch an episode or two, I’d encourage you to stick with season two because it pays off strongly in the end.  If you aren’t as speechless as Davis come the final scene I’d be surprised.

GoT – Last Review

Called in sick to work today.  Grr.  Grr.  Feel guilty because I missed a non-day at work.  It was a Fun Day for team building.  To speak truthfully I hadn’t been looking forward to it.

Anyway, the last episode of Game of Thrones aired on Sunday.  It is over and y’all won’t need to hear me speak of it again until the new book comes out next month (July 12).

I thought it ended strongly.  Episode 9 (the previous) was the climax.  This episode had a lot of setup for next season.  In fact, although I haven’t checked yet, I think some of the early chapters of book two might have shown.  The next book is really set in King’s Landing and deals with the politics of that city even more than the first book.

Dany’s scenes were pretty close to perfect, but structure wise they still haven’t paid off after the fourth book.  Leading into season two she doesn’t have nearly as many good sections.

Robb isn’t as strong as I’d like.  He seemed more led by his vassals and mother than kingly.  The exchange with Theon was nice though.

As usual Tyrion, Baelish and Varys are the highlights and that was the case here.  I wonder if that is unfortunate.  In the books the kids are the main characters.  Tyrion, Ned and Catelyn are the only adult POV characters in the first book.  In the mini-series the kids are fine, but they just don’t have the presence of the adults.

Clash of Kings is a middle book and suffers the fate of middle books.  It is strong in the King’s landing bits, but in other areas it is less dynamic than Game of Thrones.

All told I think the Game of Thrones mini-series was decent.  Nothing close to the reaction I had to the book when it was released.  It needs a bit more action to hold attention on an episode by episode basis.  At 10 hours long it still simplifies some of the plot elements – although the character motivations seem just as complex.  The violence isn’t more or less extreme than the book demands.  But the sex scenes are far more distracting.  Funny that several of the added scenes are exposition of character elements with one particular prostitute in them.  Once for Theon, once for Baelish and once for Pycelle.  By the third time is is starting to look like a crutch.

OK – time to go.  Take care folks!

I’m a Floaker!

I’m nearly halfway done the new book I purchased and I want to talk about it!  But I’ll wait and do a review when I’m finished.

Game of Thrones continues apace.  Episode 8 (or 10) aired on Sunday.  I thought that it was a very mixed episode.

It is the only episode that is written by the author of the books.  As such, more than any other episode it stayed very true to the books.  But it resulted in a bunch of problems for me.  The pacing was rushed.  While months passed in show-time no clear passage of time was communicated to the viewer.  I was left with th sense that armies were gathered and travelled hundreds of miles almost overnight.  It also had an ‘uncanny valley’ feeling.  It was so close to the books, but not quite that you got a vaguely unsatisfied feeling off it.

But a lot happened.  There was less exposition and more action and character.  That was good.  Many of the best moments from the book happened.  The opening fight with Syrio and the Lannister guards was excellent and the ending sequence with Khal Drogo was awesome.  Peter Dinklage as Tyrion is the most robust actor and he has a good scene with Tywin and good interactions with Bronn and the Mountain of the Moon clansmen too.  I could watch a whole Tyrion series.

I’m hoping that after the breakneck pace of this episode the last two will be able to slow down and take some time with the remaining events.  The climatic events in King’s Landing, the northern war and in the Dothraki Sea should all happen in episode nine.

Nifty.

Time to order dinner and then back to some more floaking.

Game of Thrones (HBO)

When the book was released (1996) I was an immediate and huge fan.  Since that time, I’ve been eagerly awaiting each subsequent book release and for the last year the planned HBO mini-series adaptation.

The series is a low-fantasy epic concerning a war fought in the fictional Seven Kingdoms and of impending additional calamities coming with the winter and the reemergence of dragons.

While there are many, many aspects of the book I enjoy the two most notable are the plot and characters.  Unlike most epic fantasy the master plot for Game of Thrones is neither a Quest nor a Coming of Age story.  Instead it is structured much more like Tolstoy’s War and Peace.  The oncoming war, its executions and its denouement is examined from several different points of view that cross age groups and social class.  In GoT, those POVs are mostly done by the 6 of the 8 members of the Stark family with two additional POV characters.  (In future books of the series, the POV characters are added to and removed.)

While GoT isn’t as ambitious or well-execute as War and Peace it does add an additional hook to the plot by having more than two sides to the conflict.  GoT has three active sides by the end of the book.  By the end of the next book in the series there are at least 5.

The second is that the author writes complex characters.  It would be easy to say he writes everyone with shades of grey, but that is inaccurate and boring.  He does do the following:

1. Even minor characters are rarely just stock characters.  Each at least has their own motivation.
2. There is a clear divide between the good guys and the bad guys.
3. However, the good guys almost all have a very Shakespearean fatal flaw.  Generally this flaw is a side effect of their greatest virtue.
4. And the bad guys all have at least one admirable trait.  Often this trait provides their motivation in their reprehensible deeds.

How is this series actually translating to the small screen?  5 episodes of the 10 episodes mini-series have now aired and approximately half the material in the book has been covered.  In general, the mini has been very faithful in adapting the book, but this is not always the best approach.  (Look at the failure of the Watchmen movie with its slavish devotion to the original text.)

GoT is tailor made for HBO adaptation.  The complexity of the story is similar to other period stories the network has done like Rome and Deadwood.  The book also has graphic language, shocking and sudden violence and a frank and vivid approach to sex.  Unfortunately thee items, which set the book apart in print seem both exploitative on screen and imitative of previous HBO successes.

In the book, I find that the strength of the plot and characters shines through these lurid items (not that they bother me).  It is an approach that is novel in epic fantasy.  On screen, it seems anything but and an end unto themselves.

The two largest problems though are the huge breadth of the cast and the glacial progress of the plot.  In the latest episode two major POV characters do not even appear.  The series is doing its best to introduce the cast a few characters at a time.  It took me three episodes to tell all the Starks (and Theon) apart.  I’m not sure how people who are unfamiliar with the base material are coping.  The progress of the plot is odd.  It works fine in the book, but on TV I notice that half of it is over and the largest turning points have not occurred yet.  There has been 5 hours of build up, but only a little payoff.

Those are three large criticisms, but I’d still say that overall I am well satisfied with the series.  The latest episode introduced three major scenes which were not in the book and I was on the edge of my seat for them all.  The scope of the production is impressive and surpasses many motion pictures.  The acting is varied, but the performances by Lena Hedey, Sean Bean and Peter Dinklage are really incredible.  And the two elements I like both about the source material are present and executed well in the series.

Like all HBO series, I only recommend it with caveats… it is for those who like that sort of thing.  (except for the Wire – the Wire is great).  But for those who do like the books or like the HBO period piece work like Deadwood or Rome, there is a lot here to enjoy.

Re: Kryptonian Skin Cells

While there may not be an explicit reference to Kryptonian skin cells, this was still a foolish bet for Leonard to accept.  Superman’s ability to store the yellow sun’s energy, acting as a battery, is firmly established in Byrne’s Man of Steel series from the 1980s.  Even if it isn’t there, any edition of Who’s Who featuring Superman and many of the 80 page giants and Secret Origin stories will also contain this information in the supplementary information.  Add in stories where his ‘batteryness’ is a plot point in the stories, I bet there are over 20 comics in the collection that enable Sheldon to win the bet.

As Raj points out, “The pretty girl has left the room.”

The Wire

I haven’t talked about The Wire yet.  This was a TV series created by David Simon that aired on HBO for four seasons between 2002 and 2008.  It may, in my opinion, be some of the greatest TV ever created.

The high concept of the series is the formation of a Major Crimes Unit in Baltimore to bring down some organized crime within the city.  But that falls so short of what the series was about.  It is about crime and its causes.  It is about policing.  It is about poverty.  It is about life in an inner city. It also tells a story.  Each season is a story arc and the whole four season set is a single big story.

The creator of the series has a far more pessimistic view of life than I.  No solutions are presented over the course of the series.  In fact, some problems are presented as being pretty much insoluble.

The first season starts by introducing the homicide and narcotics cops who struggle to police crime.  It also focuses on a single location that is a drug pit and the kids who sell the product.  It shows the drug bosses and even some criminals who prey on the criminals.    The season progresses slowly but suspensefully.  “The Wire” from the series title – a tap on the phones of the suspects does not even appear until after the half-way point in the season.  If you are annoyed at the CSI shows that skip police work to show a montage and have DNA results analyzed in 30 seconds, this provides a much more realistic approach.

A task force is formed and we see the bureaucracy churn.  Approvals are sought and funding is approved.  A warrant is not a sure thing and requires volumes of reports and justification.  When the task force is formed they don’t automatically get the “best-of-the-best” but also get some of the oddballs that didn’t have a good fit elsewhere in the force.

One of the thrills of the series is that even though it has a purpose and needs certain “types” of characters it doesn’t cheat.  Every character is fully realized.  They all have back stories and motivations, goals, joys and sadnesses.   There is a point to the story and the hand is firm on the tiller getting there, but mostly you just watch the characters drift through their lives.

The series is violent (although cops rarely pull their guns and there is never, ever a gun fight) and the language is what you would expect in a gritty HBO series.  It is not as in your face as Deadwood or the Sopranos, but it is filled with profanity and obscenity.  For these reasons, I wouldn’t recommend it to everyone.  But it is rarely gratuitous.  (Although there is one scene with the gratuitous repeated use of the curse MF that feels brilliant to me.)

The second season switches gears and investigates crime along the docks.  This may be the weakest season as there is little obvious thematic overlap with the first season.  However, during the course of the season you see the roots of the poverty in Baltimore and a glimpse at the type of crminals behind the criminals in season one.

Season three is my favorite and I think the strongest season.  It moves back to the inner city and introduces the school system into the mix.  The series arc follows a group of young boys.  It is awesome and heart warming and heart breaking.

Season four introduces the politicians and the journalists.  It completes a fairly holistic view of its subject matter.  It also wraps up plot threads introduced way back in season one.  But the problems themselves are not resolved.

The writing is the star of the show.  However, the acting is top notch.  A giant ensemble.  It is very well done.

Finally, I should mention that it is often very, very funny.  There is no laugh track and much of the humour is dark, but it is funny nonetheless.  (There is also some slapstick and goofiness – but it grows from character.)  The characters inhabit a dark world, but it is not without its joys, loves and pleasures.

My brother owns the series.  I rate it as double-plus good.

The Walking Dead TV Show

So the finale of the Walking Dead Season 1 was on Sunday.  I watched it on pay-per-view last night.

For those of you who don’t know The Walking Dead is a comic following on Rick Grimes and his family surviving after a zombie apocalypse.  There was just a 6 episode TV series on AMC.

The horror in the comic doesn’t normally arise from surprise zombie attacks (although those do certainly happen), but from the following:

1. No one gets out alive – Sooner or later everyone will die and when they do it will be ugly.  For those who have stuck with the series, we’ve learned that no one is safe.
2. The dissolution of social and moral standards – If civilization is gone what will people do to survive and what horrible vices remain even when in survival mode?
3. Despite points one and two what sacrifices will the characters make to stay alive and together.

The most horrifying scenes in the comics have always been man vs. man as opposed to man vs. zombie.  Without that the series could be almost life affirming as people band together to survive and to get the most out of life despite the impending doom.  However, the series is very dark.  Sometimes it is too dark for me.  What keeps me coming back is that they don’t give up.  They never give up.

With 6 episodes the TV show has covered most of the events of the first tpb.  Every episodes their ratings have improved and the show was renewed for a second longer season by the third episode.  In general the tv show has stuck pretty closely to the comic.  Now, the comic isn’t flawless and the first trade may be the weakest of the series, but the tv show goes astray most ofen when it strays from the source material.

Before I complain I should point out that the show is likely my favorite of the fall/winter.  They understand the core themes.  The acing is OK and the scripts are fairly tight.  The production is fairly awesome.  The mood and suspense works much the same as the source material.

They added some additional characters and modified some of the others.  There were two issues – many of the characters added were stereotypical and the additional cast diluted the opportunity for character development.  Some worked – Merle the hotheaded racist redneck was effective (mostly due to actions you never saw him perform), but his brother Daryl, the racist hotheaded redneck, just added conflict when none was needed.

Some of the pacing has changed – for instance the conflict between Shane and Rick is still just simmering

The biggest change is the addition of new material including the entire sixth episode.  The purpose was to provide a climatic capper to the season and to reinforce the hopelessness of the situation.  It did that effectively while also advancing some of the character subplot.  However the evil scientist riff was a bit much.  The biggest mistake they made was having Rick actually say the situation was hopeless.    Things haven’t even begun to go poorly for Rick yet and his biggest attribute is his unstoppable resolution to continue.

The end of the first trade is a surprise twist that really sets the tone for everything to come.  It is a plot element that they haven’t even foreshadowed yet.  I wonder if it is too dark for a tv show?

Anyway, I still recommend the tv show.  I also recommend the comics (except for the one trade with the escape from the Governor – that one is too much).  They are not exactly feel good Christmas fare though.

TV Sucks

So there was a comment on Friday night that TV sucks these days.  I didn’t say much at the time, but I was sitting there thinking that I’ve never seen so much tv that I liked than in the last two years.

So I’ll argue both sides of the case.

Network TV mostly sucks.  If you can find a good show a season you aren’t doing too bad.  Then again this has almost always been true.  The ratio of signal to noise on TV has always been low.  I think we are weighed down by rose-coloured memories of our youth.  Memories that are often shown as untrue when the shows come out on DVD. (This statement also covers the fact that there is five million versions of the same thing).

Reality TV mostly sucks.  Yep.

Lots (and lots) of TV is less than morally upstanding.  Yep.  One particular one that I am not down with is the portrayal of the serial killer on primetime in graphic detail.

A significant addendum to the last point is that family entertainment is almost non-existent.  No show whatsoever that would appeal to children and adults pops into my mind.  I can’t even think of one that shows a working family.

While you might be able to argue these points, if you accept any of them they make a pretty convincing TV sucks argument.

The argument for the reverse is the following list of top tv shows according to metacritic for the last year:

• Mad Men
• Breaking Bad
• Eastbound + Down
• The Good Wife
• Boardwalk Empire
• Treme
• Boston Med
• The Pacific
• Party Down
• Sherlock

Treme in particular was just an awesome show.

These shows have many of the flaws that I listed above.  They certainly don’t disprove the other case.  I’ve only seen half of them and I haven’t even liked all that I’ve seen, but I think they are all inventive and well done.

Alright.  I have another blog entry to write.