This week, we see the return of Matthew J. Brady--the "J" stands for "Just like that, yeah, now work the shaft"--alongside coverage of Fringe, Dollhouse, Mad Men, Sons of Anarchy, House, Lie To Me & Dexter.
It looks like Fringe is acknowledging the debt it owes to The X-Files, since the season premiere contains two references to the previous show. And maybe that's because these first two episodes of the new season seem to be especially blatant in copying aspects of the Mulder and Scully Hour, including the government threatening to shut them down, shapeshifting assassins, killer mutants, and an agent who has near-supernatural abilities of prediction. Sure, it all gets the unique Fringe treatment, so far as that goes. We've got the usual scenes in which Walter acts strange and funny, like getting excited about exhuming some graves, or examining a body and excitedly announcing "The anus is soaking wet!" And Joshua Jackson and Anna Torv do seem to do their best at acting, but they continue to be pretty awkward, especially when Olivia is getting all upset and frantic after being injured and suffering memory loss.
Oh yes, the plots. It is nice to see some significant developments taking place, with Olivia abruptly returning from her extra-dimensional jaunt by crashing through the windshield of a wrecked car an hour after the accident took place. If that doesn't make sense, don't worry, it's never explained. Parallel universe stuff, it's crazy! There's a killer chasing her who can assume people's forms by jabbing some nasty device into the roof of their mouths, and Fringe Division is getting shut down because they just can't show results, and the government needs to justify the spending, dammit. That's a common plot, but it doesn't really make sense in this case; didn't all the cases they solved last season (including stopping a major terrorist arms deal at one point) count as results? Eh, it's kind of a bogus threat anyway, since it gets resolved pretty easily, if somewhat troublingly, positioning the department as a source for new sci-fi military weaponry.
But there's still some pretty interesting plot turns, including the introduction of a new character (a hot lady agent at that) who doesn't do too much yet but does seem poised to become more important in the future, and a regular being killed and replaced by the shapeshifter. That's a cool idea, but the actual replacement has a hell of a major plot hole that just gets glossed over. That's going to bug me for months.
And then the second episode gets back to regular business, although there's running plots about Olivia recovering and discovering new, Daredevil-like abilities. But the main plot is right out of Mulder's dreams, with a mutant freak living underground and yanking people under to eat them or something. It's so rote that you can figure out the whole damn plot a few minutes in. Eh, they gotta get used to the new(-ish) status quo, I guess. I'm already used to it though, so they better not take too long.
Lie to Me – “The Core of It” by Martin Brown
Let’s start with an admission: I may have trashed the single episode of Lie to Me I watched for TV of the Weak a couple of months ago, but I subsequently tracked down and watched every single episode of the first season over the course of the summer. It’s what we here at the Factual Opinion like to call “research,” mostly so we can feel productive in our down time—as in, “I like to research Lie to Me while I’m eating my lunch.”
Truth is that Lie to Me is a better show than I initially gave it credit for. Any procedural worth watching these days also watches other procedurals, knows the tropes, and subverts them at every opportunity. So, while Lie to Me’s premise was a pretty blatant mid-season grab at that CBS Mentalist money, the show, more often than not, made up for it with fast-paced, high-plot-turn scripting.
At least, it did in its first season. If “The Core of It” is any indication, Lie to Me is in for a SVU-rific season, because they’re kicking this bitch off with one of the gnarliest procedural clichés in the book: Multiple. Personality. Disorder. And, yes, before we go any further, one of the personalities is a hooker.
Played by Erika Christensen—who you know as Michael Douglas’s crack-smokingest daughter in Traffic—the subject has a good side, a bad side, an angry “protective” side, and some tenuous ties to a murder in a skeevy hotel room. My questions are these: Who suffers more at the hand of a multiple personality order episode, us or the actress? Who’s more uncomfortable? Is Christensen proud of the moments where she has to switch between personalities, or does it make her feel dirty? Did Tim Roth look at this script and go, “Are you fucking kidding me? This isn’t even about someone who’s lying! That’s the whole fucking point of the fucking show!” Are network procedurals where one-time Oscar nominees go to die? Is my pasta ready yet?
Dollhouse: "Vows" by Matthew J. Brady
Dollhouse season two! We didn't think it would happen, but it's here! And probably as dumb as ever, while trying so damn hard to be smart. I've already got a new high point, which is an early scene in which Helo does push-ups and clicks his pen a lot to try not to imagine Apollo fucking Eliza Dushku. That's right, the special guest star here is Jamie Bamber, for some Battlestar Galactica wink-nudging. He plays an arms dealer, and sport a British accent that sounds oddly fake, considering Bamber is British. And Echo marries him as part of an undercover operation, in another plot that sounds good but doesn't make sense. What, did she meet him and he proposed the next day? Maybe that's what she was working on all summer. And surprisingly, she actually does some decent acting in one scene that involves spousal abuse (the day after the wedding!) and accusations of undercovery. It's the later scenes of action and mixed-up personalities where she goes back to her old struggles, and that's the stuff she's supposed to be good at.
In other news, Amy Acker's character has gotten way more fucked-up ever since she discovered she's an Active imprinted with a doctor's persona. Now she's in existential despair, not trusting anything about herself to be true, and spending all her time fucking around with Topher, since he's her (obviously imperfect) "creator". It's pretty funny, even if (yet again) it strains credulity that they would keep her around like this. But who needs logic when you've got fun plot devices? That's Dollhouse for you, and really, I probably wouldn't have it any other way.
So, new status quo: Paul is Echo's handler, and she seems to be aware of all the personalities with which she's been imprinted, and maybe even able to access them. Victor got his face fixed, since Olivia Williams can't live without fucking him every so often. Boyd is questioning his mission, or something like that. Oh, and he's got the hots for Whiskey now, because he feels sorry for her. Also, there's a senator who's out to take down the Dollhouse's parent corporation, which seems like an easy threat to take care of (don't tell me they don't have lobbyists). And, I dunno, there's probably some other crap to pay attention to, but that doesn't matter for now, because next week sees Echo become a baby-stealing crazy lady! That'll bring in the viewers! I think I've learned to embrace the idiocy, or at least look forward to complaining about it. Yeah, that's the ticket. Let me down, Joss Whedon; I'll only enjoy it.
Mad Men - "Seven Twenty Three" by Sean Witzke
What does it take for Don Draper to sell his soul? Does Don Draper still have a soul?
This episode opens up with Peggy Olsen in bed with somebody, Betty lying in repose in her gilded cage looking like a goddamn Varga painting and Don Draper lying with his face all bloody in an empty motel room. Like Breaking Bad and shit! Don goes into work and Conrad Hilton is already there, waiting for him. The two of them have this great relationship for a tv show. Every word is a power struggle, and while they respect each other its blatant that Don feels nothing but contempt for Conrad's cowboy bullshit. Fuck your bible and family photos, Don's got some fucking drinking to do, Connie. Drinking and staring into the blackness of his soul is how this son of a bitch does his goddamn work. Respect his process, you cowboy millionaire jackass. Hilton gives Don work and then prods him with a stab about infidelity. Which is great, especially because Don seems like an adulterer and is - this season he's remained very faithful to his wife and that hasn't been brought up very much.
You remember the guy who came way too close to sexually assaulting Betty at the garden party? Yeah she goes and asks him for a favor, for her civics club or whatever it is. They get along really well and have lunch together - and we learn she was an anthropology major at Bryn Mawr. Betty, who a doctor called "infantilized" is an edjucated woman. Which should tell you all you need to know about Betty, and why she is clearly going nuts - "Thats what you need, a fainting couch". She'll probably end up with crazy molester government advisor guy by the end of the season.
Don, for all his backdoor escape hatch logic, is disgusted by his coworkers shortsightedness. "Do you wanna shear the sheep every year?" he asks to no response.
Peggy Olsen gets a Hermes scarf from Duck Phillips, and we get a conversation between Pete Campbell and Peggy Olsen. Pete knows all the facts and is completely ineffectual and stupid, Peggy is smart but hasn't been paying attention to the minutia of the job. Both of them will probably pay for their ignorance by the end of the season. They should!
Don has a meeting with Jared Harris (yay, he got to keep his job after that dude got crippled!), Roger Sterling and Burt Cooper. They want him to sign a contract, when we all know that Don doesn't sign contracts. It doesn't matter, Jared Harris, that it's the kind of contract Nike gave Michael Jordan after he threatend to fuck them back to the stone age. Don ain't signing it.
Dumbass - Don Draper is fucking gooned and even he knows not to stare into the fucking eclipse "You stare at the sun every day?". Also no one wants to hear about your run. And Hippy teacher - Don Draper doesn't want to fuck you, lady. Seriously. If he wanted to he'd already have done it.
Peggy Olsen tries to sleaze Don Draper for the Hilton account, catches him at a bad moment, as she usually does. He tells her to quit the shit, that he's done helping her out and she should realize how much he's done for her. "You're good. Get better, stop asking for things." Then Peggy fucks Duck Phillips. Which is fucked up because no one should ever do that. Then she does it again.
Roger Sterling tries to get at Don through Betty, and burns that last bit of the bridge between him and Don. Betty is disgusted, and so should you because the dude was in blackface, married his secretary, and this is still the most crass shit he's ever pulled. They talk about it. Or Betty brings it up and Don tells her its none of her fucking business what he does. Then Don calls on being Betty is a massive narcissist, leaves her with the crying baby, keeps drinking while he drives to nowhere. He picks up two clear highway bandits masquerading as newlyweds. They talk about how theyre getting married to dodge the draft, and Don doesn't give a shit. "Are you a spook?" "Nope, I'm in advertising". They tell they're high, once again Don does not give a shit. They give him phenobarbitol to knock him out, and they don't because there's enough alcohol in his system to run a goddamn space shuttle. Don sees his father drinking in the corner, laying into him about his worthless job and soft hands. I like to think that Don hears that in his head all the time and we're just seeing it now. Then the damn kids knock Don out, he wakes up w/ a broken nose. Six episodes in, this is clearly the point where everything starts to crack and in two or three its all going to fall apart. This shit is gonna get bad.
Betty buys the fainting couch, Don goes into work and explains the nose as "fender bender" without anyone asking. Burt Cooper makes a power move against Don, telling him he stands on the shoulders of someone else and that he knows a little bit about him, asks him to sign the contract. Even though he says - wel sign Don, but you're not Don. I don't know if Don would have signed ten minutes ago but his hallucinated father mocking him and the wake-up call of being jacked? Don signs it on one condition - that he never has to deal with Roger Sterling ever again. Last scene is Don telling his gilded-cage wife that he signed it and then, trudging up the stairs to the tune of "I sold my soul to the company store". All it took was a broken nose and to be called a soft boy by his dead father.
Sons of Anarchy: "Eureka" by Tucker Stone
This episode continued the display of how little the writers seem to grasp the strength of the actors they've got: namely, that they've got the wrong lead. Jax is attractive, sure, but when he's put into scenes with Opie--the straggly, taciturn widow who doesn't realize that Hellboy murdered his wife, played by Ryan Hurst--Jax's basic lack of charisma and range is laid so wide open that it's pathetic. Take a look at the two methods Jax has for delivering his lines--a smirking, "oh i'm such a boy" grin on his face or a sullen "i didn't want to play with you" whine to his voice. When he's thrown into scenes with Hellboy, it's nearly unwatchable--Jax should have the upper hand, knowing what he does about Hellboy's betrayal of the club's overly serious ideals, and while the script provides the dialog with which to build that illusion, Jax is incapable of delivering them in any fashion beyond a childish whine. When contrasted against the best scene of the episode--Hurst folding his gangly frame onto a curb alongside Ron Perlman and accomplishing the same goal as Jax while still respecting and strengthening Perlman's authority--it makes Jax seem that much more ridiculous, while making the brotherhood of the show seem far less saccharine than it does in the mouth of its blond pretty boy. "The road helps," is what he says, and all of a sudden, I'm sitting here giving a shit. Considering how much smarter everything gets when Opie speaks, it's obvious that the writers have already figured out what a talent they have in the dead-eyed actor who plays him, and yet they continue to throw out the meatiest screen time for a lead who grows more intolerable with every minute he appears. But that's the nature of any visual entertainment, or at least the ones with an American bloodline. The attractive take the spotlight, counting on the talented to let them coast. Forget it, Jake. It's cable tv.
On the other side, the fallout from Katey Segal's gang rape remains as horribly predictable to watch as it is offensive, with Henry Rollins seemingly unaware of what the word "subtlety" might mean. Watch as he bounds around the street, grinning and chuckling like a buffoon! Listen as he yammers to what can only be his overly tattooed spawn about practice meeting perfection, and "all that shit" about hard work! The guy couldn't telegraph whatever subtext he's been told the scene includes any harder if he was wearing a t-shirt that said "I'm an evil, evil, evil monster! Gang rapingly racist I am! What a stinker!" While Adam Arkin isn't exactly lighting the house on fire with his portrayal of Most Pensive White Supremacist Who Spends Six Hours Dusting A New Wooden Sign, at least he's got enough sense to deliver some of his tired schtick with a variance of tempo and volume. God knows, that's the only innovation that can be found in a line like "that sounds...like a threat", only one of the many stock phrases Arkin spits out after gnawing on the sides of his mouth. (What the hell is Arkin doing with his cheeks before he starts talking? Every close-up includes a shot of him where he appears to be moving pebbles around in his mouth, like some kind of Buddhist squirrel.)
For whatever reason, I'm probably going to stick this out a little longer. The action scenes are terrible, the jokes aren't funny, but some of these guys--Ryan Hurst in particular--are doing an excellent job creating a compelling take on how far some men will go to maintain the only relationships they can feel comfortable in. Sons isn't very romantic with it's male/female pairings, but when it comes to male/male, it's the redneck version of Little Women. Alcott would be proud.
House: "Epic Fail" by Tucker Stone
Surprise, surprise!
1) It's called "Epic Fail".
2) It's got a lot of Olivia Wilde.
3) It has very little of Chase.
4) Andre Braugher is apparently not going to have any more good scenes.
5) Hugh Laurie does a good job.
"Hey! That sounds like a shitty episode of House!"
It IS a shitty episode of House! Sure, it had some choice moments, like the always intoxicating opportunity that arises when House and Wilson do their best impersonation of Cowell & Seacrest--just fucking kiss him, no one lives forever--but it's also just another way station on the road towards regularity. Considering the people who run the show still haven't gotten around to changing the opening credits, the constant pretense of "change" has worn sick and weary, and nobody but a fool would wear it. Cast it off! Cast 13 off while doing it! Seriously, cast that character down a well. Sure, some people will complain that you're being sexist or bigoted or whatever, they'll claim that Fox is pulling a Rupie Murdock Shuffle on this female bisexual character with a choice spot on a prime-time television show, but get this man, those people are Fucking CRAZY, because any scene that 13 is in would be vastly improved if her character were replaced by an upside down broom wearing a tie.
Oh, and they better be kidding about Taub quitting. That's some rifle/tower kind of shit right there.
Dexter: "Living the Dream" by Tucker Stone
The problem with Dexter has always been the same: Michael C. Hall is physically incapable of filming on a constant basis, and, like 24 before them, the writers have to come up with shit for everybody who isn't Michael C. Hall (or Jack Bauer) to do so that their main horse doesn't come down with a broken femur. (At some point, the people who run Dexter even admitted that problem--Hall, like most humans, is only available for 24 hours out of any given day--and then blamed the torturously awful romantic subplots of the non-Hall actors on that very subject. Damn you, Michael C. Hall's human body! Why must you demand sleep and the intake of food?)
Of course, none of that explains why Julie Benz continues to grow more and more repellent as each minute of her performance rolls on. Jesus, how did she get this job, anyway? Was it a Make-A-Wish foundation kind of thing?
The new season of Dexter can only compound those problems. Whereas the second season took the smart turn of having the entire arc focus on Dexter's attempts to evade the capture by both law and Lila, the third almost completely abandoned his struggling sociopathy while inventing a new (and barely explored) serial killing nemesis to fill up time. With season four, we see yet another new, incredibly talented serial killer, this one played by John Lithgow, who has had as many great performances as he's had bad. And that's the mix, with many flavors congealed. Dexter's wife, empowered by their new baby, now feels comfortable ordering him around. Dexter's struggles with faking emotion go unmentioned, and that entire thread--which was both the show's strongest guarantee of humor, while also being the engine for what made it most fascinating--seems to be all but abandoned. Dexter himself no longer seems to even be driven by his need to kill, treating his sole murder as one half of desire as it is of necessity. The questions that the pregnancy and marriage raised--whether Dex is emotionally capable of love for the child, the wife--aren't addressed. The curious sound of Hall's voice as he tried to explain his behavior to himself has changed to one of simple narration, no longer serving as the oasis of confused deceit that made the character so unique. Simply put, Dex isn't lying to himself anymore, so he's not lying to the viewer, and his character has lost what made him so enticing to begin with--now he's just another dad with a neglected hobby and a nagging wife.
That's not to say that things can't change--they certainly could, although the melodramatic sight of John Lithgow screaming in a scalding shower doesn't bode well. If the only thing we'd seen of Lithgow's Trinity Killer had been the horrifying opening murder, which singularly pointed to how incredibly frightening and well shot Dexter is capable of being, how much more terrifying would he have seemed? That scene alone trumped everything in the third season, and stands alongside the best parts of season two as some of the most unsettling sequences the show has ever done. Nude, whispering and comforting, the razor comes down..that's not something that anyone is likely to forget.
But one scene isn't enough, and every season premiere of Dexter before this one has served as an extended Table of Contents, displaying what major problem the remainder of the season will see Dexter exploring. And while it would be nice to have some hope...hell, you saw season three, right?
-Matthew J. Brady, Sean Witzke, Martin Brown, Tucker Stone, 2009
I don't know whether the fact that you're the type of person that refers to Ron Perlman as "Hellboy" consistently throughout a review of something completely unrelated makes me happy or sad.
Posted by: Lugh | 2009.10.01 at 19:03
Would you prefer "crazy nazi dude from Blade 2"?
Posted by: Sean Witzke | 2009.10.01 at 19:58
Ah, let it make you happy. I call everybody with white hair Hellboy, even if they're a lady.
Posted by: Tucker Stone | 2009.10.01 at 21:33
He. Will. Always. Be. Beast.
fucking philistines.
Posted by: seth hurley | 2009.10.01 at 22:05
HE WILL ALWAYS BE THAT DUDE IN CHAINS IN CITY OF LOST CHILDREN YOU LIAR SETH HURLEY
Posted by: Sean Witzke | 2009.10.01 at 22:53
I'll tear your mind up, I'll burn your soul.
but I won't rape Peg Bundy.
Posted by: seth hurley | 2009.10.02 at 00:34
Oy vey Brady,
I'm watching Dollhouse right now and the juxtaposition of Apollo sex and Helo pushups was as ridiculous a graphic match as maybe I've ever seen. I watched a couple of episodes of this last year and dropped it, so why am I trying it again? I thought Joss was better than this?
hmm...
Jonathan
Posted by: Jonathan Baylis | 2009.10.03 at 07:51
Old post, but since it talks about Lie to Me and Dollhouse...
I watched Lie to me on Monday because (Guest Star!! Character Actor(ish)!!) Enver Gjokaj from Dollhouse was in it, and it was so fucking stupid. I can't imagine it has any actual thought going into it at all.
HOWEVER...
When we were like 11 and 12 or so, Enver, his twin Demir and I snuck into the local theater (an hour or so bus ride away, we grew up in the fucking BOONIES) to see Pulp Fiction. EDGY!
When the lights went up after the movie, Enver (11 or 12 at the time) looked over at me and said "Well, that was about the stupidest fucking thing I ever saw." and sulked all the way home.
I just hope he somehow mentioned that to Tim Roth at one point or another.
I love you too, honeybunny.
Posted by: mateo | 2010.07.01 at 22:30