Television of the Weak: Ain't Those Ladies Wear Baseball Caps In This House

This week, Zeb eats Lost, Matthew gargles Fringe, and Tucker pets 24.

Fringe: "Peter" and "Olivia. In the Lab. With the Revolver."
Matthew J. Brady

So, is this show even worth watching anymore? What was the damn point again? Of the two episodes that have aired since Fringe returned from its month-or-two hiatus, the first was the one that answered that questions positively, a near-perfect blend of the show's stupidity and kinda-coolness. The cliffhanger we were left with was: Dude, Peter is from a parallel universe! Sure, we knew that already, but finally the show got past obvious hinting and had Olivia discover the big secret. So now we get her confrontation with Walter, who proceeds to tell her the whole story, making for an episode-long flashback to his past, which allows the show to start with a clever 80s-style version of the opening credits and continue jokingly throughout by making the 3-D intertitles appear in a funky 80s computer font. Walter also gets to wear young-person makeup and get all emotional when his son (played by an actor who is pretty terrible, but does look uncannily like a younger version of Joshua Jackson) dies immediately after practicing that "flipping a coin across the knuckles" move that adult Peter does, giving Walter his lucky silver dollar, and making a tearful goodbye speech. Convenient!

So, young Peter was sick of an unspecified illness, but Walter was working on a "formula" that could cure him, presumably like a magic potion in a Final Fantasy game. Luckily, Walter had invented a window that could see into the parallel universe we've all heard so much about, where things are more scientifically advanced (they have modern, product-placed cell phones, back in the 80s!). It doesn't help though; Peter gives his tearful farewell and dies pathetically, but there's still hope for alternate-Peter. Unfortunately, Walter watches his double (which he nicknames "Walternate", ho ho ho) screw up the magical cure formula (you see, when he mixes chemicals wrong, it turns red, but when it's right it turns blue, since that's how science works on this show), dooming the other Peter to die stupidly too. So he's got no choice but to build a portal to the other universe and kidnap Peter, and while he does intends to return him, we all know how that went. This will make for an especially awkward inter-dimensional family reunion.

So, yes, ridiculous, implausible stuff, but enjoyable in its stupidity, the kind of thing this show does excellently when it hits that formula just right. Unfortunately, the next episode immediately jumps back to stupidity, without the enjoyability factor to leaven things out. It's an hour long angst-fest, as Olivia gets all guilty about knowing the truth about Peter but being sworn to secrecy by Walter, who fears the revelation will ruin everything, for plot purposes. Even amateur therapist Kevin Corrigan can't make this conundrum interesting. Sure, there's also a plot about some guy that Walter experimented on along with Olivia 20 years ago going around and infecting his fellow subjects with cancer, which makes for at least one nifty visual, but this mostly seems to just be the introduction of a plot generator for future episodes, as more of Olivia's childhood pals pop up and demonstrate strange powers. It's also a chance for Olivia to show what a crappy FBI agent she is, since she runs away from Cancer-Jerk like a slasher movie victim rather than just pulling her gun and shooting him. Given the trend in this show, I fear that this sort of thing is going to be the norm from now on, boring character "tension" and over-seriousness related to the stupidity of the "science". But that first episode gives me hope; the show needs more silliness along those lines, and if it's going to take itself too seriously, it could at least get all bombastic about its universe-hopping headless bad guys and psychic kid criminals instead of scene after scene of dumb shit like people wondering why so-and-so won't look them in the eye. Be dumb, Fringe, but do it smartly, dammit!

24 - "8:00AM - 9:00AM"
Tucker Stone

24's been on so long that the time frame conceit doesn't mean much anymore, and the show stopped coming up with scenarios that closely depended upon the split screen effect. So when something like this episode comes along, finding some juice in those techniques serves up such a fresh reminder of what made the show so compelling that it almost seems like new blood has been injected. It hasn't though, not really--it's just a return to old tricks, the only difference being that this is a style and delivery choice, not another repetition of plot. But when the trick hasn't been used in a while, and the trick hasn't been used this well in an even longer while, it's able to catch hold of the old excitement, and, just like that, 24 becomes entertaining again.

In this episode, we learn that Jack Bauer's previous promises to Renee that he would "help you get through this, whatever it takes" meant that he would take her somewhere quiet at 8:14 in the morning and have some sex with her, and while that was the obvious direction these two have been on since Renee first showed up and yanked Jack away from the Senate subcommittee he so deservedly was being condemned by, it's still a little jarring to see Kiefer Sutherland kissing a woman in an apartment without an ulterior motive involving some kind of bomb. (It's also pretty fucking gross, because a big chunk of the whole "this" that he's helping her "get through" involves the sex she didn't want to have with the blond Cylon from Galactica.) Either way, it's time for an old fashioned boot-knocking, and in the first surprising turn of the episode, the characters are actually given an extended period of time in which to get it on. (Except for one or two instances in previous seasons, people on 24 usually get undressed, have sex, and then get half-way dressed in 10-12 minutes of the show's accelerated run-time.) Not this time. Jack and Renee go at it for a good half-hour, and they seem to really enjoy themselves, which is markedly different from the four times (i can remember, maybe there's more) where characters on 24 were stuck fucking somebody they hated for the good of America.

Of course, the sex means the main action figures on the show are off the table for a long time, so the writers decide to breeze through as many of the standard devices as possible, like the final villain reveal (the Russians, of course), the fan-service Chloe-does-shit moment (where she replaces Bubba as the doomed leader of CTU) and the first of what will  be many return-of-an-old character, this time being weird-old ex-President Logan. Meanwhile, amidst all this nonsense, a brilliantly cast Joel Bissonnette (the food court guy from Fight Club), kills an old man, sets up his trusty rifle, and stares, irritated, at a naked Jack/Renee combo while awaiting the moment when he can pop his own shot off.

From that point, it's never in doubt what's going to happen--Renee will get hit, she'll die, Jack will go crazy/turn purple--and the show will spiral through all manner of bloody revenge. And then they whip out a curveball.

It happens in the seconds right after Renee gets shot--right in the gut, where Jack's wife was shot, back in season one, but at least there's no baby inside, nasty. All of a sudden, the editors and director have a reason to use the split-screen for something other than a doubled shot of what's on screen, for something other than a line-up of head shots. Sean Calley whips out his old copy of the Heat soundtrack, Jack picks up Renee's still breathing body, Bissonnette grabs his rifle, and the two men--separated by buildings, framed on either side of the screen--try to beat the other one downstairs. And while Jack has to carry a naked, dying woman barefoot, Bissonnette is on a much higher floor, and its in those next 120 seconds that the show captures the old magic--an even match, simple drama, no political idiocy, no speechifying, nothing but running, nothing but movement, pace, momentum.

After Jack makes it out, the show gets ridiculous again--some cabdriver from F-Zero wearing a 1920's era Irish cap flies through traffic like he's James Caan in Elf--and Renee, of course, doesn't survive. Kiefer Sutherland does that silent yelling thing that he believes resembles crying, Bissonnette disappears to hatch a new plan.

It's still another dead girlfriend. It's still a shitty season. But those two minutes?

Solid as rocks.

Lost - "Everybody Loves Hugo"
Zeb L. West

So I get this four a.m. phone call from The Factual Opinion’s Editor-in-Chief, Tucker Stone… and he’s all red-in-the-face, telling me I’ve GOT to return to the column because one of my adoring fans left a comment on last week’s Television of the Weak post gushing about how sad he was that I’d missed a week. I’ve always been powerless to the tears of women, children and internet trolls, so like any dutiful freelance “writer” would, I prematurely ended my sabbatical in the Congo, setting my perpetually half-written autobiography aside (composed entirely of 140-character tweets), and returned to the top secret Factual Opinion Headquarters in the basement of the Alamo, just in time to resume my methodical dismantling of the storytelling travesty which has replaced the show I use to like called LOST.

Needless to say I was as shocked as all Americans last week to discover that the parallel ‘flash sideways’ plot was actually…*gasp*…somehow related to the show’s main plot! As my army of faithful readers will no doubt remember, I’ve spent WEEKS bashing the flash sideways as irrelevant, tasteless and rude. But to those who held out hope that this seemingly self-sabotaging plot device might actually pan out, I hope you’re not disappointed if I don’t eat crow. While it’s satisfying to finally see a glimmer of connection between these two universes (the one we’ve spent five seasons building and the one that Captain Obvious slapped together one afternoon after a three-martini lunch) there’s still the small issue of how these two words actually intersect! (For ad nauseam explanation, see last five posts)

But please don’t mistake my disappointment for despair, faithful reader! As fiercely as any die-hard LOST fan, I too want this cock-tease of a show to deliver the powerhouse conclusion we were promised! And I hope (someday) you’ll realize that my merciless criticism of the show’s increasingly lazy writing, transparent plot conveniences, and increasing ratio of exposition to action comes not out of a desire to make my own candle glow brighter! But from an uncompromising desire to get you the ending you deserve! The best and only way I know how! By making snarky suggestions on the World-Wide-Web’s #1 culture, music and fashion-tips blog (I’m talking about TFO here (in case that wasn’t clear)) to the writers of LOST (who I’m positive are reading this) about plot-changes for episodes that were (unfortunately for my needs) filmed months ago!

Why did they blow up Ilana in this episode?

Why did they do that?

Why?

They had to spend some time at the beginning of this episode reminding us who the fuck Libby was, because for three seasons, nobody gave a fuck about that character. She was killed off not out of a desire to deepen Hurley’s character, but because she and the actress playing Ana Lucia were arrested for driving drunk in Hawaii, remember?

In the bonus material of the first season box set, there is a featurette where the writers talk about how they intended to set up Jack as the great white hero in the first episode, and then plan to mind-fuck the audience by killing him off right at the end of the pilot! Dave had a great comment after the 4/2 column, telling an anecdote about the writers shrugging their shoulders when asked by executives what happens when the man stops pushing the button. It’s these same shoulder-shruggers who are responsible for ending this epic story. And I just hate to see such audience loyalty rewarded with such weak sauce.

PS – To my adoring heckler, if you’re the same guy who responded to my first post of this season, I still think you’re ahead in the standings for the best prediction of the season. Plus, I’m pretty sure I found those LOST valentines from the 3/21 post by checking out your Tumblr blog. So in other words, thanks for your participation dipshit! ;D

-Matthew J. Brady, Zeb L. West, Martin Brown, Nina & Tucker Stone, 2010

Comments

[Chris Jones]

Holy shit dude, you really shouldn't sabbatical in the Congo.

[John Pontoon]

I have this dream that someday they'll release "Director's Cut" DVDs of all of the seasons of "24," and every one of them will have this feature:

For every commercial break, there's footage of a character going into a bathroom. Then they show the bathroom door and we hear grunting/farting/tinkling/etc. sounds for the duration of the commercial break. In real time.

Also, I think Oberon Sexton is actually the Riddler.

[Ed]

No, not the same person at all, last week's was my first comment.
As far as the "heckler" bit goes, fair enough, but I will say this: you get the feedback you earn with the tone that you set.