Television Of The Weak: I Could Build An Entire Defensive Line Out Of Whatever Substance It Is That Makes Joan Rivers Look Like That

This week, we've got 24, Dollhouse, Fringe, The Mighty Boosh, Celebrity Apprentice & Lost

24: "4:00AM-5:00AM"

The image tells the tale, no pussyfooting around the obvious this time: we've got ourselves a full-on placeholder chapter of 24. Did Tony 2.0 spend the majority of the episode limping back and forth around some innocent Muslim's apartment? Was there a Jack-says-goodbye-to-someone-foolish-enough-to-believe-the-"he's dying" crap? Was the only death a car explosion so predictable it almost had an onscreen countdown?

Yes to all, unfortunately. And while the Cry-Cry scene was between Chloe and Jack, one of the only remaining non-fucked up relationships on the show to have lasted beyond one season, it still had to struggle with the same problem that all emote-heavy scenes on this show always has, in that the viewer finds them only tolerable when they serve as the final seconds before the clock shows up to close a season. On top of that, the continuing addition by the writers of scenes where Sutherland is forced to participate in High School debate team tomfoolery with people like Janeane Garofalo--"Has anyone HEARD OF RACIAL PROFILING", yeah, that's subtle--as if it will somehow retroactively negate what seven seasons of 24 have created, a world where, yes, Might Makes Fucking Right and oh yes, Everybody Breaks But The Bauer. It's not just that Kiefer Sutherland looks uncomfortable and strange attempting to excuse the decision to spy on every brown-skinned immigrant in Washington DC, it's that the writers of 24 don't even have an answer to put in Garofalo's mouth to respond to his confused "Do you have a better idea?" Of course she doesn't have a better idea--for good or ill, the actors on 24 have always been variably talented monkeys, spitting out whatever made-up tech-terminology the writers cribbed from a research session with Google. Back in the days before the New Yorker called them out and laid the blame for Guantanamo Bay at their doorstep, 24's writers were content to just do their job: write an action show that employed whatever-means-necessary to get by. Now, the producers have fallen for their own hype, believing they should only show torture and racism if they throw in some kind of in-plot disclaimer--even going so far as to bring on Air America herself to handle the delivery. And yet the result is just a pain to watch, serving less to make 24 seem responsible and more to make 24 seem like it's culling a line or two from an undergraduate term paper on government. It's not that there aren't juvenile degenerates who watch 24 and believe it to be real--of course there are, it's a popular enough show that at least a part of its audience includes people who use Google to hard boil an egg--it's that those people aren't going to be anymore convinced of the illegitimacy of torture than they would be if Paula Abdul wrote a song on the subject. 

But fill the time they must, so fill the time they do--and yes, it's all shit you can see coming. Jack will end up facing off to Tony, Chloe will pull some last minute techno save, the President will figure out her daughter is responsible for the loss of Jon Voight, the Ham Captain Who Throws Things, and Agent Freckles will have to make some kind of horrible decision that goes against her morals. Again. 

Oh, and at some point they're going to cure Jack of his shakes and shivers. Hopefully they'll do it before Agent Freckles tells anymore random strangers about his upcoming death. (What the fuck WAS that?)

Dollhouse: "Briar Rose" by Matthew J. Brady

Well, shit, this was a pretty goddamn good fucking episode. Looks like Whedon and company are turning things up a few notches for the end of the season. This being the first half of the season (and perhaps the series) finale, things are revealed, shocking shit happens, etc. But it's quite enjoyable, with some interesting (if not exactly unexpected) developments, a good deal of humor, some exciting action, and a few insidery moments (or maybe just one, with Victor doing a hell of a Dominic impression). Good times.

We kick off with a nice scene in which Echo helps an abused orphan girl come to terms with her situation, which is an interesting use of Dollhouse technology, and some surprisingly decent acting by Eliza Dushku. Although if you want to nitpick (and I do, of course), is the Dollhouse just doing charity work now? Topher says it's his idea (which involves taking an imprint of the girl's brain, tweaking it to be an adult that has recovered from her difficulties, and inserting it into Echo so that she can show the girl that it's possible to work through her problems), but there's no mention of an actual client. And wait, how did they get an imprint of the girl's brain anyway? Okay, it doesn't make much sense (and there's some lame foreshadowing involving the Sleeping Beauty fairy tale, with a prince coming to the rescue), but it's a nice moment.

And in the other half of the plot, Agent Ballard breaks up with his doll girlfriend (in a scene that's pretty damn sad; Miracle Laurie is yet another cast member who can act circles around the show's ostensible star) and then follows her as she returns to her handler so she can find the location of the Dollhouse. Oh, that arrogant Olivia Williams; if she hadn't been fucking with him, he wouldn't have found them. I've been bitching about that plot hole for months now, and it got opened even wider here. Seriously, why did they just not kill him in the first episode? Anyway, Ballard hunts down the guy who designed the environmental systems for the Dollhouse, who turns out to be the highlight of the episode. He's played by Alan Tudyk as a twitchy, agoraphobic pothead, and he's hilarious (as long as you're okay with this kind of Whedonesque humor; some might just find him annoying), going on about carbon footprints and environmental bullshit and just being a general jumpy goofball and saying things like "this is like one of those buddy cop movies, where you're the tough cop and I'm the guy who hates buddy cop movies!" They manage to break into the Dollhouse, and various action and shit happens, and a surprising but easily-foreseen twist involving Tudyk happens (this being the season finale, you can expect that the other long-running subplot would get involved), and then it's To Be Continued!

So yeah, this is probably the best time I've had watching a Dollhouse episode all season, even if it contained it's share of ridiculousness. I didn't think it was possible, but I'm actually going to be disappointed if Fox doesn't pick up the show for a second season. Let's see some more exciting shit next week, guys, so then we can either get stoked for next season or pissed about the cancellation.

The Mighty Boosh: "The Chokes" by Sean Witzke

"Hey Moon, who are you? Zorro on gay night?"

This episode is about two things - Howard acting and Vince attempting to lose weight so he can get into a goth band. The goth band are called "The Black Tubes" and they are played by The Horrors, who are pretty okay and somehow end up collaborating with people who are completely impossible to fault - Nick Zinner, Geoff Barrow, Chris Cunningham, and Sammy the Crab. The best thing about this episode is probably Noel Fielding doing his best Keith Richards circa Rock and Roll Circus. And there's an acting training montage that involves yelling at a pencil. I will assume that this is how all acting classes work. If I am wrong, I assume Nina will correct me, but it's all just yelling at pencils and wearing tights and bitching about John Geilgud. "NO NOT YOUR MOUTH WITH YOUR NOSE BOY TELL ME A STORY WITH YOUR NOSE!". Yeah, and this is the part where I start listing all the stuff cut out...

Two minutes in and they've cut out a ridiculous amount of shit. Like, c'mon... they've stopped trying (evn though they usually fail) to be surgical and now that it's the end of the season, they're just dropping everything they can - partially for time and standards - but they're just burning through jokes at this point. Hey, that's a whole season yes? A British six-episode season, but still. It's so strange to me... apparently Adult Swim is posting the stuff online, but that doesn't really do much for people watching it on air, now does it? Those clips are censored too, and they don't go up until days later anyway. But why is Adult Swim doing it so haphazardly? Standards and practices are extremely lenient after midnight, so there's one of their arguments gone. Cutting for time? Well if they wanted to do that they would have just cut the moon sequences out of every episode, as they absolutely never add to the story. They're chopping up jokes, many of which have callbacks later in the episodes themselves. I don't understand the logic of whoever is re-editing these pieces for an American audience - cutting out Rich Fulcher's bartender ranting about twisting the head off of a cat is completely gone, so is Naboo losing his shit about trainers in the middle of a production of Candide, but "Who the fuck is John Sim" is stil here? A) it's bleeped so what's the point, and B) no one in this country knows who John Sim is! Dr. Who nerds and people who watched the original Life on Mars via torrents, sure, but no one else. The problem here is that "The Chokes" was never the funniest episode of The Boosh, and when nearly all the funny parts have been excised, altered, or just plain ruined, I'm just thinking "Get your shit together and get the fuck on with it, Adult Swim, you're underselling this show and it's going to fuck up your karma something fierce."

And I don't even fucking believe in karma, what do I look like, a fucking BALLERINA?

Next week - "Mutants"? That's from the middle of season 1! What the shit? Hey at least we get a taste of Fulcher and Berry going off each other, that's better than having two legs.

Fringe: "Midnight" by Matthew J. Brady

Not a bad cold open this week, as we see a dude who's going out to get laid while his girlfriend is out of town, and maybe also murder the chick he picks up, since we see him put a knife in his pocket right after hearing the news talk about a murder in which the victim was killed with a hunting knife. At the club, which seems to be populated solely by hot chicks who enjoy it when guys approach them and utter the perfect pickup line ("I think you're my type"; which seriously gets used successfully three times this episode). He ends up taking a girl home, but, to everyone's non-surprise, she turns out to be the killer (twist!), snapping his neck and severing his spine. Nasty.

It turns out she's behind a string of murders, and after some sleuthing by our heroes, we find that she's been infected with a disease that makes her overheat and burn off her spinal fluid, making it necessary for her to kill people and drain theirs. It also makes her strong and giver her intermittently-appearing sharp teeth, which make for handy accessories. The team finds a mad scientist, who turns out to be her husband, and he knows about the terrorist cell named ZFT that they've been tracking, but won't reveal anything unless they help him catch her and cure her. Nothing too crazy; we get some chase scenes, and autopsies, and a few of those bits where FBI agents rush into a location. It's funny, because the first time they seem really nonchalant about it, but the second time they all get into SWAT gear. Not that it matters, since they don't encounter any resistance either time. There's also a scene in which Olivia and Peter capture and tranquilize the monster girl, and are taking her back to the lab, and we see her wake up in the backseat, and she attacks Olivia, but they subdue her in a few seconds and get back to business. What a wasted chance for action. Oh, and there's a bit about her having really blue eyes as a side effect, so after Walter gives her the cure, they all watch to see if her eyes turn back to a normal color, even though nobody ever said anything about the blueness being an indicator of disease or anything.

All in all, a pretty silly episode, with a bunch of annoying bits (I didn't even mention the exciting subplot about Olivia's sister's divorce proceedings), but there were some nice moments with Walter, including him being excited to work with another mad scientist, or congratulating Peter for having an open mind when he makes a joke about hunting for vampires. Eh, whatever. Is this show popular? I'm starting to wonder why I watch it.

The Celebrity Apprentice: "Week Ten"

Last week, The Celebrity Apprentice was padded with a yawning sequence, which was fairly appropriate—not only as a comment on the show’s ridiculous 2 hour running time, but on the general mental state of everyone involved. Of course, last week’s episode also ended with a Melissa Rivers conniption fit, which is at least proof that exhaustion isn’t always boring. This week, in order to fill out the length of the episode, The Celebrity Apprentice jumped to the next level in NBC’s obvious attempt to weather the rough economy: product placement. For the first half of the episode, the teams were assigned the task of creating a jingle and thirty second commercial for Chicken of the Sea tuna. Involving a product as part of the challenge has always been a part of this show, and just about every other show of its ilk (watching Survivor squeeze Charmin products into their challenges is always particularly awkward), but this time, not only did we have to witness the jingle’s creation process—with the line “Ask any mermaid you happen to see” repeated ad nauseum—but the producers played the commercials at least three times in their entirety: Once during the recording process (twice for Joan Rivers and Jesse James’ team), once during the pitch to the Chicken of the Sea CEOs (Sea-E-Os?), and once in the boardroom while the camera lingered on Trump’s facial reactions. As if we didn’t feel dirty enough already for watching The Celebrity Apprentice, now we’re reduced to watching thirty seconds’ worth of Donald Trump humming along to Clint Black singing about tuna.

Clint’s team lost the task—not because their project was weaker, but because their jingle was “country,” and therefore might appeal to a smaller audience. Clint was fired, but that was bound to have happened anyway, as the boardroom was followed by the remaining four contestants’ final interviews, which culminated in the firing of Brande Roderick and Jesse James. Brande was fired because interviewer and last season’s Celebrity Apprentice Piers Morgan thought she was too stupid to compete in the finals. Jesse James was fired because he hadn’t raised a single dollar for charity since he’d been there, refusing to call his wife, Sandra Bullock, or her friends, and ask them to donate. Obviously, keeping business and your personal life separate is a noble pursuit at any level, and you can’t fault James for that. But toward the end, it became increasingly obvious that Jesse James was more interested in using The Celebrity Apprentice for self-promotion than anybody else—he may have had “blue collar” reasons for doing so, but every time he was asked about raising money, he responded by saying what a hard worker he was. Jesse and Brande’s firings paved the way for an Annie Duke-Joan Rivers grudge match in the finale—which, frankly, was inevitable. Joan marked Annie as abrasive and unbeatable weeks ago, and has been talking shit ever since—so much that, now that the final 2 have been chosen, it almost seems as if Joan and Melissa’s beef with Annie is a cleverly constructed arc to get the Rivers women into the final. 

Okay, maybe it’s not that clever.

Lost: "The Variable" by Zeb L. West

So, what did Daniel Farady come back for?

At last episode’s end, Faraday greeted a shocked Miles, looking sharp as ever and ready stir up trouble. But the curveball in this week’s episode is that Faraday has reversed his essential philosophy! No longer is he repeating his mantra that ‘you can’t change the past’ but on the contrary, he’s hell-bent to do so!

Our formerly stoic mathematician is a now a man on a mission, first demanding that Jack explain how half the Oceanic Six managed to end up in the 70s. Poor beaten-down Jack is mocked by Faraday for being convinced by Eloise Hawking that a return to the island was his ‘destiny.’ Pshaw to your faith, man of science!

Speaking of Eloise, the episode’s first flashback details her dream-squashing parenting of the young prodigy Daniel, who she dissuades from his musical ambitions despite his uncharacteristically mature objections that “I can do both... I can make time.” The scene features a young Faraday (reliably cast by the Creepy Kid Talent Agency, INC) who looks like he’s reading his lines off of cue cards while acting woodenly with a young Eloise Hawking who looks like she’s slowly giving in to her own insanity. If I had to wager a guess, I’d say our next adolescent cameo will be a young Hurley, tenderly portrayed by a toned down Jonah Hill.

The revelation of the episode is Widmore’s admission that Daniel is his son, which by quick math makes Faraday Penny’s half-brother! Widmore, the shadowy sponsor of Daniel’s research, proposes the physicist travel to the island to both push the old man’s agenda, and to be healed of the short-term-memory loss resulting from the experiments that killed his girlfriend/assistant Theresa. Eloise does her part to convince her son to return to the island, which we later learn will be the culmination of both their sad fates…

Episode high points:

• Desmond makes a full recovery after being capped in the chest by Ben, only to renew his storybook promise to never leave Penny never ever not even once, cross my heart brother. 
• Juliet’s catty interaction with Kate where she tells the freckled con-girl the sonic fence code in an attempt to get her to go away.
• Desperate Faraday outs Miles as the son of Dr. Chang – but the flabbergasted doctor isn’t quite ready to believe it yet.
• Widmore inexplicably chucks a copy of Wired magazine off of a chair in Faraday’s house. (Product placement? Or more desperate attempts at nerd appeasement?)
• And last but not least (the more musically savvy might have more info) I'd swear there's a new musical theme this season which I always enjoy hearing. In this episode it underscores the scene where Jack, Kate and Daniel are about to cross the sonic fence.

In closing, I’m still left to ponder… why did Daniel Farady return?

Without knowing what transpired during his trip to Ann Arbor, I’d say he came back to be taught a lesson. Ever the proponent of time’s inevitability, he somehow mustered the hubris to try and battle the will of the island.

His plan: detonate the hydrogen bomb buried beneath the island to counteract the electromagnetic anomaly later know as ‘the hatch.’ Although his heart was in the right place – wanting to spare Desmond years of button pushing and re-route the ill-fated Oceanic 815, ultimately destiny settles the score. He spent the episode searching for his mother, but found her bullet instead and with his last breath realized that they were fortune’s fools - his mother doomed to believe so zealously in the cause of the Others that she would send her own son back to the island to die at her hand.

A tragic irony, certainly, and only time will tell if any of his desperate late-life measures will cause any ripple in the space-time continuum!

-Sean Witzke, Matthew J. Brady, Zeb L. West, Martin Brown & Tucker Stone, 2009

Comments

[Matthew J. Brady]

Maybe all the cuts are why that one episode of Boosh that I watched seemed inexplicable to me. I should try to watch it online and see if I can grok it. And by the way, I think Adult Swim lost most of its karma when they started airing shit like 12 oz. Mouse. But they get it all back for each new season of Venture Brothers.

Hey, where do you get the images for these posts? The one for Fringe is pretty perfect this week. Are they posted online somewhere, or do you actually do screen captures? I'm impressed.

[Duncan]

The Boosh is an acquired taste anyway, MJB; I love many of the cast in things like Darkplace and Nathan Barley but have never very much felt it, despite trying to, on at least 3 occasions. [UK perspex, there]

[seth hurley]

Whoa, Daughter in Chief, what is with Paypal-ing assassin's on a work computer? I can't even get Youtube videos to play. I did like the big red EXECUTE button option, as CAR EXPLODES probably wouldn't have fit.

and thank god for Chloe & her trace algorithms, always coming through to absolve the one innocent minority. Not save them of course, that is asking a bit isn't it? Maybe next year they will use trace algorithms to recant testimony that Emmett Till whistled at that white lady, nice set of gams or not.

[10FootBongz]

Sean,
Are you asking what Farraday's motivations for going back to the island were, or why he went back story-wise? It seems that you answered both questions in your breakdown of the episode. Am I right?

[Nina]

Sean, no correction needed from me (if I am the Nina you were referring to). I once had a director yell at me while I was in a scene where my back was to the audience: "act with your spine! i want to see a question mark in your spine!"

And then I put on tights and yelled at a pencil.
:)

[Zeb L. West]

I think you might be referring to me 10FootBongz (I'm Zeb not Sean - our bylines can be a bit confusing)

I was asking story-wise, and I'm still not sure if I know why. Even though I know he came back to set off a bomb and save the world, I'm still not sure what motivated it. Maybe we'll eventually learn what happened out there in Ann Arbor that made him change his essential philosophy.

If you have any speculations, I'd love to hear them.

[10FootBongz]

Zeb,
Sorry about that, the bylines are not confusing, I am just not that sharp. As for Faraday's motivation, my reading is this:

I don't think that Faraday was trying to save the world. I think that he basically lost his mind when Charlotte's body disappeared, and that is why he decided to try and change the past. My support for this theory is that Faraday tried to make sure that 'touch her and the Punisher will get you'-aged Charlotte got off of the island before the A-Bomb went off. His rationale to Jack and Kate was, in my mind, strictly for their benefit.

Also, has every Faraday/Young Charlotte interaction been genuinely creepy, or is it just me?

[Sean Witzke]

MJB - Hey, 12 Oz Mouse is pure fucking Dadaist television! It is literally the only thing that exists like that, and that makes it special. For the Boosh - I'd actually recommend either torrenting it and watching it uncut and in order (which is what I did last year)or seeing if they've had them pulled off youtube yet. I know Dark Place and the IT Crowd are both stuff up in their entirety, but I haven't checked the Boosh. Duncan's right though, it's a completely acquired taste and I understand anyone that's not into it.

And I'm sending Tucker screencaps w/my reviews.

10FootBongz - I have not watched Lost since Mr. Eko was on it but yes. When I finally catch up with it on dvd in 2 years, Zeb's reviews will make sense to me.

Duncan - I've got to check out Nathan Barley

Nina - hey, that originally had someone else's name there, but then again he's editing these things. I WAS RIGHT, THOUGH, WASN'T I?!!

[seth hurley]

Boosh is off Youtube, probably because season 1 is getting a US dvd release this summer.

Nathan Barley, Deadset, Snuff Box, and Brass Eye are all there.

If you guys haven't seen them, I would recommend The Thick of It & Delocated.

[Sean Witzke]

Delocated is awesome, especially the Michael Shannon episode. As is Snuff Box. I've got to catch up on the rest.

[Tucker Stone]

Yeah, images are just screengrabs I get from Fox. Zeb handles his own though--i haven't watched Lost since that Iraqi guy shot the blond girl.