Television Of The Weak: The Best Part Of The Future Is The Part Where Everybody Is Dead

This week, we've got The Venture Brothers, Mad Men, Dollhouse, & House. Hey, what do you want? I've been traveling, and Marty's television was stolen by the poor.

The Venture Brothers: "Blood of the Father, Heart of Steel" by Matthew J. Brady

Yeah, I think this fourth season premiere of the best and funniest animated show around (suck it, Family Guy!) deserves a solid "Holy crap!" With each passing season, the creators get more and more confident in their storytelling, while still delivering metric shitloads of hilarity. And this one is a doozy, continuing right where the third season finale left off but then proceeding to jump forward and backward in time, Memento-style, to get us to the new status quo (which may or may not last more than another episode or two; we'll see). Since the second season, the premieres have been opportunities for experimentation, with revamped credit sequences and shifts in perspective, and while this is no exception, it does seem to be pushing toward a more complex future, or at least doing something unexpected for a little while.

So, the story, from what I can piece together, sees Brock injured in the explosion that killed Monarch henchman 21 (or was it 24? I can't keep them straight), then immediately shipped to an OSI facility, where he thinks he's going to be brainwashed. Also, he has HELPER's head embedded in his chest. He makes an escape via plummeting, and then returns to the compound, leaving his signal watch with Hank and Dean, who are being watched over by OSI agents. The surviving henchman hires Dr. Venture to clone his fallen comrade, offering a mint condition Marvel Mystery Comics #1 as payment, but he can't proceed with the cloning because some Nazis also force him to try to clone Hitler, whose blood runs through the veins of a bulldog that Hank immediately adopts, renaming Giant Boy Detective, after the hero of his teen novels, the ending of which was spoiled by an OSI jerkwad. Brock searches out the doctor that did his superior officer Colonel Hunter Gathers' sex change to get HELPER removed. Meanwhile, Sergeant Hatred becomes the boys' new bodyguard, but Hank doesn't respect him, so he convinces Hank to shoot him while lecturing him about the cost of wasted bullets, and Dr. Venture rebuilds HELPER into a giant spider-bot. Brock hangs out with the bionic man and his Bigfoot lover until he's mentally recovered from his betrayal by OSI (yet flabby). Then he searches out Molotov Cocktease and tries to take down her operation, but is defeated by Gathers and taken into captivity by a rogue espionage cell, which turns out to be led by Gathers in the culmination of a ridiculously convoluted undercover scheme. Finally, Hank, Dean, and Hatred team up to take down the Nazis and kill Hitler, although Dean refuses to let his beloved dog be murdered, and Dr. Orpheus unleashes a face-melting spell straight out of Raiders of the Lost Ark.

Does any of that make sense? Hell, I barely understand it, and I just watched the damn thing; I can't imagine somebody trying to comprehend it who hasn't seen the last three seasons. But screw 'em, this is becoming an insider show, full of nerdy references and hilarious bits of self-referencing humor. And they even do some fun things with the structure, like tracking the condition and value of the comic, which starts out the episode ruined and worthless and progressively gets more and more valuable, until we finally see the moment that it starts to decline. And Brock's quest gets subtitled with one of the features from the comic itself in each scene, including The Human Torch when he's burning at the beginning, The Sub-Mariner when he's coming up from underwater, and Jungle Terror when he's meeting with the rogue surgeon (in the jungle, natch). And sure, that's all clever and everything, but good god, the scenes and dialogue are as funny as ever, with some of my favorite lines being: "You're getting face all over me! Hot melting face!", "Oh, come on! I should have asked RuPaul to paint my camo face!", "You told me you had to make number one, not number two, kid." "I don't speak your special spy..code...talk!", "Those bullets are like a dollar each! I am taking every missed shot out of your allowance!", "You guys are Nazis!" "Nein, we're not!", "The doggie made a poo poo!" "Great, some fucking master race!"

So, good character bits? check. Cool plot developments? check. Ridiculous, hilarious shit happening near-constantly? check. Excitement at where the plot will go next? check. Over the top violence? Check. Funny-ass scenes and dialogue? Double motherfucking check. Yep, the Ventures are back, and as good as ever. If they make me piss myself next week, all is right with the world.

Mad Men: "The Color Blue" by Sean "No Longer Dying" Witzke

Cindy Brady starts off the episode asking why they don't go to church every sunday. Oh yeah, this is gonna be a fun episode. Don goes over to the hippy teachers house and she's got a star sticker on her face. Don, please destroy this woman emotionally, my anti-hippy senses really make me hate her hippy guts. And she's talking about her kids asking about whether or not colors are the same for everyone. Because cliches aren't SOMETHING TO AVOID WHILE WRITING OR ANYTHING. Teacher: "Do you feel bad about what you do?" Don: "Nobody feels as good about what they do as you do". Don's fucking around on Betty again, at least. Back to the tenets of hateful drinking and philandering that made me love Don Draper. Then there's some crap about a fat bearded communist and Peggy doing crap and I don't caaaare wah wah i had swine flu you fake tv fuckers. Jared Harris gives Don his paycheck, tells Don he's got to give a speech. Fat communist is competing with Peggy or something, the kind of drama that happens on these shows to keep things running when the interesting stuff happens NEXT episode. We meet Jared Harris' wife, who totally hates New York because it's full of fat ladies (not true) and blacks (true, why it's awesome) and "criminals at every level" (sorta true, if you're a liberal whiner). Jared Harris likes it here, because it's not all about class. Ha! Guess he doesn't watch the show. Hippy Teacher and Don are interrupted by Hippy Teacher's epileptic brother. Hippy Teacher defends Don to Epileptic Brother, who judges people harshly. Roger Sterling and Burt Cooper hang out together, hogging up all the old white dudes for the rest of the planet. Sterling talks about discovering Don and Betty at some company upstate. Fat Communist Beardo even drinks like a bad actor. He and Peggy are writing ads for Western Union, and my grandad worked for them for most of his adult life, not too far from Don Draper actually - he grew up on a farm without electricity and ended up working on some of the earliest telecom satellites, had a govt. security clearance and everything. It makes the "outdated" notion they're selling on this episode kind of backwards to me. Uh, yeah telegrams don't matter anymore but they kind of built the infrastructure that the internet exists on, you shitheads. Show some fucking respect. Hippy Teacher catches up to Don on the train, because apparently they don't teach "boundaries" at whatever Montessori school he "inspires" at. Fat communist meets a maintenance guy called Achilles, doesn't listen to him, and then says he gave him an idea, decides to spend the night in the office. He wakes up, realizes he didn't write it down, and goes nuts looking or it. Jared Harris practices his speech to his assistant, the english toady kid who was also on Bones (have you watched Bones? It's charmingly awful). The British calls Harris up, tell him they're looking to sell Sterling Cooper off asap, he doesn't know what to do about it. Betty calls the Governor's Aide (while wearing her best Emma Frost sweater), and he tells her to stop screwing around with him and act like an adult (never gonna happen, there buddy). Harris has to convince Cooper to attend the party, slimy dog that he is. Betty finds the keys to Don's desk drawer, and like the Hayley Mills character she's dressed as, she snoops in his memory shoebox, ignoring the massive wads of cash he's got sitting there. She freaks out at finding the divorce certificate in Don's name. Don offers to drive Epileptic Brother to his job at a hospital somewhere, he doesn't really want to, says "Julius Caesar had epilepsy and he ran Rome" Don: "It didn't work out so well from him". Don tells him to call him if he needs him, according to Don that's the first time he's ever said that. Betty sits at home waiting for Don, and Don isn't coming home. he's going to screw the Hippy Teacher. The problem is that Betty really doesn't know how to react to this, and just kind of mopes around her house. After the commercial, we cut to Don walking in angry to his office, calls his wife asking about his tux. Betty makes the angry face, not understanding how to react to it and Don charms her in a line out of it. The b-plot that pissed me off, with the Beardo and Peggy thinking up ideas for Western Union, settles itself out with the message that "it all works out". Yeah thanks b-plot, great fucking shakes you've achieved tonight filling time between Don Draper scenes. Don Draper on the dais, being presented by a man who hates him to talk to a room full of people who hate him, and we never get to see him speak, just Betty staring at him not knowing who he is. Only three episodes left this season, and hopefully they won't be as chock full of filler like this one.

Fringe: "Dream Logic" by Matthew J. Brady

So, wait, what's the Fringe over-plot again? Is it about groups of scientists committing acts of terrorism in hopes of gaining the attention of some major force or other, or has that gone away, and now it's about war with invaders from another universe? I'm apparently having trouble keeping up, but this episode doesn't really fit into either one, so I guess it doesn't matter. It must be the Fringe equivalent of an X-Files "monster of the week" episode, although who knows if anybody has come up with a term for that yet. I propose "Monthly Mad Scientist Massacre", since these episodes seem to show up more rarely.

So, this week we've got people having waking nightmares, seeing those around them as monsters or something, and going on killing sprees before dying of exhaustion. Also, their hair turns white as they die, which is an odd detail, since even though they paid for the effects, nobody bothers to mention it during the episode. Anyway, turns out they were all recipients of treatment for sleep disorders, undergoing an experimental treatment in which a chip was placed in their brain to control the thalamus, and thus fix the dream issues. Long story short, the chip was wirelessly controlled, so somebody was mainlining their dreams as a drug, which also caused them to go crazy and experience waking nightmares and murderous paranoia for some reason. That doesn't make much sense at all, especially since the point was made that the bad guy was "stealing" their dreams and thus making them die from exhaustion, but they were still somehow seeing nightmares. And that's impressive that only terrible nightmares were induced; nobody dreamed about dancing with fluffy bunnies or fucking supermodels? What a waste.

There was one bit of inspired silliness, made possible by some good guest-casting: the scientist leading the study was so earnest and concerned that nobody could have expected him to be the bad guy. But then Olivia comes up with a bit of trivia about how her alcoholic uncle was like a different person when he was drunk, so boom! Split personality. Ridiculous but entertaining. There was also a subplot about Olivia trying to get over Charlie's death, and Kevin Connelly's treatment is to have her collect business cards from random people, then choose random letters from the people's names and rearrange them to find some secret message. Whatever, that's dumb, but it fits with the dorky Mr. Miyagi type of stuff he does. The funny thing is, whenever she asks people for business cards, they get all befuddled, like it's some bizarre request. I wouldn't think an FBI agent wanting your card was that big a deal, but maybe they're afraid of ending up on a list. Ah well, entertaining enough, I suppose. You gotta take what you can get, beggars can't be choosers, and always look on the bright side of life.

House: "Brave Heart" by Tucker Stone

In the annals of "this is a joke, right" openers, this particular episode of House wins a prize, and that prize is megghlllhhhaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhck. I mean, don't get me wrong: it's nice to see Jon Seda working. I've never actually liked Jon Seda, but I don't wish him ill or anything. He's just "one of those guys", he was on Oz, and I'm pretty sure I saw him in that boxing movie he made with Cuba Gooding Jr. and that assclown from Twin Peaks. So good for Jon Seda, getting to play a patient-of-the-week on House, good for him for jumping off a fucking building for no good reason beyond "see, this guy doesn't care if he lives or dies", even though that doesn't have remotely anything to do with the plot of the episode. But hey, work away. I don't fucking care. I mean, sure--plight of the Latino actor, fucking dude has to work on C.S.I. Miami because hey, he's Puerto Rican, sorta, but at the end of the day, the highway called "America has no decent roles for non-whites" is running parallel to "Jon Seda is so fucking boring". Hey, it bugs the shit out of me that the last time I saw Omar was on a shitty episode of Law & Order, that Marlo Stanfield played a ridiculous voodoo bad guy in Max Goddamn Payne, it really irks the shit out of me that Michael ended up doing that No, Really, God Is A Lie, So's Jesus 90210 is BACK, Melrose is a-coming! Yes, that bugs me. I like those actors. (Not enough to use their real names, apparently!)

Oh, wait. Omar Epps!

Nevermind, House is cool. I'm cool with House. See how Omar screamed when it turned out Jon Seda wasn't dead? That scream was the best scene that Omar's had since those two episodes where he was dying, the one where he stabbed the fuck out of Cameron and said "now you've got it too", and he said it in that way that lets you know he's ending every single line by mentally adding the word "you fucking bitch" before inserting the period. That shit was epic, I had zero problems with those episodes. This one wasn't as good--I like watching Omar scream though. That was a really, really weird scream. It was so weird that I almost thought, shit, is that really the way Omar Epps screams? Because man, I hear people scream all the time--i got weird testicles, deal with it--and I have never heard a scream like that. That shit was Dr. Strange, it was Katzenjammers, it was fucking zoinks in the nose. Wait, what the hell was I talking about?

No more Taub, that's the plan, huh? I'm gonna miss that guy, but I can't complain too hard about an episode that was nice enough not to include one second of Olivia Wylde. I know it's passe and all to hate on Olivia Wylde, and yes, it is sort of weird how the entirety of the universe seems to have risen up and said "we all dislike the pretty white girl", and no, I couldn't tell you exactly why I don't like 13. I could tell you she's got zero chemistry with Omar Epps, or that her suspenders are stupid, or that she's the sort of actor that makes me wonder what it would look like if they replaced her with the dead body of W.C. Fields, or that her hair always looks greasy, or that I'm sick and fucking tired of lipstick lesbians that seem to have been created solely out of dingy all-male writing basements. See, I could tell you all of that. But again: what the hell was I talking about?

Oh, House. So the Puerto Rican Actor had a messed up heart due to a button in his brain, House figured it out while flirting with Cuddy, it turns out that Wilson is even more pathetic than the last time you found out that he did something pathetic, but he still is the best foil that House ever had, or will have, and this show should definitely give the two of them a couple more road trip episodes. At least before he starts fucking Cuddy, which is probably going to happen pretty soon. I used to want it to, but then Lisa "Former Club Kid" Edelstein was rude to a couple of real world friends of mine, and now I sort of think she's trash--bros before fictional characters, that's how we do things. Oh, and because the writers are diabolical, there's going to be a bunch of scenes where Chase and Cameron have arguments about their relationship, and trust, and it's going to be kind of uncomfortable to watch, since the actors playing those parts aren't going to be getting married anytime soon, which means ever, despite the fact that the guy who plays Chase proposed to the lady who plays Cameron on the fucking Eiffel Tower. And look, I don't know who dumped who, and I'm not going to read OK! or HELLO! or PRIVATE SHIT! to find out, but seriously man. It doesn't fucking matter who dumped who. If you propose to somebody on the Eiffel Tower, and then you don't get married--you ever want to see that fucking person again? Of course not.

-Matthew Brady, Sean Witzke & Tucker Stone, 2009

Comments

[Chris Jones]

"i got weird testicles, deal with it"

What the fuck?!

[AERose]

Deal with it.

[Matthew J. Brady]

Maybe they're not that weird, but people are just screaming because you're always showing them to them. Don't jump to conclusions!

[Tim O'Neil]

You know, I love the Ventures too, but man, that show had just about the worst pilot of any good show I can remember. Took me a long time to come around after the first season proper started because the first pilot (which had run a few months before the rest of the show) was so, so terrible.

[Matthew J. Brady]

I remember thinking the pilot was funny when they first showed it, but nothing all that special. Seeing it again after watching the later episodes is kind of painful. It sort of fit in with the rest of the Adult Swim lineup, mostly consisting of references to old cartoons and sex jokes. But man, once the series proper started, it got good quick.