End Of Season Review: Fringe

While futilely attempting to catalogue the weekly TV events of the 2008-2009 season, I spent a long time agonising over Fringe, the wacky science fiction show from J.J. Abrams, Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci. As mentioned in my In Treatment review, there were many other shows on our to-watch list, some of which were actually reliably good (Friday Night Lights and The Shield spring to mind), and yet I felt compelled to keep watching this first, much to Canyon's bafflement. Much of this I can put down to my nerd heritage, but it was also a consequence of the imminent end of Lost. With that show on the final stretch, I need something to replace that, something with a needlessly complex mythology that is filled with Easter Eggs for me to feel good about spotting. Dollhouse looks to be building some interesting ambiguity, certainly about the history and purpose of the Dollhouse itself, but the clues about all of that are being introduced with actual narrative force, making these revelations story beats instead of just getting the prop department to mock up a poster for Massive Dynamic with a phone number on it.


The loss of Lost will leave a hole in my life that will be absurdly big for something as trivial as a TV show, but when Fringe turned out not to be just a procedural but just the kind of batshit sci fi continuity smorgasbord as Lost, I rejoiced. Could this patchy show fill the hole? Would it settle down and provide the brain fodder that Lost did? By the time the season finished, it was sadly still a long way off, with Dollhouse providing the mental workout. More on that some other time.

Of all the shows I watched this season, Fringe was probably the most exasperating. A lot of shows turned out to be just as good as I had hoped (returning shows such as FNL and Big Love), some surprised me (Party Down, Leverage, and Sons of Anarchy are currently making me very happy, though I had expected to be disappointed), and some were terrible from the get-go and never recovered (Knight Rider, Eleventh Hour, and The Unusuals deserve their ignominious cancellations). Dollhouse was the show I was desperate to love, started out hating, and then ended up adoring, but Fringe was one that tested my patience throughout. More than once I considered dropping it, until the episode Safe came along and showed that the glacial pace of Lost was not going to be replicated. At the midpoint of the season, everything kicked off, and it seemed like Fringe was going to be my favourite new show of the year. Except that Fox kept taking it off the air for months at a time, wrecking any narrative momentum, made worse by some dire standalone episodes that will be next to unwatchable when going through the season a second time. Lost's first season might not be a patch on later seasons, but it still maintained a higher standard than this.


It was foolish to assume the show would be Lost 2.0. For a start, ABC might not be the most daring network in the world, but they have been more than willing to give Cuse and Lindelof slack to create the oddest and most complex show on TV even as that oddness and dense narrative repels viewers who have lost patience with it. Fox are pretty much the opposite, as shown by their insistence on dumbing down Dollhouse long enough to put off any viewers who wanted something more intelligent than Bionical Woman. While Whedon seems to be incapable of creating anything that doesn't demand great attention from his audience, Fringe comes from the minds of a bunch of guys who are more than capable of creating challenging and entertaining TV, but also know that they have to play by the rules if they're going to avoid cancellation. The result is a show of dismay-inducing lowest-common-denominator standalone episodes that are filled with story beats that make absolutely no sense if you haven't seen every other episode. It's not quite the worst of both worlds, but it's close.

Compared to the first two seasons of Abrams' Alias (which had Kurtzman and Orci onboard as head writers), Fringe has been, at times, an appalling mess. Part of the failure is down to the main character, Olivia Dunham, who is nowhere near as compelling or consistently written as Sydney Bristow (and Anna Torv is no Jennifer Garner). Several episodes in, her mild-mannered responses to the death of her lover and revelation of his betrayal were obviously not working. At the time I thought Torv was underplaying great emotional pain, but in the sixth episode, The Cure, Dunham is suddenly a vengeance-crazed maverick, suggesting the character was rewritten to become more dynamic. Of course, it could also have something to do with her brain being invaded by the consciousness of her evil (or not evil) lover, but none of it felt like foreshadowing, merely tinkering.


As Masticator pointed out in another internet venue, the second half of the season saw her living with her sister and niece, probably in an attempt to make Dunham seem less like an unlovable career woman (can't have one of those on Fox!). If the network feels that's what Dunham needs, then fair enough. After all, Sydney Bristow lived with Francie Calfo and hung out with Will Tippin, and both of them allowed the writers to give Bristow more moments of vulnerability, as well as having a sounding board for her troubles.

However, Francie and Will were also used brilliantly to complicate her life, especially in the second season. For two characters that, at first, had seemed extraneous, the amazing second season finale would have been nothing without them. Dunham's sister Rachel (played by Nick and Nora's Infinite Playlist scene-stealer Ari Graynor) adds nothing. She kinda flirts with Peter Bishop (the almost eternally smirking Joshua Jackson), and her daughter almost gets her brain melted by an improbable evil scientist in the desperately bad episode The No-Brainer, but other than that, there really is no purpose for them in the show other than to have a child around that Dunham can hug. Look! That woman is reading a story to a child before bedtime! I no longer hate and fear her. Good work, focus group.


Other characters have little or no purpose too. Astrid Farnsworth (Jasika Nicole) is little more than a lab assistant with a wicked 'do, added just so Walter Bishop (John Noble) has someone to throw exposition at when Peter isn't around. Phillip Broyles (Lance "Intensity" Reddick) either gives Dunham some props or some earache depending on what is needed for each episode. He also seems to be simultaneously jaded by the mad science events in the show, and absolutely shocked by them. Happy though I am to see Reddick getting regular work, I wish he was given more to do. He needs to shoot a motherfucker or two in the second season.


Nina Sharp (Blair Brown) has proven to be significantly less interesting than Ben Linus, or even Charles Widmore. There's a bit of back and forth about whether she's a good guy or a bad guy, but compared to my endless pontificating about the alignment of Linus, I'm really not that bothered about her. When it's revealed on the show, I'll give a damn then. Charlie Francis (Kirk Acevedo) has proven to be such a disposable character that he has been fired and not fired with great rapidity. I have no idea what the showrunners are up to there, though it does strongly suggest that people shouldn't drink consolation rum and then go posting on Facebook. Or wear certain egregious hats.


With almost all of the characters leaving me cold, the mad science has to keep me occupied instead, and a lot of the time it fails at that too. For every amazing, creepy visual like The Sealant (which makes your orifices close up, suffocating you to death), or a weird worm crushing a man's heart, there is some stupid Chimera monster on the loose, or a syphilitic cat woman that drinks spinal fluid (what the hell were they doing that week? Someone should tell the writers that three bad ideas do not equal one good one.). The main arc of the show is the thing that saves it, with Walter's tinkering in parallel universes causing a war with a technologically superior version of humanity.


The moment that was revealed was when I mentally committed to the show through thick and thin, as it promised some mindblowing stuff later on, but even then, we find out that Dunham was once a test subject for Walter and William Bell (Leonard Nimoy, in one of the most heavily promoted, and utterly awesome, surprise cameo appearances ever), in order to prepare her for battle as a psychic soldier. Shades of Scanners and X-Files there, and not a problem, except that Sydney Bristow, in Alias, was also trained as a child as part of the absurdly named Project Christmas. It's one thing to complain about how shows by J.J. Abrams seem to focus a lot on father issues, which is kind of unfair as it's not something he is alone in doing, but having two shows feature two special agents who have had a mysterious childhood is really taking the piss. Though still, psychic super-soldiers are a lot more interesting than just your regular super-soliders. I love Captain America, but is he as cool as Michael Ironside and his ability to blow someone's head apart? Exactly.

So, most of the characters suck. Some individual episodes are horribly goofy and uneffective. It can be dismayingly derivative. The format means most episodes end with a race against time, with, at best, a chase sequence or, at worst, Dunham talking someone out of setting fire to her with their brain (didn't they do that twice?). The science is offensively bad, even when you assume a daft sci fi show is liable to fudge the details somewhat. There is far too much evidence of the showrunners playing it safe and doing what the network demands. Why bother with it?


Because JOHN NOBLE IS LOVE, bitches! I can take any amount of dreary Dunham home chat, or Peter Bishop-style smarm, because every so often John Noble wanders into shot, and takes even the stupidest dialogue - yes, even the endless digressions about various foodstuffs - and turns it into a heartbreaking, shocking, hilarious soliloquy (yes, all of those emotions at the same time!). What's best about that is that he actually gets the best dialogue on the show, so imagine how incredible that sounds. His performance as Denethor in Return of the King left me cold, but in Fringe he performs miracles. In the season finale, There's More Than One Of Everything, he has some scenes in an old beach-house during which he has a minor breakdown in front of Peter. Kudos to Joshua Jackson for stepping up to the plate, but the real genius is being displayed by Noble, who is alternately terrifying and vulnerable.



Next to Gabriel Byrne and Michael Emerson, he's the best thing on TV.

He's not the only reason I keep watching, though. That amazing series concept, so much more interesting than "FBI investigates odd science things, has great potential. The episodes that furthered that arc the most were the season highlights, showing up the standalones for the silly mistakes that they were. The ratio of good to bad episodes is tilted in the wrong direction, but even so, the bad episodes often featured some moment of trickery that justified them. The Easter Eggs, mostly involving Michael Cerveris' cameos as jalapeno-loving curio The Observer, are always fun to look for, though again, how much the show will reward rewatching will depend on whether there are even more clues than we thought, and even more future plot twists have been foreshadowed without us even knowing it. Of course, that excludes the heavily sign-posted revelation that Peter is actually Alternate Universe Peter, a twist that was blatantly obvious very early on in the season (though I have to give props to internetter Diane Court for putting her finger on that before me). So far, though, I'm not quite sure what the lens flares mean. Is it to do with crossing back and forth from one universe to the other? Or just a test run for Abrams' dazzlingly bright Star Trek?


Speaking of The Observer, just how cool is he? His introduction in The Arrival was the first hint that Fringe was up to something more than just solving a case a week, and captured my imagination just as I was beginning to think the show was a misfire. It's a good thing too, as the pedigree of the showrunners promised something better than the humdrum introduction. As I am human, I tend to be more disappointed than usual when something doesn't live up to expectations. Kurtzman and Orci get a lot of flack for their film work, and sometimes there is a point there. Their script for The Legend of Zorro was a depressing failure, and the controversy surrounding The Island is the most interesting thing about it. However, they wrote some of the very best episodes of Alias, and only someone with a heart of stone couldn't love their Star Trek revamp. I also didn't hate Transformers, and will not apologise for that, even if judged by God him-and/or-herself (though I reckon God loves Transformers as much as me and has also watched it four times in one week like I did last month).

I'm not sure how much input they have in the show (according to Orci's IMDb page, they're developing nine projects, and that's in addition to their work on the next Star Trek movie), but hats off to them for hiding the real arc of the show for about half of the season, and for gathering together a strong team of writers and directors. Though it was sad to see X-Files legend Darin Morgan depart the show after only a few episodes, the showrunners managed to get some terrific writers like Jeff Pinkner, Zack Whedon, and J.R. Orci, and talented TV directors like Gwyneth Horder-Payton, Lost veteran Paul Edwards, and Christopher Misiano, among others. They also got Brad "Transsiberian" Anderson to direct some of the best episodes (including that excellent season finale), and, in a surprising masterstroke, brought in Akiva Goldsman. For a long time he has been loathed by cinephiles and nerds the world over for writing some of the worst movies of our time, but Bad Dreams, the episode he wrote and directed, was a taut forty-five minutes filled with creepiness, humour, and horrifyingly effective shocks. He can be extremely proud, and I can ease off the urge to scream when his name appears in credits. Give him some better projects to work on, and he might surprise even more people in future.


In the end, I like the idea of the show far more than I like the actual show. It's extremely gruesome, which I always appreciate. It's full of truly awful TV science, but the showrunners have at least made the mad science machines look like real world instruments - all dials and switches and rheostats - which is a lovely touch. The cast is largely forgettable except for one acting titan (Noble) and a bona fide sci fi legend (Nimoy), but I don't really mind, even though that's often a deal-breaker. This is your actual "damned with faint praise" review, but even though the things I love about few and far between, I still do love the show. A surprising amount as well. I can't really explain it. Maybe it's because it's the sort of show I get a kick out of even when it fails, like when you buy a car against everyone's advice just because you like the shape of it, and you can forgive it when the seats aren't that comfortable, or there's a weird smell that never goes away, or the windscreen wipers don't work when they get wet. It doesn't matter. This is the car you wanted! Sometimes that's enough.

People used to say that Heroes was Lost for Dummies*, but in fact it is Fringe that, right now, feels like the low IQ version of Cuse and Lindelof's epic. I don't mean that as an insult, especially as I strongly believe that after this opening season of promising set-ups, quirky narrative experiments, and interesting concepts, the best is yet to come. Let's hope I'm right about that, because after Lost leaves us fans bereft, with Dollhouse unlikely to make it to season three, and Goyer and Braga's Flash Forward an unknown quantity, this might be all we have left to cling to.

* In case you were wondering, Heroes is actually Smallville for Dummies. True fact.

The Return of TV, The Departure Of A Blog Feature

For a while now I have plugged away at writing enormous posts, filled with screengrabs, about the various weeks of TV, a task I once enjoyed and slowly came to dread, simply because even if I had some fun with it the process was horribly time-consuming, which made posting even more irregular than it already was. My reading time was overtaken by attempts at writing comments with every spare moment I got, which eventually became a source of much frustration as my ever-shitty TyTn II phone kept crashing and deleting my work. The last time that happened ended up removing the majority of a Week in TV post, and though I didn't realise it at the time, it was the final straw. I've said it before, and I'll say it again; THE TYTN II IS THE WORST PHONE IN THE WORLD! Do not even think of buying that buggy-assed fucking shit.

So, with the TV season restarting after a Christmas holiday, I might as well admit defeat, even though I have several semi-finished posts filled with pictures littered around the place. Should I even bother finishing the rambling diatribes when I can't even muster the enthusiasm to do anything with them now that a silly amount of time has passed, and I have now found other projects to concentrate on? I don't think so.

So, for now, here is a bit of what I was going to write, just for the sake of keeping track of my responses to the last few weeks of TV, which contained some dreck but mostly some of the best TV of the year, such as a wonderfully consistent season of Friday Night Lights, the grim but entertaining introduction of Dr. Raymond Langstrom (aka Morpheus) on CSI, and certainly the best series finale since the last episode of Angel, as The Shield finished with a staggering, emotionally draining closer that even my favourite show, Lost, cannot possibly top. And then there was this stuff...

Stupidest Science:

Suresh, the crusty unscientist and narrator of Heroes, is already the stupidest and most annoying character on TV, so having him experiment on, and kill, innocent people in order to make his serum work is par for the course of this moronic show. Even so, stating that they need a catalyst to make the proteins bond with the enzymes, as they did many weeks back, is possibly the worst kind of sciencey-sounding gibberish I've heard in years.


Proteins and enzymes don't bond. If they did, we'd never be able to digest meat (or nuts). Considering this is a show that features superheroes and scientists, it's a blow to its credibility that no one who works on it seems to know anything about superheroes or science. It's no wonder Suresh's research creates this.


Plus, for extra stupid points, this poor bastard mutates way faster than Suresh does. If a reason for this was given, I don't know what it is. Suresh can't even fuck up properly. What amuses me most, is that this non-science bullshit carries across the writing staff of Heroes. Here is a panel from Joe Pokaski's dire Ultimate Fantastic Four, set moments after Jeph Loeb ruined the entire universe with his Ultimatum, a comic almost as bad as his Onslaught Reborn mini.


And the way Heroes uses death to lazily generate drama?



Don't get too upset there, Ben. Oh, and because Jeph Loeb continues to be a plague on the world...

Crappiest Plug:

Obviously written before Jeph Loeb got shitcanned by Tim Kring, this episode of Heroes (It's Coming) featured Hiro getting upset about the current state of affairs in the Marvel universe, proving that he truly is a fanboy in his current brain-damaged state. While the shock over the death of Steve Rogers is justified, getting all twisted up about Red Hulk is a waste of time.


Once Loeb is off the title and Greg Pak or Fred Van Lente get back on it, that's gonna get retconned as quickly as Supergirl got rewritten once Loeb left DC. And hey, when Bryan Fuller arrives at the end of this season of Heroes, he can retcon all of his nonsense here as well! It all works out in the end.

Most Annoying Turn of Events:

As I've mentioned before, it's gratifying to see an atheist heading up a TV show, which is one of the reasons we've stuck with The Mentalist so far. Sadly, however, just as with the other big TV atheist, House, instead of letting that stand, the showrunners have to flirt with showing these characters in doubt about their stance. Fair enough if the character is dealing with some terrible event. As they say, there are no atheists on a deathbed. However, having characters doubt their beliefs just because some "supernatural" event has happened is just horseshit. It troubles me to think that atheists are just considered religious believers in waiting, and a bleeding statue or family tragedy is all we need to be pushed over the edge, just as it's horseshit to assume a religious person would automatically eschew their beliefs if presented with examples of terrible mortal cruelty.


House has flirted with this in the past, much to my disgust, this episode of The Mentalist (called Seeing Red, showed our jovial but tortured hero Patrick Jane meeting a psychic, played by Leslie Hope, aka super-unlucky Teri Bauer from season 1 of 24. For much of the episode he calls her out on her techniques, treating her as a terrible fraud. Much James Randi-esque fun is had as he toys with her, but all of that good will is undone in the final scene as the psychic tells Jane that she knows about his family's murder at the hands of the evil Red John, and reassures him that they didn't suffer. As she leaves, Jane bursts into tears.


Now, the worst case scenario here is that Jane is so distraught over this tragedy in his past that he's willing to suspend his scepticism long enough to allow the possibility that this information is real, which is a betrayal of everything he has stood for so far and scuppers the show entirely. That his devout colleague Grace Van Pelt sees him crying could suggest that that is what is intended, her look of sympathy also one of triumph. However, I'm going on the minor information I have about this lightly sketched character. For all I know, she understands that Jane is actually just grieving, having been reminded of the tragedy by the psychic, which is the scenario I would prefer to imagine. Jane has been portrayed as a man angry at the abuse of skills such as his, and I'd like to think the show is willing to portray him as a tortured man but not one turning his back on his beliefs (and his knowledge of fraudulent psychic nonsense) just for some solace. It's lazy writing to have him debating this so early in the day, and smacks of focus group meddling. I hope Bruno Heller knows this and won't take the show down that road, and so in the interest of giving him a chance I'm just going to assume Jane is merely grieving and not taking her words at face value. Nevertheless, I'll be keeping an eye out for any further bullshit flare-ups.

Best Road Trip:

FNL has faced cancellation since early in its first season, and especially now, with the show on a roll, the prospect of losing it is a miserable one. Last season, ending on an episode that provided zero closure and only accidental cliffhangers, looked for a while to be the last episode ever until the DirecTV deal came through. That third season might also be the last (we'll have to wait and see what happens when FNL returns to NBC), but at least we're getting a little closure before then at the start of the season we saw Smash achieve his dream, and with this episode the same thing happened to Jason Street.


Using actual New York location shooting with a bit more grace than the clumsy attention-seeking of Ugly Betty, Street and Riggins bumble around the city in search of clothes and employment like a couple of yokels, except lovable, funny, and relatable. In the process, we see Street's confidence finally hit a speedbump, as he is rebuffed by the sports agent who had inadvertently given Street false hope, and yet more signs of Riggins' newfound maturity, as his advice and support saves the day.


As is usual with me, the end of the episode caused floods of tears, as Street gets his Happily-Ever-After with Erin, and Riggins watches from their cab. It was only then that it struck me: no more banter between these two friends. As grateful as I am that we got to see Street's arc finish (and finish with a happy ending to boot), it's a shame we get to lose that.


The chemistry between Scott Porter and Taylor Kitsch has been one of the most appealing things about FNL since the pilot. It shall be missed.

Most Pleasing Guest Star:

My childhood adoration of Steve Martin has taken numerous knocks since he became the go-to guy for weak wacky dad roles or unnecessary and ill-thought-out remakes of superior works, but luckily his appearance on 30 Rock as the crazed white-collar criminal Gavin Polone was a shot in the arm for my admiration.


Though he strayed into Wild-and-Crazy-Guyisms in the final stretch, for the most part he was reserved and quirky, much like in his film-stealing uncredited turn in Baby Mama. I'd hold out hope that this is a sign of a forthcoming renaissance, but I shouldn't hold my breath.

Worst Fashion Sense:

I could have spent a long time dealing with the psychic fallout from this horrendous jacket (cagoule?) worn by Greg in CSI...


...but we're actually both traumatised by the clothes foisted upon the female leads of The Mentalist. Amanda Righetti has been given some really badly fitting t-shirts, especially in the most recent episodes.


She's got a rocking bod, so it takes some skill to make her look bad. Still, in early episodes she did okay. Robin Tunney, on the other hand, has been lumbered with awful low-slung pants and nasty, tucked-in shirts. This picture...


...doesn't even begin to display the horror. If you watch the show (and you should, as it has gone from strength to strength, despite the quibbles voiced above), check out her dreadful ensembles. I'm shallow enough to want some CSI-style flash in their outfits. Tim Kang and Owain Yeoman also suffer with their bland suits, with only Jane looking swish with his vests. Maybe that's the point. Still, though.

Most Distracting Furniture:

It was the confrontation absolutely nobody was waiting for. After two years of not thinking about it at all, Nathan Petrelli finally comes face to face with the father he thought was dead. It was one of the great TV moments, up there with the end of M.A.S.H., or that bit in Only Fools and Horses with the chandelier. And through it all I was transfixed by Pops Petrelli's table.


It's just a sheet of circular glass resting on three metal beams. Simple. Yet I spent the whole scene either staring at it or worrying about the damn thing. Is the glass resting on the pointy corners of the beams? Isn't that dangerous? If you nudge the table will those corners scratch the glass? Or are the corners flattened? In which case that wouldn't happen, but the purity of the design would be disrupted. This fascination with furniture is proof that there is obviously something wrong with me, if I'm going to be distracted from all of the dramatic tension and devastating emotion on display by something so innocuous.

Most Blistering Performance:

Recently I pointed out how amazing Walton Goggins had been in The Shield, and his streak of acting brilliance continues all the way to the outrageously exciting finale, but in the penultimate episode, Possible Kill Screen, his genius was utterly eclipsed by one of the most astonishing acting moments I have ever seen.

Shield spoilers! Do not read if you have not yet watched this amazing show!

Michael Chiklis has been consistently great from episode one, even though I had a tough time buying this little man as a hardass despite all of the posturing and violence. In the penultimate episode, believing he has no choice but to sign a deal with ICE behind Ronnie Gardocki's back in order to save his wife from an arrest that didn't actually happen, Vic is asked to confess his wrongdoings in order to complete the deal, allowing him to start his new deal as a federal agent. After signing the document he pauses for a startlingly long time, something even the best TV shows don't have time for, and in that time, he seems to age ten years. The weight of everything he has done is so overwhelming that the strain of it made him look like a different person. How he did this I don't know. I don't have a picture of that, so take a look at this, and imagine the complete polar opposite of it.


The moment was electrifying, even more so when he finally unburdens himself of the list of crimes to an increasingly horrified Laurie Holden, who slowly realises that her support of Mackey has doomed her career. Vic's deadened laugh as he recounts some of the more despicable acts of the past three years is chilling, but even worse is his arrogance at the end, knowing that he has saved his own ass, with his only remorse saved for Ronnie.

Chiklis deserves honours and awards for his work here, but he wasn't the only actor to shine even brighter than usual. Midway through the confession Claudette and Dutch arrive to catch Vic, only to find he is now immune to prosecution. CCH Pounder's performance in that moment, snapping with the strain of seeing the man she detests getting away with not only the crimes she thought he was responsible for but also much much more, was another award-worthy moment, and not the first either.

This is the depressing fact about The Shield, that outside its fanbase, it's largely ignored in favour of more prestigious work. The recent disgraceful Golden Globes, which snubbed Lost and The Wire, also coughed up nothing for The Shield, and while there's an argument that ballots were cast a while back, the show has been around for long enough that it deserved a sentimental nod just for old time's sake. Though, of course, a gratuitous nomination just for making it to the finale would be almost as galling as no nominations at all, it still stings that Chiklis, Goggins and Pounder end up with nothing. At least they have the gratitude of a legion of fans who have been lucky enough to see these fine actors at the height of their powers.

Most Pointless Torture:

While waiting for the TV season to kick off again, we started watching the sixth season of 24, which we had yet to watch even though it aired a couple of years ago. During that there has been less of the torture, though saying that we're not even halfway through, so who knows how that changes. Nevertheless, nothing they can do in that show will top the endless crazy zapping of Sylar (who, at that point, was momentarily good) by Elle.


Seriously, she goes nuts.



Really nuts. It's to do with him killing her dad, Evil Ned Ryerson.


Stephen Tobolowsky was a dick in this show, and she never seemed to like him, so why his murder brings about this response is, as with many things on Heroes, illogical.


Even Mel Gibson doesn't get tortured for this long in his movies, and he has a Christ complex.


Well done, Elle, you blew some skin off his face. You can probably knock it off now.


No? Still going? Okay. Do you need to recharge or something? Drink some Powerade?


That wifebeater he's wearing is awfully resilient. After all, in this opening shot, she destroys his jacket in a homage to Watchmen.


Occasionally, for variety, he gets blown backwards.


So yes, she is very angry.


So angry I bet she never gets over it and forgives him! That would be crazy.


Oh, for fuck's sake.

Most "Holy Shit!"-Inducing Improvement:

We really never saw this this coming.

Yes, Fringe had been, before the pre-holiday episode, a sporadically entertaining sci-fi show packed with silly implausibilities, boring secondary characters, poorly cast leads, and even more loose plot threads than Lost had at this point in its first season. Other than John Noble's brilliant performance as Dr. Walter Bishop, we found it mildly diverting but frustratingly underwhelming, especially when compared to the electrifying mind games of Lost.


And then Safe happened. Suddenly every character was written better, every plot thread echoed the others, and most of those annoying questions posed earlier in the season came together brilliantly. It also featured the best cold open so far, as shady FBI traitor Agent Loeb (surely a comment on the hapless writer/producer) used the phasing doohickey from a few weeks ago to steal a lockbox containing a mysterious machine.


The sequence had pace, intrigue, grisly death and cool sci-fi trappings, and even better, we didn't have to wait to find out what the machine was, and who it belonged to. By the end of the episode we knew it was part of a teleporter that had been designed by Walter many years previously, something that even he didn't know.


Not only did it sate our curiosity about the elements introduced this week, we got to see Mr. Jones in action, killing his lawyer (played by an underused James Frain), and then being snatched from his captivity in Germany by mad science to reappear in America, at Little Hill (another question from previous weeks thus resolved). The teleportation effect, disrupting the ground and shaking the prison, was especially well conceived.


While the craziness raged, Walter's memory hiccups continued, as Olivia began to mistake John Scott's memories for her own. That the show had finally figured out how to make two plots intertwine in this way inspired hope that the writers were becoming more confident now that the format and characters have been set down. It's not the best writing on TV, but it was the best writing on Fringe so far, and I take heart, hoping that this represents the moment the show kicks into gear.

So, for now, that ends that. I'm sure that I'll still talk about TV in the future, in some format, and not just because some of our favourite shows are returning. Yes, Battlestar Galactica, Big Love, and Flight of the Conchords are back, and coming very very soon, my favourite show, Lost, returns following a triumphant season. In the words of my good friend and dastardly despot Brian Michael Bendoom...

That Week in TV Year II (Week 9)

Of course, this was the week Barack Obama was elected President of the United States of America, a week spent fretting, then rejoicing, then fretting again (I did the last bit on my own, I think). Not much aired, but there were still some highpoints, including, of course, The Shield.

Week 9 (3 - 9 Nov):

The Shield 3:10 - Party Line
Friday Night Lights 3:06 - It Ain't Easy Being J.D. McCoy
America's Next Top Model 11:11 - The Final Five
CSI 9:05 - Leave Out All the Rest
The Office 5:06 - Customer Survey
30 Rock 3:02 - Believe in the Stars
Ugly Betty 3:07 - Crush'd

Non-Shield Highlight of Week 8:

For several seasons CSI would feature the occasional episode written by edgy former drug addict Jerry Stahl, writer of the addiction memoir Permanent Midnight, subsequently made into a movie starring Ben Stiller. In the book Stahl freely admits to megalomaniacal behaviour when crazed by drugs, hijacking Twin Peaks writers' meetings with zany behaviour that ended up costing him his job.

Luckily for him he got cleaned up and ended up on the most successful show on US TV, where his scripts stood out like a sore thumb by repeatedly exploring the extremes of sexual experimentation and drug abuse, ostentatiously flying his freak flag as high as possible. That's not to say his work was bad. While Canyon is more sceptical of his episodes, they struck me as cleverer and funnier than regular episodes. He also created the fan-favourite character Lady Heather (played by the ever-excellent Melinda Clarke), dominatrix, therapist, and muse to Gil.


Stahl's moved on from CSI now, but this superb installment, written by Jacqueline Hoyt, echoed his repeatedly used themes while offering a more downbeat and morbid story than he maybe would have approached. Following a murder that looks to have been committed during bondage play, Gil takes that opportunity to visit Lady Heather (last seen brutally whipping a thug), ostensibly to gather information about the BDSM culture, but secretly to find comfort following his breakup with Sara, who dumps him via laptop.


Not cool! Hoyt does a splendid job of weaving the complex murder plot with Gil and Heather's confessional conversations, delivering exposition about the crimes in beautifully paced montages, and giving William Petersen plenty to sink his teeth into. Even better was the inconclusive verdict, with the team up-ending several lives to get to the truth only to find they had gone in completely the wrong direction, which echoed the episode from last season when Catherine let her emotions get in the way of her forensic mind, causing her to cast judgement on an innocent man.


It helps that the episode was directed by the ever-reliable Kenneth Fink, again providing a visual feast (with Nelson Cragg on DoP duties). Fingers crossed Jerry Bruckheimer gets hold of a low-key crime film script and hands it over to Fink to direct. If Gregory Hoblit could make the jump to the big screen with Primal Fear, Fink could do the same.

Shocking Assault of the Week:

The Shield has often horrified the audience with totally out-of-the-blue violence: Aceveda's horrifying rape, the almost deadly attack on Danny at the start of season 7, and of course the soul-numbing awfulness of the season 5 finale. In this episode Aceveda, seemingly cowed by the deals between Vic, Pezuela, and the ICE team, instead explodes into startling violence, raining down such a flurry of blows on Pezuela that even Vic and cartel head Beltran stand by in incomprehending shock. Of course, Aceveda is doing it to try to sabotage Vic's plan and keep himself in the loop, not caring that he has made Pezeula look so weak in the eyes of the cartel that he has effectively signed his death warrant. In a series full of staggering moments, this was yet another stand-out, made all the more powerful by the fact that, as Noel Murray said in his excellent AV Club review, Aceveda has been walking towards that confrontation for years. Fans should have seen this coming, but as ever the magnificent Shield writing team kept us focused on Vic so much that the moment Aceveda snaps is still a huge, gut-churning surprise.

Fashion Faux-Pas of the Week:

Did a Great Eatlon take a big mystical dump on Tyra's top?


And why is it held up with straps from a backpack?



Question of the Week:

Did they or didn't they? Julie and Matt (in another stellar episode of Friday Night Lights) finally get back together after a day spent frolicking in a lake, spending the night together under the stars next to a big bonfire, which is such romantic overkill it positively screams OMG they totally did it. The next morning they're utterly unafraid to be as soppy as possible, and Canyon and I spent the whole scene debating whether they did, but it was this naughty exchange of looks...


...that convinced me. They totally did it! After their previous failed attempt in season one it makes sense the show would be tactful about it, having already shown the conflict between Tami and Julie. Of course, if it turns out they didn't do it, I'm coming back here to erase this part of the post.

Dear God Shut Up Already! Moment of the Week:

I don't think anything on America's Next Top Model has inspired me to such an explosion of splenetic rage as Marjorie's endless self-loathing and inability to accomplish anything.


I already hate go-sees (they make me very anxious), but her nervy race through Amsterdam made it an even more excruciating experience. Her signature hunchback photo style is not so impressive once you realise she only uses it so much because she has no backbone.

Funniest Scene of the Week:

In a classic Office scene, Michael makes Dwight role-play a conversation with a customer (played by Jim) in order to assess his ability to interact with clients, all because evil Kelly faked some customer reports to ruin their chances of a bonus.


What made it so entertaining is that it was possibly the perfect example of the running joke of Michael and Dwight's inability to distinguish reality from fantasy.

Least Funny Scene of the Week:

Jim listening to Pam, via teeny tiny handsfree, as she discusses her possible future in New York with a classmate (played by Mad Men's Rich Sommer) was excruciating stuff, with Krasinski selling his subdued anguish brilliantly.


Even bringing Dwight in at the end of the scene couldn't make it funny. Just horrible to watch, but then The Office has always been very good at yanking the audience from happiness to sadness, which possibly accounts for my occasional reticence to watch it even though I think it's wonderful. This scene was also way more effective and convincing than the rushed denouement to Michael and Holly's relationship in the previous episode, Employee Transfer.

Visual Gag of the Week(s):

The third season of 30 Rock may have opened with a weak episode, even with a customarily welcome appearance by Will Arnett as Devon Banks, but the second episode was a huge improvement. Of the many great gags on offer, Octuples Tennis might have made me laugh the most.


Synchronised Running worked well too.



Irksome New Character of the Week:

With Tyra (Collette from Friday Night Lights, not America's Next Top Model) all loved-up with her new fella (whose apparent drug addiction seems sure to wreck the relationship and doom Tyra to remain in Dillon forever), Landry attempts to cope with the fallout by listening to love ballads in his car and focusing his energies on Crucifictorious. After a bust-up with his bass player, a tryout for a replacement leads to the arrival of Devin, yet another cute hipster for Landry to fall for (considering how square Dillon is meant to be, it seems to be a more of a mecca for Flaming Lips-loving nerd-hotties than nearby Austin). Of course, she instantly joins the band, changing it from a prospective death metal Nirvana into Blake Babies or something.


Our initial misgivings about this new character were partially motivated by the unimaginatively convenient timing of her introduction, providing Landry with someone at exactly the right moment in his post-Tyra downward spiral to put him in a happy enough mindset to forgive Tyra and make them friends again. Luckily, Devin turns out to be gay, which pushed the plot in a much more satisfying direction, with Landry's confidence shaken and Tami stepping in to give him some reassurance in a beautifully performed scene. Our other misgivings, however, were not allayed. Devin's just kind of annoying. Purely subjective, I know, but having her around makes me especially unhappy about the absence of Jean, played by Brea Grant. Written with a peculiar lack of subtlety for a show that is the acme of subtlety, Jean was obviously meant to be Landry's soulmate, in stark contrast to his relationship with Tyra, born of murderous necessity. In a perfect world that character would return to love up our hero, but instead she's racing around the Heroesverse and getting macked on by some turtle-totemed guy old enough to be her dad. It's depressing on a number of levels.

Spoiler of the Week:

When I started writing these posts I had no idea who ultimately won America's Next Top Model, but of course it's impossible to avoid spoilers these days. Canyon managed about twelve hours after the finale aired before being spoiled by a huge photo on the front page of Yahoo News, and I did okay, until yesterday. All I know is, when I see this photo at the start of this week's go-sees...


...there is one goofy looking woman there who really should not be in the competition, and four others who all have promise. Except Elina and her Face of Stone. And yet McKey wins? This model wins?


Maybe when I finally see the finale I will get it, but by this point, the only thing that can get her to the top is some artificial and bullshit arc. I'm curious to see what it was that robbed Analeigh so completely. I am very very upset about this! It's even more upsetting than Cycle 4 when Kahlen lost to proficient but boring Naima, but in that case at least Naima was an excellent model, though Kahlen had a much greater improvement curve and, you know, a personality. This is why I don't watch reality shows very often. They create an unquenchable pain in my heart.

Background Music of the Week:

Top Gear returned with a splash of testosterone strong enough to turn our cats into human males, and even thought it's not been long since the last mini-season it was still good to have it back, not-faked-at-all-wink-wink stunts and all. A particularly good one came when Jeremy Clarkson drove a lorry into a brick wall at high speed and nearly killed himself. His panicked grab for his chest was genuinely worrying. Best thing about it, though, is the astute choice of music. In the first week we got Panda Bear, the week after we got a burst of Wendy Carlos' soundtrack to Tron, and this week was covered in Kings of Leon-y goodness. I love the ladies and gents who sort this stuff out, and even though I can imagine it's horribly expensive to clear these tunes, it's really worth it. I mean, Panda Bear! I couldn't get over that. And it worked perfectly with the shot too.

Your Familiar Face Is In a New And Confusing Context And Is Therefore Rendered Alien Moment of the Week:

The awesome BDSM episode of CSI gave me terrible deja vu, with the snooty club owner Michelle Tournay giving me real problems.


A quick check of IMDb later, and it turns out she's Peyton List, aka Jane the conniving secretary from Mad Men, and yes, it's okay for me to say secretary as I'm just following the customs of the time period. Also familiar was the scarily dominatrixy Kumari, who had more red hair than five Debra Messings put together.


To be honest, I don't know where I've seen Rachelle Lefevre before, but I do know she is going to be in Twilight, which I was ready to assume was going to be a big pile of nonsensical gloopy shite about sparkling vampires, but having seen how rabid (and willing to provide me with lovely hits) the fans are, I will accept is actually the most profoundly romantic and moving exploration of vamp-slash immortal and beautiful dedication and love ever made. Good for her and her mane of crimson hair for getting into this year's hottest and biggest hit movie about lame vampires.

ETA: That picture, showing her sticking needles into some guy's nipple in a scene that made me want to barf, doesn't do justice to her incredible hair.


If Marvel are smart, they'll start work on an Inhumans movie, and cast her as Medusa. And get David Beckham as Black Bolt. All he needs to do is look gorgeous/impassive and not speak. Perfect!

More to come. Seriously. I was really way behind on this mini-project. Blame Obama.