Adventures In Awesome: Want! Now! (5)

A bunch of fun things happened to me tonight. Seeing a really really good episode of Party Down (essential viewing for all Veronica Mars fans), playing Mario Kart Wii with Canyon (ruined only by the utterly useless driving from Funky Kong. Stupid fucking funky monkey!), seeing this incredible trailer for Werner Herzog's Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans...



Essential viewing for fans of Nicolas Cage (surely everyone with any sense), Ghost Rider (that would be Canyon), and post-Knight Rider Val Kilmer (probably no one). Even better than that (even though that is pretty damn good), I found out about a TV show I must see immediately. Even though I'm in the UK, I try my best to keep up with whatever interesting shows have come out of the US, but that's a relatively new thing. Back in 1991, there would have been no way to stumble across the obscure experimental non-comedy Fishing With John, a thoroughly bizarre and lovable idea from the mind of musician and actor John Lurie, who made such an impression on me in a run of 80s independent movies.



This article on the Criterion Collection website will tell you all you need to know about it, and more. Of course, with money being as tight as it is, I shouldn't be coveting it, as it is readily available on YouTube, but this really is the kind of thing I would love to have in my collection, just so it's not totally full of Jerry Bruckheimer and Joel Silver movies. Plus, who would want Criterion to go out of business before they get to do a special version of The Island to go with their Armageddon and The Rock DVDs? (Yeah, Ozu, when did you last crash a space rock into Paris? Huh?)

End of Season Review: Friday Night Lights

At the start of its second season, Friday Night Lights faced a quandary. You’re a TV showrunner. You’ve made a first season that was practically perfect – smartly written, brilliantly cast, beautifully shot, expertly edited and so magically delightful to watch that critics fell over themselves to find new ways to praise it and the fans were unquestioningly devoted. There was only one thing wrong with it: those devoted fans numbered approximately 17. You’ve got yourself a second season with the help of the positive critical notices, but you know you’re living on borrowed time. Do you try to produce more of the same high-quality television and hope that the audiences will somehow find your show? Or do you up the ante, changing things around and introducing new elements to try to attract attention?

This has affected other shows in the past, of course. To take a recent example, Veronica Mars stuck to its guns and went with more or less the same formula second time around: an overarching season-long mystery, crackling dialogue, cases of the week, a recurring guest star imported from the 1980s, etc. Although season two was nearly as good as season one, its viewing figures barely improved, and it limped through a wildly uneven third season before The CW had it put down more or less humanely. Friday Night Lights apparently took note of this and edged more towards the second option. This was widely seen as a mistake. I’m not so sure.

Friday Night Lights introduced two storylines in the second season that were incongruous for different reasons. The killing of a potential rapist in episode one felt all wrong: it put Landry Clarke, who had previously been fairly peripheral comic relief, front and centre of the show; it cast Tyra Colette, one of FNL’s most assertive characters, as a morally weak victim; its seriousness threatened to dwarf the other storylines, which like those in the first season were about the drama of the everyday and the commonplace; simply put, it seemed to belong on a different show, and undermined what the fans loved about season one.

The other misstep, which came midway through this strike-truncated season, was Matt Saracen’s relationship with his grandmother’s new live-in carer, Carlotta. This sat badly both because it was too obvious – there were a couple of episodes of meaningful looks and coy “accidental” touches before it happened, which disappointed those of us who hoped that Lights wasn’t that show, that it was more likely to confound expectations and not be just another teen drama – and because it was a crass and predictable way to introduce a Latina character.

But although putting these storylines in the works may have been jarring, once they were in place both storylines were executed perfectly within the confines of the show. We learned a great deal about Landry (and were also rewarded with much more of the excellent Jesse Plemons), who had his faith and conscience tested by his own actions. Was he really defending Tyra? Was he overcome by his own wrath? Did it matter than his victim was a known felon and all-round scumbag? After his confession, should he take the soft option or face his punishment? To see a 17-year-old wrestle with these potentially life-defining questions gave FNL gravitas, as well as a bonus in the shape of Glenn Morshower as Landry’s conflicted policeman father.




As for Matt and Carlotta, the relationship may have started unconvincingly but it made sense from Matt’s point of view, given his anger at Coach Taylor’s departure for a job in Austin at the end of the first season. His parents didn’t care about him enough to stay in Dillon and now he had to deal with the sudden absence of his surrogate father too, so naturally he was attracted to a nurturing person with a (hot) physical presence. Carlotta may not have been much more than a clichéd Magical Latina – she even taught Matt to dance, for Christ’s sake – but when she was eventually compelled to leave for home, Matt’s anguish was genuine, and his abandonment issues flared all over again.

Aside from that Zach Gilford didn’t have a huge amount to do this season, due to the lack of onscreen football action (presumably this was seen as a turnoff for the audience, regardless of the drama it provided) and the foregrounding of other characters: Landry, Coach and Tami Taylor, and above all Tim Riggins. I don’t know if it was the showrunners’ or the network’s idea to focus on Riggins so much, but I’m sure NBC wasn’t disappointed that his pretty face was so prominent. After being little more than a brooding lunkhead in the first season, Taylor Kitsch proved himself a real talent this year, and it was huge fun watching him drift around Dillon leaving a royal mess behind him everywhere he went, somehow emerging with his local hero status and his perpetual sardonic amusement intact. My only complaint is that we never found out why he is so obsessed with Lyla Garrity – is it because she’s unobtainable and becoming ever more so? Is it just because she was, as he tells her, the best he’s ever had? Or is he really in love with her, despite the fact they have zero in common? – but this storyline was getting somewhere just as the season was curtailed, so I’ll let it pass.



Jason Street and Smash Williams also saw their screen time reduced this season, and although I can live without Street, I seriously missed the Smash. Both reappeared towards the end and although Street had to make do with a silly pregnancy storyline (do they have to have one at the end of every season?), I enjoyed watching Smash go through the humbling experience of being condemned and ostracised for trying to do the right thing by his girl and his sister. It had also seemed very convenient that he was going to nearby TMU and might be able to remain in the show after graduation, so it was interesting that his tribulations saw him end up committing to attend (presumably far-off) Whitmore University.

The biggest success of the second season was its focus on the Taylor family. Julie’s tedious acting out made her frequently annoying, but she was undoubtedly a far more realistic and rounded character compared to her teenage angel of season one. But Coach and Tami are the heart of the show and the devotion of so much time to their relationship paid off handsomely. Kyle Chandler and Connie Britton were both utterly wonderful every second they were onscreen, and the writing afforded them many chances to be so. Coach had previously been presented as morally impeccable, so his expression when confronted by the sacked coach (an ace guest spot from Twin Peaks’ Chris Mulkey) whose job he had effectively stolen was shocking and sobering. And Tami, who had been more or less flawlessly infallible in season one, messed up a few times and dealt badly with several people (Julie, her sister, a journalism teacher from Cincinnati) while she coped with her infant daughter. Perhaps the best moment of the season came when Coach’s duties took him back to Austin at a sensitive moment and Tami’s struggle not to cry that she needed him nearly overwhelmed her. I was going to ask a rhetorical question at this point, but screw it, I’ll make it a statement: there is no better actor than Britton on TV at the moment.



It seems redundant to say that season two couldn’t match the almost unwavering high quality of season one: virtually nothing could have, especially when the enforced shortening of the season left much unresolved – although we can safely assume that the Magical Red-Haired Waitress Of Miraculous Fertility will agree to have Street’s child, otherwise that subplot was a complete waste of time (and Street frankly may as well be written out). Friday Night Lights is returning in 2008-9, in what must be its last chance considering its consistently poor audience figures. While it got away with a couple of near-slipups in season two, let’s hope the show can avoid further attempts at ratings-grabbing in its third year, and return to its winning first-season form.

TOUCHDOWN!

We have to shout from the rooftops; Friday Night Lights is coming back for a third season of 13 episodes, all of which are guaranteed. Just as with Veronica Mars I have been holding two thoughts in my head in a kind of DoubleThink mode, loving it and yet not wanting to commit to it too much because shows this wonderful rarely last long. Mars, Firefly, Journeyman, Deadwood, Dollhouse (we all know it, let's not kid ourselves that Fox will suddenly surprise us); we've been burned before. But finally, some good news!


Yes, 13 episodes is not the amount I would like (can 365 installments a year be managed somehow?), but I'd rather have an HBO-size season than nothing at all. More Smash! More Riggins! More Landry! Best of all, more wonderful Coach and Mrs. Coach sparring! Where's my booze and pompoms? It's go time!

The Gupta

A year or so ago, Canyon and I opted to watch Steven Spielberg's The Terminal, as it was on Sky Movies and some kind of neurotoxin had paralysed us and prevented us from reaching for the remote and turning it off. As a huge huge fan of Spielberg, it was a painful experience. In the midst of a terrific late career run of flawed-to-actual masterpieces (with special props to Munich, a film that might rank in his top three best), it was disheartening to see such an antiseptically professional and stultifyingly dull movie standing out among the quality pickings. Though everything in it was individually very pleasant, it was an utterly empty film that hinted at an interest in bigger themes but never explored them. Even now, after thinking about it for months, I cannot figure out what the point of the movie was.

There was, however, one thing about it that stuck in my head and elicited a very vivid emotional response, i.e. it made me shout at the TV like a hopped-up berserker. The character of Gupta Rajan, played by Kumar Pallana, is the most obnoxious, unlovable, mean-spirited, misanthropic and despicable character I can think of, treating everyone around him like dirt, purposely leaving patches of wet floor around the terminal just so he can laugh as people fall over, and generally being a bad egg. I spent the entire movie in a state of torpor, unless Gupta appeared on screen, at which point my eyes would bulge from my head and profanities would burst from my mouth in disgusted outrage.

Please please please be aware that I'm referring to the character of Gupta and not Kumar Pallana. Kudos to him for manifesting such a believably loathsome character, worlds away from his meditative and enigmatic role as Kumar in The Royal Tenenbaums. I'm sad to see he's not in The Darjeeling Limited, which is eagerly awaited by 25% of our household. That is unless our two cats are not letting on their love of Wes Anderson movies. Sydney Cat certainly seems more docile when I'm rewatching The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou. And it certainly has nothing to do with his ethnic background. There are no racist judgements here, and never will be. That's not how I roll, and I have no interest in anyone who does roll in that way. They should learn to roll in a different, less stupid rolling way. No, my ire is reserved just for the evil bastard who tormented everyone in The Terminal. Why was he in the movie? What purpose did he serve? Even though he helps out Tom Hanks near the end, he's still a jerk. It's not like he has an arc or anything. He's just a malevolent asshole. God! I hated him so much!

Not long after that, we were watching the underrated fourth and final season of The O.C., and realised that our considerable enjoyment was being spoiled by the continuing, inexplicable appearance of Willa Holland as Kaitlin Cooper, the vacuous and unintelligible mini-Marissa wandering in and out of the show with no interesting plotlines, no jokes, and only a dreadful couple of comedy-relief hangers-on acknowledging her existence in any consistent manner. Of all of the changes made during the last season (making Sandy lovable again, making Taylor Townsend super-awesome, finally figuring out what Ben McKenzie's strengths were and letting him play to them, etc.), making Kaitlin a regular character with more screentime was the only one that fell 100% flat. She sucked the life out of every scene she was in in much the same way that Mischa Barton did as her sister. Surely killing Marissa off was supposed to fix the fun-removing flaw that had dogged the show for three seasons. So why bring in someone to replicate that exact same quality? It boggled our minds.

During a particularly painful scene (probably involving guys leering over her underaged, undernourished, ill-advisedly bikini-clad body), I realised who she was. She was the Gupta of The O.C. It didn't take long for me to realise that almost every show, film or book has a Gupta in it, a character that is utterly vile, and not in a fun, so-bad-he/she's-good way, but in an oh-God-I-can-barely-stand-this-character way. Again, it has nothing to do with the actor, and this is nothing personal against them. That some actors are only known for that one Guptonic character is a disadvantage for them, but it is rectifiable. Willa Holland needs to play someone lovable and pronto, or face the dreadful fate of being tainted by Guptaness forever.

Let's see if I can extend the term to other shows. Riley Finn could be considered the Gupta of Buffy, though not 100%. Perhaps he's 50% Gupta. He had his moments, and Buffy's dismissal of him in season five was touching enough to elicit some sympathy, albeit too late to fully redeem him. For a long time I thought Tigh was the Gupta of Battlestar Galactica, but now that the show seems to be 80% Apollo/Starbuck twu wuv shenanigans, I vote that they share the crown (especially seeing as how season three Tigh is the badassiest badass on TV). Some might say Duncan Kane qualified on Veronica Mars, but he was just dull, more than anything. My own nominee would be Stosh 'Piz' Piznarski, simply for being a creepy ineffectual douche not fit to lick season-two-Logan's boots, though I accept that his female fanbase will have me tarred and feathered for suggesting it.

It's hard, though, A show/book/film should only have one Gupta, but some shows (Studio 60, Torchwood) or films (the recently watched, and hated, The Devil Wears Prada) are populated almost entirely by Guptas, while some shows (Firefly, Angel) have none. Remember that a character is only eligible for membership in the Gupta club if they make your blood boil and you would happily see the show/film/book exorcised so the character never comes back. It can be a purely subjective thing. That's cool. I hear some people liked Kaitlin in The O.C. I cannot fathom that, but I'll accept it.

Bearing that quality in mind, some characters who should be nominated as Guptas cannot be considered, as they are either lovable or occasionally the most interesting character around. I cannot imagine how badly 24 would be damaged if Chloe ever left, even though she makes me want to scream. Chloe rocks, despite or because of how horrible she is. Note that she is almost entirely unlovable, as a true Gupta should be, but she's fantastic anyway, and certainly the only recognisable human being in that entire ridiculous show. All hail Mary Lynn Rajskub for pulling off a near-miracle of character acting.

One thing is for certain, though. Of all the shows we watch, there is one Gupta who rules over all other Guptas, like she's the ur-Gupta (thanks to Canyon for that). No other character can come close. I am referring, of course, to the unhinged and vicious Rhonda Volmer, as played (brilliantly) by Daveigh Chase, from HBO's superb Big Love. Here she is, centre, with Ginnifer Goodwin (totally Guptaness free, because she is awesome) and Amanda Seyfried (about 20% Guptafied after being a pain in the ass toward the end of the second season).


Oh Rhonda, you make us so mad! Even evil Roman Grant and his even more evil son Albie are cuddly snugglebears next to her. Canyon cannot even watch her scenes without clenching her fists and screaming. The constant plotting against everyone, the rampant lying, the smug certainty in her superiority, the outrageous self-pity and selfishness, not to mention the cloying singing and preening. Rhonda, you are so fricking Gupta!