Monsters of Television

“It’s still crap.”

First, apologies for no review for “Waiting for the Knock” from last week. Between paid writing and trying not to get sick (and then actually getting sick), I just didn’t have the opportunity to write about the episode. Here’s a micro-review: Clarke is the most awesome to ever awesome, Cary’s hoodie was hawt, and if Dylan had hung onto Lemond any longer, I would’ve been sniffling about a drug dealer and his son. Also: Two folks from The Wire stopped by, again, so that was cool. Also also: Cary’s hoodie, guys.

And now onto “The Art of War.”

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“Like a wise man once said: First instincts; usually right.”

Just as there are many different ways to tell a story, there are many different ways to develop characters. You can begin at a life-changing moment, or right after it. You can start with the end result – be it the final stretch of life or the place a character ends up after their long journey of development – or you can make that your final destination and make how the character got there the focus.

The truth is, unless we start at the very, very beginning, we are always coming into a character in medias res. There are always parts of the character’s past that we don’t know, parts that have inescapably shaped them and influence every decision they make.

One of the concerns – with stories and characters – is giving away too much too soon. Wanting to know more, wanting to watch the yarn spin out, is what keeps the audience coming back. It’s all about giving just enough in just the right way to hold the audience’s interest.

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No one in this room actually thinks Charlie is going to stab anyone in the eyeball.

My first introduction to Tracy Spiridakos (our gal Charlie) was in a one-page “interview” from the August issue of GQ. As women featured in GQ are wont to do, she was artistically topless and wearing pink jeans that struggle to cover what you would think would be a behind easily masked by off-the-rack clothing but, lucky for us, this turned out not to be the case. I put “interview” in quotes because seemingly she was asked two to three questions, enough to fill enough negative space with words to justify the image and all of them were pointed to a male fantasy. She plays video games! She likes to hack and slash! She watches Battlestar Galactica! All right, it’s a nerdy male fantasy but still, she’s referred to as a babe and not in an infantile way.

GQ isn’t exactly picky about picking women to splash across its pages in various states of undress (“Hey! Can you find creative ways to cover your nipples in front of a blank white wall? Good enough for us!”) but positioning Spiridakos to sell Revolution on her aesthetic feminine wiles in the press might lead you to believe that she would do the same on the show. Surprisingly, for the most part, that hasn’t been the case.

In fact, much of the show and her character trades on her innocence or naivete, both as an emotional core and, in my opinion, as a non-villainous antagonist. She’s constantly walking into trouble like Mr. Magoo but in place of a blindness that gets her onto the girders of a building under construction it’s her not sticking to the plan that constantly gets her captured. She has a variety of tight-fitting shirts (as everyone on the show seems to) but, outside of her cousin getting all worked up for her, there hasn’t been a focus on trying to make her a sex symbol of the show. Until NBC got a hold of this episode.

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“It has its costs.”

The character of Sherlock Holmes has as many different interpretations as he has iterations. From brilliant antisocial snob to brilliant borderline sociopath, Sherlock can be – and has been – many things. What makes new versions of the character possible is this elasticity of traits. What makes new versions of this character worthwhile is which combination of traits its current owners go for. How do you make it fresh, how do you keep it interesting?

So far, Elementary is making a damn good go at crafting a distinct and intriguing new Sherlock both in tone and texture.

With every episode, we learn a little bit more about how this Sherlock ticks, a little bit more about what’s underneath the surface. It must be said that the fact that this Sherlock willingly reveals things about himself – not as a trick, not after being backed into a corner, but in an honest desire to give truth to another person – reveals as much about, and shapes, this character as what he actually says.

I enjoyed the case this week, but even more than the whodunnit, I enjoyed how the situation affected Sherlock and, by extension, Watson.

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I’m of two minds about “Don’t Haze Me, Bro.”

On the one side, there is no Nick storyline. HUZZAH. (Sadly, he’s back for the next two episodes.) And it was a very funny episode.

On the other side, the case of the week was something of an afterthought (though it had John Glover, who is always a delight). And some of the humor turned out not to be that funny.

Oh, and despite all the mounting evidence, someone is bound and determined to demolish Peter’s run for governor with this campaign worker scandal.  Are we getting played for saps? Read more »

“No, it’s you AND me. And we’re going to blow up that train.”

Even post-Blackout, no one wants a piece of Canada.

I don’t like the idea of comparing this show to Lost. Mostly because I don’t think it actually competes but also because I don’t believe it’s an apples to apples comparison. They share many of the same traits (mystery for which answers are provided in small tastes, adventuring without the benefit of modern conveniences, castmembers that look really good in tight shirts) but Revolution feels, somehow, much more straightforward. Maybe because we know upfront that the answer isn’t magic.

It’s not necessarily a bad thing for the show to be more straightforward in terms of learning curve. Lost‘s complicated story, with its myriad offshoots and complexities, creating diminishing returns when people would hear the hype and try to jump in. If only they’d thought of putting the series on Netflix like they did with Breaking Bad. But, with Revolution, we have a short introduction in the beginning of every episode that contains all you really need to know about the show to continue.

Sure, Lost had a Previously On but, from how many people still today ask “What was up with the polar bear?” (despite the answer coming in Season 3), we have a bit of disconnect between the important events for an episode and seasons of mythology. Revolution may be new but, as long as it’s contained in this box, it might actually learn from the mistakes of the learning curve that Lost suffered in the ratings.

Now, if they could only get me to care about the concerns of these characters.

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I did not realize how much I’d missed having an episode of Elementary last week (damn you, election!) until this week’s rolled around. I – I kind of love this show, you guys. Who saw that one coming?

We’re only a few episodes in, but certain patterns are already visible in the structure of the show. Every television show – sitcom, drama, what have you – has a standard pattern for the stories it tells and how it tells them. This helps the audiences keep up with what’s going on, and can be either a benefit or a burden. When used correctly, structure can allow for variances that have a strong impact on the storytelling. When used incorrectly, structure can be a drudge, an anchor that holds the show back and bores audiences with a “I know what’s coming” predictability.

Given the core of the premise (brilliant detective solves unsolvable crimes) and its established structure (basic procedural), Elementary could very easily fall into the latter category.

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“You’ve been paranoid for so long that you don’t recognize when someone is on your side.”

As you may or may not be aware, I work for a Web site. And since I work for a Web site that has high-profile corporate sponsors, we’re constantly concerned about search engine optimization, or SEO. It was to my delight, then, to see a court case about how a search engine, in this case Chum Hum (owned by returning Web 2.0 nemesis/caricature Neil Gross), was potentially (and likely) gaming search results by tweaking its search algorithm. It’s something we talk about at work about every week in regards to Google Panda, their algorithm.

So perhaps I responded more strongly to the court case than others may have (it’s actually a really important thing to highlight, and I’ll get to that), but the rest of the episode offers lots of good stuff if the case’s search engine intricacies weren’t your cup of tea.

And, you know, the dramatic dead end that is the Kalinda-Nick thing. Oy. Read more »

“After all we been through, we can handle it. I know it.”

“I’m sorry to tell you this but — you’re having a weather balloon.”

This is a post-Zelda world and we’re just living in it.

I’m never sure if it’s because my adolescence was filled with level-grinding in video games or if our shows are written by the men and women who shared my hobbies, but, our heroes have seemingly assembled into a party complete with their own individual stats, abilities, and weapon upgrades. They fight enemies of increasing difficulties and, now, find themselves traveling into a labyrinth.

This first episode feels different than any of the entire last season, which I look back on a rebuilding year. It was that awkward period where the first season was pretty lame, kind of cheesy, and involved the worst looking explosion this side of a Ringer green screen. The second season was about fixing those mistakes, finding nuance and pathos, while trying to find the right balance of character development and walker killin’. While they worked out some things (Shane’s escalating instability was one of the highlights) and laid to waste others (Lori is the worst and her death would only make Rick seem more sympathetic), they constructed a show closer to the one that the pilot promised: a horror movie with more time to dedicate to building the storyworld and the population within it.

But now we find ourselves in a video game.

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“I just want a future for my child.”

You are very smart, smarter than you might realize. A diet of serial narrative television provides you with a media intelligence that is unsurpassed in the history of storytelling. You’ve suffered the eternal questions and hidden clues of Lost. You’ve pointed out continuity roadblocks in Flash Forward. You knew The Event wasn’t going to last. And it’s all part of picking up on the details of how these shows are put together, even if you don’t fully understand the mechanics, that makes you a smarter, more critical audience.

That is why I think I’ve seen so many people on Twitter announce that they’re “out” with this series. They’ve tried it, stayed in for a hand or two, and then pushed back from the table. Because the audience for Revolution is smart. Now, that’s not to say everyone has tossed in their cards. Revolution is doing well, particularly for NBC, well enough to be picked up for a full season. But people are falling off. The show is slow-playing their story, which is essential for a premise like theirs.

But people have no interest in staying in a hand when they already know what’s being played.

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