Monsters of Television

“I am all knowing. I am Michelle.”

These are four mad girls in tights.

Lingering from the January 2013 issue of Glamour and Zooey Deschanel’s cover issue interview is a quote about how being “feminine” and being a “feminist” aren’t mutually exclusive. Her words: “I want to be a f–king feminist and wear a f–king Peter Pan collar. So f–king what?” Speaking as a person with no personal vagina, I tend to agree. A woman should not be questioned on her dedication to the empowerment of females because she identifies with things that could subjectively be categorized under the heading, “Things that Subjugate Women.” Not that I think anything with a Peter Pan collar has the capacity for any kind of violence, physical or cultural.

The quote has been scrutinized a few times for its denouncement of anyone that would assume she is hurting the cause by making herself her own vision of pretty. To me, the only thing that really stuck out was the “Peter Pan collar.” Fine, whatever, she’s standing up for her right to not have her whims examined by the Fundamentalist-Feminist Thought Police but — a Peter Pan collar? I had to look that up because it just sounds so — it sounds like something that Zooey Deschanel should wear, if in name only. And, after looking at what that is, I was so right.

Her persona (so lastingly coined by FOX as “adorkable”) is comprised of these kinds of dalliances and affectations, something that’s both put on display and lampooned by her show. I never like to assume anything about celebrities since there’s generally, even behind the most honest and down-to-earth-seeming ones, a grand machine dedicated solely to producing a public image, but she projects everything that is twee and hipster and quirky. Big glasses. Exclusively in dresses from another era. Most likely a very active knitting circle. Wait, is my nanna a hipster?

What I’m saying is that she’s a beacon of quirkiness, both a lightning rod and a broadcaster (from HelloGiggles). Even though the movement would hate her since she’s the mainstream of something that’s supposed to be alternative, there is no questioning her authority and reign.

But Bunheads tried to take it from her this week.

Read more »

“I am not an average man.”

Based on last week’s preview, I expected “M.” to deal directly with the infamous Moriarty. And, based on the preview, I expected the character to be played by Vinnie Jones.

Wrong again.

Well, technically I wasn’t wrong, per se, more like 50/50. I just didn’t see all the steps that led to my conclusion finally being correct. I pulled a Sherlock and deduced based off what I knew instead of all the evidence there was and came to an erroneous, but not useless, conclusion.

I had assumed – as I’m sure others did – that the M of the episode title was Moriarty. Instead, M was a stepping stone to Moriarty.

Read more »

Instead of regular reviews for Justified, Cory Barker from TV Surveillance and This Was Television suggested doing a Justified roundtable, similiar to what he had done with Les Chappell and Andy Daglas during Mad Men, and I get to be included this time (though Andy is too busy to join in this week)! We’ll host the roundtable here at Monsters, so check back each week for thoughts on the latest episode from the fourth season of Justified.

Up first is the premiere of season four, “Hole in the Wall.” Raylan becomes a bounty hunter to make some quick cash (even though it’s against Kentucky law for him to do so), Boyd and Ava deal with the pains of growing a criminal enterprise but an old friend has arrived to help, and Rachel just sits at her desk. BECAUSE THAT’S WHAT RACHEL DOES APPARENTLY.

Read more »

“No one disappears. They all come back. Like zombies.”

First: I want to apologize for the lack of The Good Wife posts as the season wound down. Sundays and Mondays just got hectic for me, TV writing-wise, and it just receded as the week went on. Those issues have been removed from the time equation, so I should be back with the show for the time being. Know that I generally liked each episode, though I feel like the series is starting to gorge  itself on guest stars (“A Defense of Marriage” was practically bursting at the gills). I have nothing to say about the “resolution” of the Kalinda and Nick storyline since, well, without seeing Nick’s body being dumped into a plastic barrel of hydrofluoric acid, Breaking Bad-style, I refuse to believe that he’s really gone.

Second: All of the feelings about this episode. And all of the thoughts. And all of the thoughts and all of the feelings are in serious conflict with one another. Read more »

I apologize for not reviewing “The Leviathan” the week it aired. Given the events of that Friday (the day I usually post my reviews), it is perhaps understandable that I was in no mood to write much of anything.

In any case, it somewhat works in my favor to have postponed my review until this week. There are elements in both episodes that complement one another, and are interesting to discuss in context. For simplicity’s sake, I am going to group my review into specific points I would like to discuss. I had begun a rather wordy discussion about obsessive personalities, addiction, and where both are leading Sherlock, but it was a bit poncy, frankly. Nobody’s here for a psychological profile, right?

So here we are. Class, today I’d like to discuss the following topics: 1. The effectiveness of Sherlock’s cases, 2. Sherlock’s obsessive personality, 3. Sherlock meeting Watson’s family, 4. Sherlock’s relationship with Watson, 5. Watson’s future with Sherlock, and 6. M.

Read more »

For all intents and purposes, Elementary is a weekly procedural. But it’s a procedural the way Castle is a procedural (man, I could write a book on Castle). The procedural elements are really only there to frame out the personal ones. And while Elementary doesn’t as closely weave the two elements together as Castle does, they are very similar in the way they delegate time to each.

There is no direct parallel between this week’s crime and the personal development of the characters that occurs during its investigation. There is no central thread that runs through the two storylines, drawing them together as two sides of the same coin. Instead, the connection between the two elements comes down to something as simple and powerful as a cup of tea.

Read more »

Did you guys miss Elementary as much as I did? Breaks are hard. Even if they are only the skip of a holiday week. It’s so great to feel this way about a show. Missing it, getting cravings for it – so much better than forgetting it’s even on.

I really enjoyed the convoluted nature of the case this week. Not so much that the “why” of the crime was all that convoluted (though it did make some nice loop-de-loops), but more so the winding path the set-up took to actually becoming a crime.

Plus, we got Cuddy!

Read more »

Dang, and I was so excited about this image–now undermined entirely.

I used to write weekly reviews of The Vampire Diaries. Somewhere along the way, I got busy and found it harder to find the time. But now I think that’s not so much true. I think the show stopped inspiring me to write.

I remember during season 2, running out of my TV room to tell my partner about something awesome just happened on a show that seemed completely unafraid. It took chances. It sped through plots such that you almost cried out, “slow down, let me pause and relish.” The characters were curious but bold, anxious but determined, sexy but real.

Now the show feels like one big cheat. Over and over and over again.

Read more »

“Miles, you’re like a bad penny, man.”

“What? What’d I do?”

Leave it to Mark Pellegrino to make that line work.

The guard of the Monroe Republic, officers and soldiers alike, have been fed a lot of terrible things over the season but, with casting like Pellegrino, Giancarlo Esposito, and David Lyons masking some terribly cheesy dialogue all season, the swing from the cast of the bad guys to the cast of the good guys is like watching a play on Broadway and stepping out to watch 6th graders act out Book of Mormon.

Maybe that’s a little hyperbolic but you can see what I mean watching this show. It seems unfair of the acting power they have in Philadelphia while Billy Burke Han Solos his way across the countryside, being towed along by Tracy Spiridakos (who has totally mastered that frightful sideglance), Daniella Alonso (honestly, how do you deliver that “Maybe because he tried to kill him line” and not sound like the worst?), Zak Orth (who’s doing okay playing a part that’s perfect for Bad Robot player Greg Gruneberg). It’s not that these people are especially terrible but they’re parts are so cornball and overdramatic that the people playing the whisper-growling, stoic villains get the better end of the weak-writing stick, particularly with their unbalanced strength of cast.

I think that was especially true for this final episode until Sargent Strausser opened his dang, pervy mouth.

Read more »

“Now you need me.”

Is this Revolution or Legends of the Hidden Temple?

If there’s one thing I hate about an episode of television, it’s when the episode goes out of its way to tell us something we already know.

I don’t mean the “Previously On” or whatever mysteries we’ve managed to sort out before it’s revealed. I mean spending time in the episode like we’re idiots telling us information we already have because either the show underestimates the audience’s attention or is filling time. We’re talking about awkward soliloquies and, my most reviled breed of television episode, the clip show.

You’ll recognize this tendency mostly in sitcoms when characters rehash a storyline in ten seconds or less when the show comes back from commercial to remind us of what happened. After a lifetime of television, I’ve become particularly numb to that brand of insult, especially since it’s basically one cog in a formula by now. Having a character not awkwardly review what happened two minutes ago would make the show seem incomplete. A network exec might send revisions back just based on that alone.

The more insulting ones are part of the serialized drama. Chuck was guilty of this all the time. As a tool to make a show more attractive to syndication (to lessen the learning curve when stripping the show either out of order or for an audience that isn’t necessarily going to watch 5 times a week) so new, casual, or senile viewers, the plot-thus-far of any of the ongoing story arcs would be reviewed in the first few minutes of the episode. Chuck would rattle off a series of clumsily assembled words to make sure the audience remembers what’s at stake.

What does this have to do with Revolution? Consider that 70% of this episode to be those clumsily assembled words.

Read more »