“It’s Only the Beginning”

November 24th, 2009

“Is this the real life / is this just fantasy … open your eyes / look up to the skies and see”

In addressing the fall finale of ABC’s science fiction series V, I quote Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody for two reasons. The first is an excuse to link to the gleeful and wondrous Muppets version of the song released to YouTube today (if you need a better justification, let’s go with corporate synergy). The second is that the opening lines of this classic song feel like they capture the basic condition of most of V’s characters when these spaceships descended upon them. The very nature of science fiction that is roughly set in our own world is the question of whether the supernatural elements are “for real” in the sense that they should be trusted, which is perhaps what V has been missing since it debuted a mere three weeks ago. For a show about a race of aliens descending on humanity, the show has jettisoned the period of reflection in favour of drawing a line in the sand between skeptics who form a resistance against them and believers who freely choose to walk among them.

The logic behind the relative speed at which this has been accomplished is found within “It’s Only the Beginning,” which lives up to its cheeky title by confirming that, yes, this four-episode premiere event of sorts hasn’t actually managed to accomplish much of anything. In the show’s haste to define the characters quickly in order to bring in enough plot to tide people over until March (when the show is most likely to return), they forgot to show these characters struggling to come to terms with the Vs and the promises they offer to the world, and as such this finale has nothing to fall back on. The plot twists we see are intriguing (as the premise has not been the show’s biggest problem) if we care about the characters, but by separating the interesting individuals from the interesting stories (outside of Morena Baccarin’s Anna) the show has never tapped into the binary between these two cultures and the potential that lies within this premise.

Accordingly, it’s a good thing for the show’s creative future that it is only the beginning, although whether the series’ ratings future will be able to survive a rocky start is yet to be determined.

The purpose of the “X Hours Earlier” Chyron is to create suspense, wondering both how the episode gets to the moment in question and wondering how the moment is resolved. It’s meant to make an episode feel more exciting by providing an immediate sense of suspense, or showing a character acting in a way that makes you really curious just what we’re about to see. So, when V is trying to take what would normally be just a simple episode and turn it into a fall finale that will need to sustain the show for months, it makes sense for them to use a device like this (likely instituted in post-production) in order to manufacture some additional interest.

However, this particular example is over in only eighteen minutes, and it ends up more a sort of narrative shortcut than anything else. The episode partly resolved around a lack of trust between the members of the resistance, in particular Erica and Ryan, so the brief glimpse of Ryan apparently shooting down Erica previews this theme. However, this early in the show’s run, we don’t care enough about these characters to find this overly concerning, and we certainly weren’t overly concerned about whether Georgie was going to die. This device is potentially effective, sure, but it requires that we care enough about the characters and that we see enough plot to make it worthwhile. And this example failed on both of these fronts, as there wasn’t enough surprising about Ryan and Erica’s situation (they barely know each other) to make it really stand out, and the rush to get to that moment made it even more worthless.

That’s how I felt about a lot of what V offered in these first four episodes, sequences that would be far more compelling if we cared about the people taking part. I think the idea of an impressionable teenager being sucked in by the aura of the Vs would be compelling had they cast an actor with range and given them realistic scenes to play with the characters around them, as opposed to simply falling in lust with a P.Y.V. I think the idea that there are traitors within the V, forced to turn against each other to maintain their secrecy, would have been far more effective if we hadn’t just met those characters last week and this week respectively. And the idea of a LIZARD BABY would be intriguing if it wasn’t the only interesting thing to come from a character who I refer to as “Ryan’s wife” because even remembering his name is a relative challenge.

In an interview I read earlier this week, new producer Scott Rosenbaum indicated that he intends to maintain the general trajectory of the series when it returns in the new year, but that how it is executed will be significantly darker. And I think this is the right trajectory, as the problem with the show is more in how these stories are being executed than in the basic premise. The idea of the Vs using our paranoia over vaccines to their advantage is an intriguing idea, but it was so poorly executed that it had almost no impact. The storyline made no sense: as I understood it initially, the idea was that the Vs were infiltrating the flu vaccine supply in an effort to stir paranoia that would drive people to get their own vitamin shot instead (which laid some sort of groundwork for future research or something). However, instead, the show argued that the vitamin shot was a placebo, a smokescreen to keep health officials distracted while the R6-tainted vaccine went out into the public and created chaos. The former is a bit overly complex, but it at least feels like a necessary means towards an end. The latter is a small scale attack when we know a large scale attack (see: the collection of Flying Vs in the conclusion) is possible, which makes it convoluted to the point of frustration.

There are scenes here that are quite effective, but almost all of them surround Morena Baccarin’s Anna and the V’s technology that the show isn’t interested in really investigating that carefully. While we’re watching Scott Wolf get checked out, it’s obvious that he’s going to have some sort of medical condition, but when they eventually announced that they have added the fourth dimension to the medical process (time) it made me imagine more enjoyable applications of that technology within this world. It’s not a good sign for a show when I’m wishing that we could have a Minority Report-style medical procedural, but I kind of wish we had more time there and less with the FBI-style investigations. The elements of the show that have the most potential interest are to this point out of the reach of every human character but Tyler, and considering he is the least interesting character that does the show very little good.

Any show that deals with a duality as clear as human/V is going to need to investigate the differences between them, and the problem right now is that the middle ground (the point of conflict or convergence) is a long-term goal for Erica and a convoluted grand scheme being kept a secret for Anna. And while it might eventually be really engaging, the show is currently not situated to actually show us that conflict, spending too little time amongst the V society (where Baccarin is the show’s strongest link) and not working enough to connect the humans together in a compelling fashion. Learning that Tyler is Ryan’s wife’s patient is the sort of thing that the show tried to play as a reveal, but was just a contrived way to pretending as if the show really had its ducks in a row, a point which I would most likely contend.

This is not a terrible show, nor is it one without redeeming qualities. “It’s Only the Beginning” features some legitimately compelling scenes, like the great sound design in the skinning sequence, but it never feels like it stops on them long enough to really make a difference. In all fairness to the show, the four episode opening meant that it would likely have never had enough time to really get me involved with the show and its characters, but those four hours were not particularly well-executed even within that context. If this was a four-hour long presentation pilot, designed to convince a network that there is potential here with some production changes, then I’d call it a success. As it is, though, it’s a show that never quite understood its appeal, and has no clear sense of identity to fall back on.

As such, when we leave on a cliffhanger of a series regular bleeding out, the suspense isn’t in whether he’ll live or die but rather whether the show will sink or swim.

Cultural Observations

• There was a lot of talk about how the show is becoming more overtly political, with health care being used as a weapon much as critics of Obama’s health care stance argue it will be should the bill before Congress goes through, but I thought that the V strategy is so convoluted that even their dabblings into human society seem hokey and supernatural to me.
• The sequence of Anna offering “Bliss” to the Vs around the world (and some humans as well, it seems) was sort of just “there,” which makes me think that it, like LIZARD BABY (must always be written in all caps), was a callback to the original series.
• Personally, at this point, I would have made Tyler’s role in the larger V plan apparent so that a) we can figure out what it is that they see in him that we as an audience don’t and b) so that the character can have something interesting associated with him, as opposed to just some vague strategy.
• The idea that the V ships fly in Flying Vs immediately made me think of another more interesting story about V/Human integration: The Mighty Vs. Make it happen, people.

Last night, I was watching an episode of ‘Sit Down, Shut Up’, and was partially enjoying the idea that one of the teachers created a Meth Lab instead of a Math Lab. The character’s voice was done by Will Forte, who also did the voice of Abe Lincoln in Clone High. That got me to thinking about something. A lot of television shows get canceled too fast. A lot of really good ones. Some of them come back (Okay, just Family Guy), some of them go to other channels, and some are just forgotten in this day and age of insane amounts of reality television. Fox is especially bad for this one (insert Family Guy link to Peter naming all of the shows it had cancelled), but whatever. I’m not going to pick on networks or what-have-you, I’m going to say why I think it would have been great to have one more season

We begin with:

QUANTUM LEAP

Yes, that is a spelling mistake. No, I didn’t make that up. That’s a screenshot of the end of the series. Originally, it was to be the end of season five, all cliffhanger-like, but it was canceled for the second time (also cut after season three, but a letter-petition had it renewed for season four). There are several hints throughout the episode that this leap might have all been in Sam’s imagination, but it never really pans out, and having it end with a happy ending still doesn’t make much sense. For those that don’t remember, here’s what happened (a true wiki reference. how odd!):

In the series’ final episode, Sam encounters a mysterious bartender who insinuates detailed knowledge of Sam’s “mission” and his true identity. Sam comes to believe the bartender might actually be that higher power, though the man neither confirms nor explicitly denies this. The bartender helps Sam remember that he built Project Quantum Leap because he wanted to put right what once went wrong, and makes him realize that he himself has control over his leaps. He then asks Sam where he wishes to leap to next. Sam replies by saying he wishes to return home, but he cannot as he still has a wrong to put right for Al, by letting his first wife Beth know that Al is still alive. Sam then promptly leaps out and does so. The show’s epilogue states that Sam never returned home, after showing a picture on the mantle of Al, turning into one of Al, Beth, and their daughters.

I actually had to edit that wikipedia paragraph because it was poorly written, and parts were roundabout. That’s wikipedia for you. Anyway, the point of it is all to hack-job for me. This show was a rather consistently fantastic one, in that it never got terrible, it had great character development, and in it’s final season, had a bit of fun with it’s (so they call it) “kisses with history”. But it was terminated before it could ever have a climax, or an actual ending that someone could remember fondly. I didn’t get into the show until it had already been cancelled for some time. Around 2001, I had lost my job and was moping around the house and ended up catching every episode in a row on Space reruns, and almost got excruciatingly mad at my television when I saw the ending that was put together. I felt like I had put so much time into a show that I adored, and to have it’s lasting legacy one of anger, well, that kind of sucks. I can’t imagine what it would have been like to see it on television when it aired originally. It could almost compare to the horror I felt when I watched the American “Life On Mars” finale, which, well, I don’t know. There was nothing redeeming about that.

Anyway, there’s a lot of un-resolved issues in Quantum Leap. Rumors were abound for a while that there was to be another show based on Sam Beckett’s daughter going to find him (he had a daughter in a three-episode arc in season four, probably some of the best episodes), which seems like it would have been kind of short, but at least it would have been resolved. People don’t like to be cheated at the end of movies or television shows, especially if it’s done in a sub-par way, and I feel that the ending to this not only leaves much to the imagination, but for a show that’s still watched in rerun form, and still talked about enough, it’s hard to determine why there aren’t a lot more people who talk about how upsetting it is. Sure, maybe it’s just me. Maybe I just got too attached to the show and I should hide out somewhere on the internerds to talk about it with other super-fans. But I really feel that a show that was so consistent with it’s writing should have had one final go at it.

This is a good time to mention that somebody out there made A fanfic movie. It’s about Sam Beckett being ordered by the President to have something to do with Princess Di’s death. Which doesn’t make sense, considering the fact that we never did find out how Sam was leaping into people; was it “God”? Was Sam doing it himself? We’ll never know, because some douche decided to end it too soon. Anger stoppage alert. Onward!

Throughout the show, Al was a womanizingly hilarious jerk, who at one point even thought a woman Sam leapt into was hot. His womary knew no bounds, until a scene in season Two, where Sam has leapt into a man who is somewhere near Al’s first wife. His attitude completely changes, and you can see that the womanizing bastardry has been put on solely to make up for what he lost. If the end of season four is any indication, and if Back-to-The-Future-movie-ethics serves correct, we would have a completely different Al Calavicci, right? I mean, he’s still married to the woman he loves. He’s no longer dating random chicks with random names. Isn’t that a complete change of four years of character development? And if Sam never does come home, well then, how close does he get? The series continually reminded us that sometimes his brain has the “swiss cheese” effect, in that he can’t remember specific things from his regular life, so who’s to say he even knows that he has a daughter? If she found him, how would she get him back to the “waiting room”, and out of his leaps? The only time I’d ever seen two people leap at once was because of a lightning strike (when there was some “evil leaper” people putting wrong what once went right). There are so many fantastic possibilites that could even be put together in a two hour movie, or one final season that would have Sam leaping into places that he would remember from points in his life again, so that he would begin to remember people, with the climax of the final episode showing his removal from the leaping place. All this can be done. It’s simple. Heck, maybe I’ll sit down and write it and pitch it to Donald P. Bellisario. I have ideas. But for now, when I sit and watch this show, and it’s continued fantastic writing, even by today’s standards, I’m sad knowing that somewhere out there, Sam continues to leap until his eventual death. Something’s unsettling about that.

I’ll let Dean Stockwell close this post for me:

If it ever were to come together, what would you want to see for Sam and Al in a movie version?
I think everyone would want Sam to make it back in time, and (I’d like to see) the story of how that is brought about. That would fulfill Al as well, bringing Sam back (home). He tried to do it for four and a half years.

I’m reading a novel now in which a person is about to be caught doing something wrong. The chapter ended with the discovery imminent. I’m eager to get back to the book to find out what happens.

The cliffhanger ending of a chapter is a long-standing, much respected tradition in writing. In some genres it is the convention. As a technique, it works.

Still . . . (you knew that was coming)

Doesn’t it seem a bit manipulative? Maybe that’s an overstatement. I guess what I mean to say is that I don’t think I’m the kind of reader that must be induced to keep reading. By and large, I open a novel in the same spirit I enter a contract; I feel obliged to finish a novel not only to respect the writer and the writing but myself as well. (There are perhaps fewer than a dozen novels I have not finished in my entire adult reading life, and the last one I left only because it was far too dense and complicated for me to understand: the writer is considered the Portuguese Faulkner.) I’ve heard of many readers who will give a book a two-chapter chance; if the novel doesn’t “grab” the reader by then, it gets thrown across the room (sometimes literally). While I can see how this would make sense for, say, an agent who has to get through a dozen or more manuscripts a day, it doesn’t seem to me to be the contemplative, thoughtful, enriching experience I want my reading to be.

My point is that I am going to read a serious work (of whatever genre or approach) regardless of its (lack of) structural inducements. In fact, if a novel doesn’t “grab” me by the second chapter, I tend to be even more intrigued by it because I want to know just what the writer is doing that I seem to be missing. (Perhaps in this way I am induced to keep reading.)

I look at novels as being wholes, not parts. I’m not going to pass judgment on a novel until I’ve read all the way to the very last sentence. (In some cases, the last sentence illuminates all that has come before it — Portnoy’s Complaint comes to mind — and really, what else would a last sentence be in the story for if it didn’t have important work to do?) The idea that I could make an up or down decision about a novel by the second chapter seems shortsighted and naive — even impatient — to me.

I don’t want to disparage any readers; the world needs more of them. I suspect, however, that many readers have been trained to expect and thus require these kind of manipulative mechanics in stories, which may leave them unable to attempt another, more measured kind of reading enjoyment.

“Dirty Harry”

October 25th, 2009

When “Dirty Harry” begins, the problems start before the episode even does. After the exciting finale to “Dex Takes a Holiday,” which was a strong episode which really connected with the qualities that make the show work and which ended on that cliffhanger of Deb and Lundy bleeding on the pavement, things seemed exciting in a way that the show was struggling with early on.

However, the lengthy “Previously on Dexter” sequence reminded us that the things that made that episode great were an exclusion (of Rita and the kids) and a shock (that won’t be recreated in the next episode), which means that “Dirty Harry” is immediately handicapped. And while there are some stories that seem legitimately compelling, those seem to be at a standstill while the “drama” comes from conflicts that are either entirely uninteresting or which feel like the sort of simple “Dexter meets Suburbia” type stories the show has been dealing with this season.

It proves once and for all that Dexter is a series best watched in extended bursts on DVD, because the hype is going to create expectations that this season isn’t able to live up to.

I want to make clear that Jennifer Carpenter does some amazing work in this episode as she rushes her way through an emotional breakdown following Frank Lundy’s death at the hands of an unknown individual. If this were a show that wanted to move at a slower pace, then Deb’s breakup with Anton would have been a single episode, and her breakdown at the site of the shooting would have been saved for a later episode. But there was something to be said in the sheer speed at which Deb broke down, refusing her pain meds and recovering physically while her emotional state fails in turn. Carpenter has been through similar arcs before, but her breakdown at the parking lot was powerful enough for me to look past the similarity to past storylines and acknowledge her pain.

However, that’s the only real note that really did much for me in this one. I actually felt that this week’s twist, that Trinity has a family of his own and lives in the suburbs, was the kind of plotting that I despise on this show. The idea that he and Dexter are “OMG TOTALLY THE SAME” is convenient to the point of contrivance, driving home just how much this season (not unlike last season) feels choreographed rather than unfolding in any sort of natural fashion. Michael C. Hall remains compelling, but I was kind of just looking forward to seeing Dexter try to get inside the head of a different serial killer, as opposed to realizing that the head he was getting inside was really his own. It’s one of those storylines that probably sounds really great on paper, but in practice it seems blindly philosophical in a way that does nothing for me no matter how well Michael C. Hall can sell it.

The episode also suffers through the overuse of Harry’s ghost, a tool that was intriguing when it made sense but that now seems kind of creepy. It’s one thing to have Dexter’s Dark Defender take physical form, and it’s one thing for Harry’s code to become part of his self-conscience to the point of visual representation. However, the ghost is neither a direct extension of the Dark Defender or a pure defender of the code, being used however an individual scene requires. It’s basically a constant foil so that the show isn’t just Michael C. Hall talking to himself, but the solution to that potential problem is relying less on expository dialogue, not just dividing it between two characters. Harry’s ghost might have proven a convenient excuse for Dexter keeping his apartment, but his value to the current storyline is not nearly as clear. I like James Remar, but the device already seems tired.

We’ve known ever since we found out Dexter kept the apartment that Rita would eventually find out, but I thought the episode did nothing with it. It was the kind of thing where it’s just played as a distraction from Dexter’s real work, and the episode’s efforts to connect it with Deb’s emotional moment was forced at best. I think Rita’s naivete about Dexter is starting to wear thin, which makes sense when we think about it logically, but dramatically I don’t think it improves the show in any way. In fact, Rita’s paranoia is actually by design a hindrance to the parts of the show that “Dex Takes a Holiday” represents, which actually makes it even more frustrating for us as viewers. The game of cat and mouse between two serial killers is hindered when there’s other games of cat and mouse which we know are far less important and yet which by design need to FEEL more important to create barriers for the interesting stuff.

The beginning of this episode implies that there will be chaos, but then the episode throws that all away: by having Lundy’s death quickly become a vacation murder in the eyes of the police, and then by having the Vacation murderer conveniently die, all of that chaos is gone by the time the hour ends. The chaos seems like it could have brought out some interesting shades in even the dullest of supporting storylines, but only Deb really felt the tension involved, and everyone else’s problems (like Batista’s imminent transfer, or Quinn’s sex with the reporter) were just as boring as they were before. They both felt like storylines out of an episode of 24, storylines that seem like pointless diversions that are only there to remind us that these people are human beings. However, what would have made them seem human is if they had been part of the chaos as opposed to cleaning it up so the season can keep cycling between cliffhangers.

“Dex Takes a Holiday” was about more than a cliffhanger, and the ending didn’t hurt; “Dirty Harry,” meanwhile, is a weak episode of the show to begin with, not only due to these problems but also because it was only repeating what we’ve seen before. Dexter didn’t discover anything new in Lundy’s notes that we didn’t already know, so we were sitting around waiting for him to discover what we already knew. The buzz about the final moment might be relevant, but all it does is reinforce story elements that to be honest I’ve felt have been overly present already this season, which makes me less than excited about what’s to come.

Cultural Observations

• I’m curious to know if the scene of Trinity buying a hammer for the bludgeoning was, in fact, an intended homage to the opening scene of The Wire’s fourth season, an absolutely amazing sequence wherein Snoop purchases a powder-actuated nail gun. Just the other day my parents were researching tools and came on the term powder-actuated, and I was transported back to that hardware store. The comparison really took me out of the scene, which was probably creepier for those who didn’t see how much more subtle (and thus, more creepy) the Wire scene was in the end.
• The Batista/LaGuerta stuff is reaching a breaking point for me. It has officially become a 24 storyline, especially with the edict that he needs the transfer order by Monday – in the world of 24, that would mean that it wouldn’t actually be dealt with during this season, but at least in this case something will have to happen with it (albeit with a 99% chance of being uninteresting).
• Quinn’s reporter girlfriend is literally only there for her boobs, so forgive me if I don’t offer indepth analysis of her orgasm.

Jag har som sagt inte haft så mycket att välja på idag vad gäller aktiviteter; stå, möjligen gå eller ligga plant. Så tv och film har konsumerats i mängd. Och som sista inlägg idag gör jag en old school Hollywood style-cliffhanger:

Jag tror på en bättre morgondag, för både mig, min rygg och även er. Låt oss säga så här – ibland kommer tomten tidigt. Vi ses imorgon!

Whoever thought Germans could make such good villains.

NYPD cop John McClane’s (Bruce Willis) plan to reconcile with his estranged wife, Holly (Bonnie Bedelia), is thrown for a serious loop when minutes after he arrives at her office, the entire building is overtaken by a group of pitiless terrorists. With little help from the LAPD, wise cracking McClane sets out to single-handedly rescue the hostages and bring the bad guys down.

After watching this film I have realized where all these other action/thriller films all came from. Films such as Speed, Double Impact, and Cliffhanger all would be nothing if it weren’t for this film, and its out-of-control action.

The action of this film is everywhere. The building it is set in gets blown up so many times I’m just surprised that it didn’t become a huge ball of flames. The action sequences are all pre-CGI era and all the stunts are great to see cause of how realistic they look.

The pacing of Die Hard is also very credible because although its highly exciting and filled with action it still takes time to bring in some down time, of the screenplay. We get to understand these characters and who they are and what they want. The screenplay is also very well-written cause although this movie is serious, a lot of humor ensues from Willis and the lines he makes are hilarious and very quotable.

Up to then, action heroes were larger than life types like Stallone and Schwarzenegger, obscenely muscled and seemingly indestructible despite the many dangers they encountered. But Bruce Willis as everyman cop John McLain changed the super hero mold, settling for just plain vanilla hero. Here was a flawed protagonist who bled and cursed and cried like the rest of us and we immediately embraced his character and all his flaws and false bravado.

Willis does an amazing job and brings a lot of energy to the film with his deliverance of the lines, that could’ve become too corny were actually delivered well. Alan Rickman is very convincing as the villain here and makes him seem more evil in this movie as it goes on, and without this role he would’ve never been put in those Harry Potter films.

The one main problem I had with this film was that the cops in this film are just so stupid. The decisions they make are so dumb that my attention towards them didn’t mean anything. Basically John McLain is taking on this whole army of Russians by himself and the cops just sit there and talk to him, what are these cops even doing.

Consensus: Die Hard is a great action classic, filled with over-the-top action, little shades of humor, and a very realistic protagonist. Without this film we wouldn’t have the big-time action films of the 90’s or today.

9/10=Full Pricee!!

It’s been months since the last update on this site, but now I’ve decided to take it up again. So, what’s been going on?

I’ve launched my own creative graphic company called SPEKTR! We are working on a lot of music and culture related projects at the moment.

I’ve also just launched The Cliffhanger, a new guitar hanger that will be in the shops within a week or so here in Denmark.

Todos sabemos que en el cómic y el cine de acción, ninguna bomba se desactiva faltando 15 minutos, ni nadie esquiva una avalancha cuando esta a seis metros de distancia. Tan es así, que uno de los clichés del género es la frase “Estuvo cerca”. Este video, sin embargo, es completamente de la vida real, y nos muestra lo que es salvar la vida con el mismo timing que vemos en este tipo de géneros. Aunque tras de una impresión así, dudo que lo que estuviera pensando el individuo fue “Estuvo cerca”.

Primero lo primero, mirad donde he estado todo el puente del Pilar (bueno, excepto las arduas horas de viaje que me llevaron hasta allí), una panorámica de los alrededores de Pola de Somiedo, un pequeñito pueblo de Asturias, a unos 70 km de Oviedo.

Y es que viajar tiene esa extraña facultad que nos hace sentir de una manera diferente. Podemos sentir paz, alegría, melancolía. En mi caso es una mezcla de todos, al menos en esta ocasión (aunque he de reconocer que siempre ando por los mismos derroteros). Hay muchos tipos de viajes, muchos caminos que andamos; los recorremos solos o acompañados, de una manera trivial o con una perspectiva preclara de lo que queremos conseguir o de donde queremos llegar.

Me gusta creer que mi vida es un cúmulo de caminos, tanto míos como de los que me rodean, que van formando poco a poco el paisaje por el cual me tengo que mover, por el cual muchas veces pierdo el sueño o consigo soñar. Ahora mismo yo mismo (valga la redundancia) ando por muchos derroteros diferentes, últimamente bastante amargos por diversas circunstancias que muchos conocéis. Pero siempre encuentras cierta paz en algún recoveco del camino, y esto es el blog para mí. Os dejo con otra panorámica de Pola de Somiedo.

Esto se veía desde mi ventana...

Y como todo, los Caminos llevan a otros Caminos, que a su vez se bifurcan en múltiples posibilidades. Ahora estamos en una encrucijada, en un Nexo de Caminos importante. En breve vamos a tener un chorro de novedades en el blog incontestables. Para ir abriendo boca, tenemos una nueva plataforma de expansión llamada Facebook. Supongo que muchos estaréis en contra/a favor de esta plataforma de interacción social, pero eh, funciona. Ya os he desvelado la primera novedad, de la segunda solo diré el nombre: “Tiro al Friki”. ¡Poco a poco lo llevaremos a cabo!

En breve se termina un viaje muy fructífero del Nexo de Caminos y de mi vida en general, pero comenzará un nuevo Camino para andarlo y disfrutarlo, sino como hasta ahora, de una manera mejor.

¡Un abrazo a tod@s!

“Black Swan”

October 15th, 2009

All I can hear is the clock ticking.

Yeah, well, all I can hear is the crickets, FlashForward.

“Black Swan” is yet another example of the ways in which FlashForward seems fundamentally unwilling to engage with its most interesting elements and choosing, instead, to continue to ponderously engage with small-scale stories that feel like note cards on a bulletin board rather than something that’s part of a mosaic.

What’s interesting is that, if the show had ignored the notions of global conspiracy and the worldwide destruction, I actually think this would be an interesting hour of television. If the show had ignored the chaos of the pilot, and had instead had everyone experience a vision of their future without any time passing, then “Black Swan” would be an interesting investigation into a patient whose flash forward is inexplicable, or a young babysitter who wonders how she can atone for a sin she has yet to commit. Those questions are on their own a decent structure for an almost procedural series, a world like our own but where alternate futures dominate everyday conversation.

The problem with the show hasn’t been sold as anything close to that, but rather as a show rife with conspiracy theories and exciting serialized elements. And in an episode like this one, we understand the show’s central dilemma: when the show spends time with the mundane, we’re left wondering what’s going on with the big picture, but when they do spend time with the big picture we wonder why we were spending time with the mundane at all. And as long as both sides of the show’s storylines have some pretty serious execution problems, I don’t know how long the dichotomy is going to hold.

The central thesis of this episode is the intersection of FlashForwards with the everyday employment of our set of characters. Dmitri and Mark both believe strongly that their FlashForwards mean something, but while Mark wants to follow random leads that could relate to the big picture Dmitri wants to follow leads that relate to actually working as FBI agents. I think there’s some value to reminding us that these are, in fact, FBI agents, and the storyline with the detainee related to the weapons sale is something that the show needs to return to. However, there’s a point where the storyline becomes about grasping at straws, and the end purpose of it all gets fundamentally lost. Dmitri and Mark’s fight in the trailer park is the example of a scene that hops up emotional reactions for no other reason than to create conflict: there’s no reason Mark should be so dead set on traveling to Somalia when there are certainly other leads to follow, and while there is reason for Dmitri to be upset that particular moment felt entirely contrived. The presence of the stupidest drug dealer of all time, with a strain of Weed that HAPPENS to be the same as nuclear materials, was the exact opposite of natural character development or anything similar.

The other side of the storyline was no better off, as Olivia turned into the eternal non-believer when she drew a line in the sand between medicine (in other words, science) and the flash forwards (or, again, religion). There was a really interesting undercurrent to the episode where the babysitter goes to religion in an effort to explain her flash forward but is largely rebuffed, but the connection is never made between the two stories. Olivia has reason to be a non-believer in flash forwards, but that she would ignore legitimate medical advice that was based only partially on the flash forward (the diagnosis explaining his blackout heroics as well) is ludicrous, just as is her decision to transfer her future beau’s son in order to try to avoid forming any sort of connection. It’s an enormously unlikeable and, more importantly, sudden character shift that I don’t particularly understand. The entire episode felt like a test of what either an FBI or a medical procedural would be like if they involved flash forwards, and unfortunately for the show the answer is really uninteresting.

It’s also the first episode to entirely ignore the central premise, giving us no real moments of seriality until the very end where we get our first look at Dominic Monaghan as he tells the one character whose flash forward is apparently worthless (Mr. Simco) that he’s responsible for the most catastrophic moment in the world, or something like that. It’s like that final cliffhanger is supposed to make us forget that the rest of the episode was pedestrian to a fault, that the episode ending on a serialized note was in some capacity living up to its premise. However, a show’s premise can’t just pop in during exciting cliffhangers, as that became Heroes’ less than satisfying calling card beyond its first season. A show can go far on a solid premise that is poorly executed, but so long as FlashForward’s actual episode structure seems to actively ignore the larger mythology of its premise it’s not going to keep anyone’s attention.

The image of the Black Swan was supposed to be something meaningful, I think, but in the end it had no relevance to 90% of the episode, so how are we supposed to claim it was important? The show needs to work

Cultural Observations

• Mark’s plan of getting a hacker to hack into the CIA for satellite photos is maybe the dumbest thing the show has suggested thus far. Unless they showed us a more compelling version of the CIA/FBI conflict, it’s a ludicrous development.
• Also, the Reverend with crickets in his desk was the kind of comic moment that makes no sense, especially when it draws attention to the crickets that I heard throughout the episode.
• Show also gets negative comedy points for the none too subtle nod to Fiennes’ Shakespeare in Love role following his epic performance as Eggbert.
• Also weird: how does someone in custody know about the Mosaic site, or about Dmitri’s lack of a flash forward? It implies that this is really the most incompetent FBI bureau of all time.

Film:
Demolition Man (1993)
Rated: R
Directed by:
Marco Brambilla
Written by:
Peter M. Lenkov
Robert Reneau
Starring:
Sylvester Stallone as John Spartan
Wesley Snipes as Simon Phoenix
Sandra Bullock as Lenina Huxley
Nigel Hawthorne as Dr. Cocteau
Benjamin Bratt as Alfredo Garcia
Glenn Shadix as Associate Bob

Denis Leary as Edgar Friendly
 

By Scott Knopf from HeShotCyrus

Pre-screening memories: The passion for Demolition Man was born out of a sense of Dredd to a young Scott. Judge Dredd, actually. The futuristic film (that was actually released after Demolition Man), co-starred a certain object of Scott’s affection — Rob Schneider. Kidding, it was Diane Lane, who Scott well documents on his blog.

The interest in that film led him to check out this misunderstood slide of cinematic cheese when he was but a young lad and he was soon taken by its addictive qualities.

Though it is hardly considered a masterpiece, it is a film that never takes itself seriously, knows what it is and what it offers and proceeds to do just that.

But it started as quite a different film and we were fortunate enough to be joined by co-star Glenn Shadix, who not only informs us about the metamorphosis, but give us plenty of backstage stories to help us all fully appreciate the film.

Demolition Man is a bit of a cheat by Natsukashi standards, in that we typically like distance between viewings of our films, but Scott could not help jump at the chance to find out more about a favorite in his film library.

Dowload Natsukashi’s ‘Demolition Man’ podcast right here

or get those joy-joy feelings right here on our site by listening below

Our featured guest: Glenn Shadix

Glenn returned to Natsukashi fresh from his visit from the Provincetown Tennessee Williams Theater Festival to recollect on the rather colorful filming of this Sylvester Stallone comedic sci-fi flick, in which he played Nigel Hawthorne’s somewhat faithful charge, Associate Bob. As always, Glenn adds much to our understanding and appreciate of the film in general and his role in specific.

He speaks with reverence of his co-star, the late Nigel Hawthorne, the last-minute switch we provided Sandra Bullock one of her earliest on-screen roles, and what it was like to work with Stallone, Snipes and producer Joel Silver, known for such blockbuster action flicks as Lethal Weapon, The Matrix, and Die Hard.

You can certainly keep up with Glenn on his personal site, GlennShadix.com.

Thanks again, Glenn. We send many joy-joy greetings your way. Be well.

Sylvester Stallone opens up about remaking the 1970’s exploitation vigilante classic, Death Wish. “I’m thinking about it,” Stallone says. He would continue to add the following:

“It’s a classic morality tale, where you take a civilized man and take away everything that matters to him so he becomes primitive again…The story’s been done many times, and when it’s done well, it’s an emotionally engaging film. The trouble with remakes is that people fall in love with the original. It’s like peanut butter. If you try to change the taste of peanut butter, you’re in trouble.”

John Rambo would also speak about the possibility of a Cliffhanger sequel. “I hear they’re gonna remake it,” he states. Poking fun at his age, the 63-year old action vet would go on to say, “You know you’ve been around when they start to remake your own movies when you’re still alive.” Stallone’s the man!

I can’t believe it’s already been a couple of weeks since my trip to Chicago. I don’t know what I’m doing with my life if I’m not immediately writing about it on here. I think I’m going to have to start canceling shows and rehearsals so that I can really get this going. I’m pretty sure that I’m kidding.
The first day of the “Chicago tour” started off with getting picked up around 10:30am and heading to Danville, PA for the first show. After about an hour on the road I realized that I had left my hi-hat stand back in NY. Whoops! In my defense I only use it on ONE song out of about three hours worth of material. We wound up not needing it at all even when I borrowed one for a show in Chicago. On the way to Danville we made a quick stop in Bloomburg, PA because the other band member wanted to check in with someone who might be able to get her a show in the future. I took the opportunity to check out a record store and Salvation Army and didn’t spend a dime. Woo. We also checked out this cafe with strange doors (I’m not even going to try and get into this) and a college kid running it who didn’t know the price of a cup of tea. And now I know that, according to Bloomburg’s website they are “the only incorporated TOWN in Pennsylvania”. So that’s really exciting. Right? When we got to Brews n Bytes to check it out before loading in we had some delicious complimentary food. I got some sort of tasty tuna sandwich and a really good chai latte.

I am chai man. I am made of chai.

Apparently good samaritans need creepy dolls to function.

Storyline -

Mike thought of the idea of using buskers as this is related to the theme of ‘Hidden London’, in the way that buskers carry on playing their music in the background regardless of what happens around them. We then evovled that concept into a story.

The story began by simply following a busker in their day to day life, including things such as, learning songs, getting equipment, the actual playing, auditioning etc.

With the crunch coming at the end of the film when the poor busker realises he only has just made enough money to buy his dinner for the evening, when he encounters another busker in his predicament…should he give his money over or not ?

Por problemas na grade e estratégica de marketing, a ABC anunciou que dividirá ‘V’ em duas partes: a series premiere vai ao ar no dia 3 de novembro na emissora, seguida de outros três episódios nas três semanas seguintes.

Já o restante da série, os outros 9 episódios, ou 21, caso a ABC renove o show para temporada completa, só deve ir ao ar na primavera americana, ou seja, em março.

Também foi anunciado que um grande cliffhanger é esperado ao final destes quatro episódios iniciais.

The South American Job

You know those stories you hear about tourist buses careering off narrow mountain roads in remote parts of South America?

Well, as you can see from the picture above, it almost happened to us.

Correction, Fraser.  Yours truly was travelling in the staff minibus at the time, plugged into my iPod and completely oblivious to the drama happening on the vehicle in front. 

The story goes like this.  Having completed a hard day’s trekking from Kunkani to Chacchapata, we all got picked up by the buses and were heading happily back to camp when a nasty blizzard hit, the aforementioned narrow mountain road turned treachously slippy and the big bus got stuck trying to negotiate round a sharp hairpin.

All was well until the driver tried reversing to have another go, braked as the back end neared the edge of the road (and a nasty drop) whereupon the bus continued sliding, getting perilously close to the edge before slithering to a halt.

According to the passengers, there was a nasty whiff of fear on board the bus.

And not just fear.

The anxious trekkers then demanded to be let off immediately and I got out of the minibus to hear their scary story and take a video of the driver and trek crew getting the bus round the corner with the aid of a shovel, some rocks and a few choice Peruvian sweary words.

You can watch it here.

Strangely enough, once the bus was safely round the corner, nobody wanted to get back on it, so 31 weary trekkers got on their shanks’s ponies and started walking off the mountain.

It wasn’t until the road straightened out and the blizzard eased, that everyone felt safe enough to get back onto the bus again.

Poofs.

“Living the Dream”

September 27th, 2009

“It’s already over.”

I have always made the argument that Dexter, slowly but surely, has turned into the pay cable equivalent of 24. However, until watching “Living the Dream,” I had always considered it a sort of referential shorthand for me to say that I’m not amongst those who consider the show in the same league as more complex cable series. After watching the show’s fourth season premiere, however, I’m now convinced that the show is intent on proving me right.

It is a show driven by a single lead character whose personal struggles form the basis of emotional investment. It is a show where each season features a different “threat” that the lead character needs to respond to. It is a show where the supporting characters are interesting when interacting with the lead, but mind-numbingly boring and pointless when left to their own devices. And, perhaps more importantly, it is a show where the similarities between seasons begin to feel repetitive, resulting in its negative qualities becoming that much more apparent in subsequent seasons.

I would be fine with formula if I felt that the formula was actually resulting in a show that made good on the first season’s premise of a vigilante serial killer coming to terms with his morality and engaging with “The Dark Defender.” However, the fourth season is shaping up to continue the trend of the third season, drawing most of its interest from an implausible scenario whereby a national serial killer happens to have originated in Miami, just as every terrorist attack seemed to happen within driving distance of Los Angeles on 24, than from what that means for Dexter.

And while Michael C. Hall will continue to be fantastic in a storyline played more for laughs and convenience than anything else, the show feels as if it is rebooting every time they start a new season. And for a character once defined by the haunting of the past, and by a complex set of characteristics I do not feel have been significantly examined to be undermined, to have only as much past as the show decides he should, is to find a show moving further away from a complex character study and closer and closer to a serialized action thriller with a strong central character and nothing else to show for it.

I want to start with the opening section of 24’s second season. We find Jack Bauer emotionally distraught after the death of his wife, bearded and struggling to keep his life together. That storyline, seeing how Jack will be dragged back into this world and how his trauma will affect his performance, was compelling television because of how well drawn Jack was as a protagonist and how efficiently Kiefer Sutherland got across his central characteristics. It was a good actor playing a good role, so we understood that the events of the previous season had taken their toll.

But, by the time the show got to its sixth season, that effect was gone. You start to forget about Jack’s entire storied past (faking his death and running off to live with Connie Britton, becoming a drug addict, his wife’s murder) and focus entirely on the most recent change (in this instance, his captivity in China). It comes to the point where each new scenario is overwriting the last, some part of his character lost as they focus on the newest life’s crisis placed before him. Kiefer Sutherland didn’t suddenly become a less interesting actor, but Jack Bauer as a character became only as interesting as the latest crisis put before him. When the seventh season brought a character back from the dead to try to reawaken the past, it was a desperate attempt to ignore the mess they’d created, but for me it was too little too late.

Watching “Living the Dream” for a second time, I kept returning to the image of Jack Bauer because I feel as if the show has had numerous opportunities to remind us about Dexter’s past and yet have largely ignored them in favour of storylines which start off interesting and end in a shocking turn of events. On paper, this season should be made downright fascinating by what we know of Dexter. We know of his complex relationship with his father, so being a new father himself should be bringing all sorts of things to the surface. We know of his early inability to be intimate with Rita, so married life should be something foreign to Dexter. And the idea of Dexter living in a new suburban house with three kids and neighbours with a swimming pool is the kind of situation that flies in the face of his penchant for being alone.

However, while there are a few reminders of these traits (like some on the nose narration pointing out that we’d never have expected this, or Dexter not missing sex as much as Rita), for the most part the show treats Dexter like any other new father having to balance their life with the new arrival. Yes, there is an inherent comic and dramatic value in having the baby’s ear infection interrupt Dexter right in the middle of killing a man, I’m not suggesting there isn’t. And, on a stylistic level that a show like 24 never achieved, the bizarro-world version of the credits with Harrison proving particularly damaging to Dexter’s sleep patterns were hilarious and well executed. However, everything is about short-term cause and effect: the baby is simply a hindrance to Dexter doing what he’s always done, and that’s solve murders by day and commit murders by night. It is no different than Agent Lundy’s presence in Season 2 forcing Dexter to be more careful, or Miguel Prada’s nosiness last year, used for largely the same purpose.

It’s a formula that might work if the show around it felt as if it had evolved into something that could offer something different each year, but instead we find that everything is still the same. While you could argue that Batista and LaGuerta hooking up is a surprise, it’s not even close to being compelling: Batista has never had an interesting storyline, and outside of when she was directly connected to the Prada case and when she had the hots for Dexter in the first season LaGuerta is no better. And while Deb was intriguing in the first season as the foul-mouthed sister and the rookie cop in over her head, the show now has her repeating something Dexter already did, and her character isn’t interesting enough on its own for us to enjoy her digging up the same past that Dexter already figured out. If the show really came down to Dexter and Deb’s sibling dynamic maintaining his humanity (as it, to some degree, did in the first season), then the ticking time bomb of Laura Mosher would matter. Instead, it feels like the show treading water with its supporting characters, something that has been a problem since the very beginning.

Much like with 24, the new situation presented to us is actually quite intriguing, as Special Guest Star John Lithgow stops by, gets naked, and then murders a young woman in her own bathtub. The Trinity Killer is, as long as we ignore the chances of him being the third Miami-based serial killer in four seasons, an interesting premise as we see someone who has been doing this for a very long time and who is returning to his own point of origin. I’m never going to complain about a storyline that offers us both the return of Agent Lundy (Keith Carradine, who’s also guesting on Dollhouse this season) and the appearance of Lithgow in one of his first dramatic roles in quite some time, but I have some issues with how it was presented. It’s one thing for us as viewers to be able to draw out precisely what this means for Dexter (the idea that this serial killer has done what he wants to do, to be able to keep killing), but it’s another for Dexter to point it out himself in less than subtle dialogue. It makes the entire thing feel pre-packaged, as if the writers sat down in a room and thought about what case would most appeal to Dexter’s serial killer side.

It’s really the same problem that eventually brought down 24: the storylines didn’t feel like real things organically happening within the show’s universe, they felt like story ideas pitched in a meeting or ripped from the headlines that seemed like they might be a good fit. Matt Roush made a comment on Twitter that tonight’s cliffhanger situation (Dexter getting into an accident with a dead body in the trunk after being distracted by the ghost of his father) was “classic Dexter,” and I have no problems with that in and of itself. However, I also know that “classic Dexter” also applies to the solution, where Dexter ends up being perfectly fine and when he escapes detection by the skin of his teeth (or so I presume – I’ve only seen the premiere). It’s the same sense you get watching Jack Bauer get himself into another bad situation: you might be entertained by how he wriggles out of it, but you know he’s going to do it and you know where the show is going next.

Dexter, of course, is more stylistically complex than 24’s real-time gimmick and its drawn out pace. Dexter’s short 13-episode seasons mean that each episode feels a little bit more purposeful in terms of its pacing, and the “special guest” sent in to play off of Michael C. Hall ensures that there is a clear thematic drive for the season. However, what’s missing at this point for me is a thematic drive for the series, as I’m losing sight of the character that Dexter used to be. He used to be someone who wasn’t fit to be part of society, who kept up appearances but deep down was troubled. Here, however, he’s happy to have screwed up a case so that he can satisfy his craving (not his need) to kill again, and he’s more annoyed than emotionally affected by the idea of his son’s ear infection interrupting his killing time. It doesn’t throw him off his game, creating an internal struggling between the dark defender and the suburbanite, but rather is as if he were having an affair, or trying to get some time to himself to go bowling (we do know how Dexter loves his bowling).

My point is that Dexter Morgan shouldn’t just be tired from staying up all night, just like Jack Bauer shouldn’t just be suffering from post-China stress disorder. These are characters that have been through enough, and have a complicated enough past, for them to be more screwed up than you could imagine, but the shows are so concerned about those wounds piling up that they reset the clock to be able to play out the scenarios they feel are most interesting. And while “Living the Dream” is occasionally quite funny and contains some interesting seeds for the remainder of the season, it all feels designed in a way that draws attention to the show’s repetitive nature and which fails to understand what made Dexter so interesting in the first place, at least for me personally.

With Michael C. Hall present, I don’t think Dexter will ever fall as hard as 24. However, if they keep pulling this for a few more seasons, I think there will come a time where not even his great performances can make this show watchable.

Cultural Observations

• Outside of eye candy, are we really supposed to care about Quinn hooking up with a reporter? Actually, scratch that: are we really supposed to care about Quinn? Last season made him out to be a complete jerk and an incompetent cop, and now this year Dexter considers him a good guy? I’m sure they like the actor just fine, but the show didn’t need another boring cop to waste time with.
• I was trying to figure it out, and never quite decided: is Masuka the Dexter equivalent of Chloe for being the most consistently entertaining part of the boring bureaucratic side of things, or is it Deb so long as she’s involved directly with Dexter as opposed to anyone else? I’d be tempted to call Deb the equivalent to Kim, always getting herself into trouble, but I don’t want to be mean.
• Stylistically, the show remains as great as ever, and the abandoned boxing gym (with the electricity conveniently left on) was extremely moody and made for an amazing scene as Dexter interrogated his victim in his tired, haggard state.
• Got a total “Let the Right One In” vibe from the Trinity Killer’s scene in the scalding hot shower, anyone else?
• Watching for the second time, I was wondering if they had even bothered putting Miguel into the “Previously on Dexter” section. It was essentially a Season 3 recap as opposed to any sort of real refresher for what was about to come: Miguel was never mentioned once, not by Maria and not by Dexter. It’s effectively like it never happened.

“MacPherson”

September 22nd, 2009

There is something potentially idiosyncratic about “MacPherson,” the finale to one of the summer’s most enjoyable new series Warehouse 13. The show has oft times been notable not for its epic, mythology laden finales but rather its clever short form action pieces, delivering procedural episodes which connect with the audience and highlight the show’s enjoyable cast of characters. “Macpherson,” by comparison, is all about twists and turns and for the most part puts aside its indulgences in favour of appealing to other senses.

It’s a bold decision for a show that has been built around a fairly simple formula and now is going to have a heck of a time getting back to that status quo, and it’s one that I like in theory. While I had expected this episode to put to rest the MacPherson story for good, a first season arc that provided necessary back story for Artie and the warehouse itself, instead it felt like a whole new launching off point which compromised the integrity of our cast of characters beyond recognition.

It leaves a lot of open questions in regards to just what this show is going to look like in the years ahead, something that I didn’t expect from a show which felt so gosh darn comfortable in its own skin just a few episodes ago. I’m not entirely convinced that it’s the right decision, and in some ways I think the finale needed to do something more to make it all work, but consider me most certainly intrigued.

I want to say first of all that I thought the finale was well put together on a technical level, but to some degree the heart wasn’t there for me. Last week’s “Nevermore” was effective due to Michael Hogan’s presence within the story, giving Myka a personal connection with grounded the story to some level. This week, Artie’s story was meant to have somewhat the same effect, but there was something about it which didn’t fit in with the puzzle solving mentality of the series. The show has never been entirely complex with its mysteries, but this one ended up being a fair bit too elaborate for my tastes. By the end of the episode, we are to believe that MacPherson planned all of this (including stealing all of those artifacts, and staging the auction, and giving Carol the Jewelry Box) all so he could eventually be placed into the Bronn Sector and have his sleeper agent get him out so he could wreak havoc in the Warehouse proper.

I think that MacPherson is an interesting villain, but there comes a point where his motivation remain almost entirely unclear. If it’s simply a desire to destroy Artie then he gets his wish: barring Artie holding onto the Phoenix (which I shall from hencepoint consider the “Pushing Daisies Artifact”) when he went down in the tunnel connecting the control room with the outside world, he is no longer of this world and MacPherson has taught him a lesson about picking the right side. However, what potentially makes MacPherson interesting is his end goal, something that got entirely missed in the episode. While he offers Pete a job working for his side of the organization, it isn’t entirely clear just what that purpose is, and as a result the elaborateness of his plan feels contrived until we learn why he’s doing all of it.

I like the idea of having two separate ideologies in terms of what to do with Warehouse material, and the central conflict (MacPherson, who wants to use the artifacts, and the official policy which indicates that they be isolated and never used) is quite similar to what Fringe appears to be doing in its second season (with plans to fight back against the threat rather than simply observing its impact and trying to fix it). But, rather than really let these ideologies play out, the show went with the bombastic route, allowing MacPherson to use Leena (in a bait and switch with Claudia, who had been framed for the crime) in order to break himself free and lock down the Warehouse with Artie (as far as we know) dying in the tunnel. It’s an effective cliffhanger, although one that will likely be ruined with interviews and the like reveal whether Saul Rubinek is moving onto greener pastures and thus clearing the way for a new mentor to be cast, but it does little to change the situation: MacPherson is still a mysterious and all-powerful “big bad,” and they still have no way of really stopping him.

All told, the various twists were well handled: having Leena prove to be the sleeper agent is a bit sudden, but it makes sense that she could use her supposed psychic powers in order to lay blame on Claudia (who, while allowed into the Warehouse via MacPherson, seemed too guilty to have knowingly done anything) and frame her when this time came. But in the process, the episode didn’t have that sense of heart which defines Pete and Myka’s relationship (largely ignored here), and if this was really Artie’s last episode I wish he had been able to get some final moments with the cast members who aren’t evil so as to make this feel like a proper goodbye. I liked Rubinek, and the character, enough that a sudden and tragic death is cheap to me.

Right now, SyFy has to be happy with the show: production values have been strong, the cast have really gelled together (Kelly and McClintock, in particular), and the ratings are the highest the network has ever seen for an original series in its first season. The question, really, will be how a second season forms. The first season had some rough patches, but when it tapped into the dynamics between characters and really focused on artifacts which complicated rather than convolute (an important distinction) it managed to be equal parts fun and resonant. I think that balance can be struck in the future, but I hope that they use this opportunity (whether Artie is dead or alive, and whether MacPherson is caught or let loose into the wild) to fine tune their purpose and perhaps more clearly define the external threat and the Warehouse response to it.

But overall, it was an enjoyable and successful first season, and certainly has me interested (if not quite excited) to see how things unfold for season two.

Cultural Observations

• I want to make note of the fact that I felt Joanne Kelly was perhaps the cast’s most valuable player (a testament to my university’s theatre program, from which she is a graduate? Perhaps.) in the season as a whole, if not given much to do in this one. She and McClintock were both forced to balance some difficult character traits while maintaining both likeability and believability, and while Pete has to be a bit of a goofball I think Myka is more difficult to nail down with an obsessive issue with rules and process that could get annoying quickly. Instead, they developed a great rapport that really made the show for me at points.
• CCH Pounder, Emmy-nominated this past year for guest work on the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency, really gives Mrs. Frederick a sense of authority, and I’ll be curious to see how the show uses her in Artie’s absence (especially if ushering a new agent into place).
• The question I have is whether the show would treat the role of Warehouse supervisor as, effectively, the Defence Against the Dark Arts position of the series. I think there’s enough stability in Claudia/Pete/Myka for it to work, but it would require some great casting.
• The running joke of Myka having read the manual never quite paid off (used here only to foreshadow the existence of the thimble to justify the body switching at episode’s end), but it was a run runner which can hopefully continue.