A Abc finalmente anunciou a data de estréia da sexta e última temporada de Lost.

02/02/2010…pra ninguém perder hein? Com um episódio especial de 2 horas (que na verdade será o 1 e 2 episódio da série , LAX, que é dividido em 2 partes) e antes da estréia,  vai rolar um outro episódio especial (como sempre) com um resumão de tudo de importante que aconteceu até agora na ilha mais bafônica ever!

Estou a base de medicamentos para controle de ansiedade!

Inanity, Intrigue and Inigo Montoya

November 20th, 2009

In the promos for the season finale of Season Six of Project Runway, Lifetime uses dramatic music and a deep-voiced announcer to try to build suspense for the big reveal. However, in their language, they have something wrong: they create anticipation for the reveal of who is “the next big name in fashion,” and my immediate response is “who cares?”

See, what works about Project Runway is that it transfers the aesthetics of the fashion industry into terms that are unrelated to the fashion industry. I know nothing about fashion, but I know a lot about what Nina Garcia likes to see in fashion, or what the series values in terms of creativity. It’s created an audience that, even if they have no knowledge of the fashion industry, have gained knowledge of what Project Runway considers fashion. As such, rather than caring about what these young designers do in the context of the fashion industry, we care about how they situate themselves within the show’s cast of characters from seasons past. For a viewer like me, Bryant Park is the setting of the finale of Project Runway, not a global fashion event, which is why Lifetime language is demonstrative of the season’s failures: I don’t care if they’re a big name in fashion, I want them to be a big name for Project Runway.

And I can confirm that Irina, Althea and Carol Hannah will not be names to remember, a fact which has more to do with the way the show treated them than it does with their individual personalities and talent. And while we’ll never know if this season would have been more interesting if it were in New York, and if the production company hadn’t changed, what we do know is that Season Six failed to provide both the next big name in fashion and a single memorable name for this franchise.

[A few more thoughts on Project Runway, and then some thoughts on both Top Chef and Survivor, with spoilers after the jump...]

I won’t spend any more time identifying what went wrong this season, as Linda Holmes at NPR has pretty much done that for me, but I want to say that Irina is about the perfect winner for the season. She had the most sense of character and the most interesting point of view, but was still ultimately uninteresting and lacking in identity, fitting the season perfectly. I didn’t think her collection was actually that interesting, but compared to Carol Hannah’s (which lacked cohesion) and Althea’s (which lacked clarity – there’s a difference) it was about as close to a winning collection the season could get.

And while some eliminations this season have been impossible to predict thanks to the confusing mismatch of judges, this one was really easy to see coming based on the judges’ deliberation. You could sense the judges were struggling to come up with something to say about each designer: these final critiques are always more positive than negative, and yet you could sense that the positives were all more dull than you could imagine. You could sense the judges trying to pretend as if there was ever a sense of consistency in the design aesthetics: my favourite was Heidi describing Carol Hannah, which I’ll now quote for you.

“You do see Carol Hannah, you see her point of view, and she loves dresses, and she’s impeccable in her tailoring…I mean that’s…what has…made her get this far, because she’s always been very good at that.”

So her point of view is dresses and impeccable tailoring, and the reason she got this far is because she was very good at it. Right there, with all the stammering pauses intact, you have the problem: she had no point of view except making acceptable clothes decently. Michael Kors had a similarly laughable moment when he described Althea as “very plugged into the street,” which made me guffaw. None of these designers could possibly be street-smart, and it was as if they were so desperate to distinguish these designers from one another that they needed to pigeonhole them into one idea. It made for a really hilarious sequence as you could sense things unraveling, and yet they could do nothing but plug on through and pretend that this really was the most dramatic finale of all time.

What’s interesting about Survivor (yep, this is a segueway) this season is that, for a show that often creates drama where there is none in an effort to make the final tribal council interesting, the producers have been able to sit back and watch people self-destruct over the past three weeks. Never before has a merge created quite this much chaos, and I’m sure Mark Burnett is giddy about the whole thing: I’m not sure I can remember the last time I’ve sat through the last quarter of this many episodes in a row. I fell into a pattern a while ago that I would effectively stop watching the show in its entirety after the immunity challenge, knowing that (because of how common pecking orders are, and because of how rarely the immunity idol was in play) the result was inevitable, and there were only a few occasions where something surprising happened during my fastforwarding that would result in me going back to see how it went down.

But after the merge, the self-destruction within the Galu tribe (who were dominant early on) has been a joy to watch – as Erik, sitting on the jury after being the victim of the first set of bizarre circumstances, said last night, “Man, this is some good shit.” After last week saw the Galu tribe fail to listen to Monica and plan some sort of contingency in case Russell managed to find the hidden immunity idol (which he did), resulting in Kelly leaving the game, this week was all about the Galu tribe running around like chickens with their heads cut off. When things finally get to tribal council, the sides are tied at 5, and when John eventually switches sides in order to avoid the drawing of rocks (which could send himself or anyone else home) it’s yet another moment where Galu realizes that they are not, in fact, a tribe anymore. What’s interesting about John is that he is really part of the problem here: I think that Galu would have simply picked off a Foa Foa member in that first week if he hadn’t first suggested taking off Monica, which was the information Erik got burned on as a messenger, so he’s sort of the one who set this all in motion. As such, it’s fitting he puts the final nail in the coffin in what was a really engaging final tribal council. The first merge episode had the frantic switchover that got rid of Eric, last week had Russell’s cagey Idol play, and this week saw John kill Galu for good – a very eventful, and very strong, period for Survivor.

Top Chef, meanwhile, sort of had an off week. This isn’t to suggest that I didn’t like the end result, which has the always likely Final Four come together after Jennifer manages to throw off her demons to win the Quickfire and place respectably in the Elimination Challenge in earning a spot in the Napa Valley finale, which sees Eli sent home. The episode was about the camaraderie of the chefs, as they seemed to all get along and there was a whole lot of emotion to be found in the final sequence was Eli basically admits that he’s okay going home at this stage considering the people who are going on instead (which was especially sad after Eli had turned himself into an Inigo Montoya figure for his mentor Richard Blais earlier in the episode). I didn’t particularly like Eli, but the rest of the chefs did and as a result I found his departure interesting.

However, I think that (to bring this all full circle) the actual challenge suffered because I really had no idea what this supposed “Culinary Olympics” was really about, and more problematically the show couldn’t actually judge based on that sort of criteria considering the amount of time given to the chefs. I understand that they wanted to try to capture the spirit of the event, but while Project Runway has turned Bryant Park into a life long goal that everyone aspires to this competition came out of nowhere and had too little meaning for me to be all that excited about. It also created a strange scenario where the judging was supposed to be based on who best captured the spirit of the event, and yet because nobody really went wild with zucchini baskets or anything similar it ended up coming down to whose food tasted the best, which is why Kevin was ultimately named the winner even when many judges felt Bryan had the most potential within the context of this type of competition. I don’t doubt Kevin deserved to win based on some criteria, but considering the nature of this competition he himself admitted he didn’t show enough technique, so the judges seemed to ignore that aspect of the challenge in favour of simply feeling Kevin best-executed “food” and thus wins the $30,000.

It just goes to show you that there’s only so much you can do in an hour of reality television: sometimes you try to make an exciting season sound interesting, sometimes you have everything go perfectly and barely need to touch a thing, and in another instance you have a big idea that just never translates well into the competition (unless my lack of knowledge of Thomas Keller in some way destroyed my ability to see the challenge as a really big deal).

Cultural Observations

• My favourite thing about the Runway finale was that we had the prior knowledge of the fact that, since this was taped during the period of legal limbo for the show, nobody knew who the designers were and thus they couldn’t actually be seen by the crowd and the media. What this means is that any time you saw any of the contestants watching the show, or saw the families, or saw the designers on the runway, that was all staged either before or after the fact (note how no one but the other designers comment on any contestant by name). What I loved is how, even if I hadn’t known that, the awkwardness of the introductions would have tipped me off: they were clearly uncomfortable with the charade.
• Does anyone have any verdict on Models of the Runway? I stopped watching after about two weeks, and I found that the models were total non-entities for me as a result – I can’t imagine watching another 30-minutes of this terrible season every week, but I did miss not caring about Irina’s model in any capacity when she won.
• My one complaint with Survivor is that they “gamed” the game too much in terms of trying to turn the “Immunity Idol” scavenger hunt that Russell invented into an actual part of the gameplay setup. It was way too easy to find when they were given a visual clue, and while it resulted in the “chase through the woods sequence” and got a good moment out of Dave being oh-so-close to finding it, I thought that it was a bit cheap and sort of took the spontaneity out of Russell’s genius.
• I’ve had no issues with Kevin’s beard on Top Chef this season, as I believed it to be awesome, but then this week we saw what happens when he doesn’t spike his hair at all. It totally makes the beard look about 5x mangier, and the longish greasy hair he had in the preview for next week made it look even more ridiculous. The different hair at Napa (Padma had bangs, Jennifer’s was curly) totally took me out of the show, which really does say something about me, doesn’t it?

Bem báfu esse poster que na verdade nem é tão diferente assim do anterior, tem apenas mais personagens do passado de Lost, que já partiram dessa para uma melhor na série. Medro! E John continua de costas neam? E a presença de Vincent! Rouf Rouf!

Detalhe o nome do primeiro (e segundo ep porque será um epispodio duplo) é LAX. Báfu! Será que eles conseguiram chegar a LA? Que báfu seria isso? Estou mega ansioso mil!

Bom, fato é que certamente o episódio final de LOST vai entrar para a história como uma das maiores audiências da Tv, fatão!

Até o momento eles estão fazendo um jogo duro com relação aos spoillers e não estão querendo liberar muita coisa, só o que eu sei é o nome dos 4 primeiros eps dessa temporada final:

Lost Season 6 – Episode 1: LAX
Lost Season 6 – Episode 2: LAX (2)
Lost Season 6 – Episode 3: What Kate Does
Lost Season 6 – Episode 4: The Substitute

E é isso, só nos resta tentar nos conter de tanta ansiedade!

Chris Gorham ha twitteado hace unos días que está de regreso en el set de Ugly Betty y que “el bebé de Ana Ortiz es bellisimo.”

Esto hace que nos preocupemos.

No a causa del bebé, pero algunas fuentes han estado anunciando sobre el destino de Betty: que el final puede estar cerca y los fantasmas(pretendientes) de Betty podrían estar de vuelta.

A pesar de Gorham se ha aclarado a través de Twitter, “no estoy de vuelta en Ugly Betty. “Solo visito a mis  amigos(actores) de ugly betty”, según las fuentes, puede ser muy pronto …

Varias Fuentes dicen que ABC ha estado trabajando arduamente en todas las  formas para tratar de salvar Ugly Betty (se incluiye la posibilidad de moverlo  de los viernes a  los miércoles), sin embargo, si el rating no mejora de aqui a unos meses, es posible que Betty se cancele en mayo. (Lo cual seria una gran tristeza para sus fans, entre los cuales me incluyo)
Se ha dicho que “Los autores han aceptado que esta temporada puede ser el último intercambio de ideas y terminaciones ahora, por si acaso. La gran pregunta es: ¿Quién  seria el principe final de Betty? y en  la sala de producción y escritores se piensa profundamente”.Según ellos pueden ser tres candidatos, y ellos son …

Gio (Freddy Rodriguez), Daniel (Eric Mabius), Henry (Chris Gorham).

Entonces para lo que quede del resto de la temporada una gran pregunta para ustedes mis chic@s lectores! ¿Quién sera la verdadera alma gemela de Betty?(Vayan opinando y haciendo sus apuestas)
Mientras tanto, no es momento de renunciar en Ugly Betty todavía!

Según los expertos, esto es sólo el comienzo, y hay un resurgimiento creativo en las obras que incluye se incluye una Betty  viajera, en donde realiza un viaje a las Bahamas y ostentosos con invitados Christie Brinkley y Shakira y un grande,  además de proximos fabulosos episodio de la semana de moda se centran en Amanda (Becki Newton) y Betty (America Ferrera), por no hablar de su triángulo amoroso actual con Matt. ¿Que va a pasar ahi?

¿Eres creyente de  Betty aún en esta cuarta temporada? puedes ver un nuevo episodio el  próximo 27 de noviembre por ABC. (Episodio de esta semana va a ser precedido por una película de Shrek.)

I’m still on a high with Mad Men’s season finale. And my god the show just keeps churning out gems. Having wrapped up a revealing and seminal third season, the AMC drama series deserves all the praise its been getting.

Set in the 1960’s, Mad Men is about the lives of the men and women in the fictitious ad agency, Sterling Cooper. The show succeeds in transporting its viewers to a pivotal era in America. In the third season, John F. Kennedy has just been assassinated and everyone finds themselves at the crossroads of their lives. So…“Shut the Door and Sit Down.”

I particularly loved the place of the episode in the timeline of American history. The winds of change are blowing and the characters are caught in their own whirlwinds. Don – his secret discovered by Betty – has lost his picturesque family life. Betty, acting on what she believes she deserves, divorces Don and is now with Henry Francis (seemingly to wed in Reno). The founders of Sterling Cooper, Roger and Burt are once again treated like the disposable figure-heads of archaic advertising. Even Peter Campbell and Peggy Olsen are deciding on their respective futures. As a society, America was dealing with the rude awakening of reality, Camelot has crumbled and everyone is asking “Where do we go from here?”

Over the course of the 3 seasons, we’ve seen different characters weighed down either by social constructs or by secrets that could bring them crashing from their lofty perch. From Don’s secret identity, Betty’s sham of a marriage, Peggy’s child to Peter’s disillusionment with the corporate set-up, everyone had something to lie about. The social environment allowed for the protection of their lies but we all know fantasies don’t last forever. Revelations in terms of story and character came thick in the third season and it was apt that the central players decided to release themselves from the corporation that has become a metaphor for their personal journeys. It was exciting to see them spring into action not particularly because of the noose hanging over the company’s head but because they needed to do something for themselves. For some it was time to man up, and for others it was laying a claim to what they believe is theirs.

I was pleased with Peter who showed signs of returning to his opportunistic self after being bogged down in a few episodes of season 3. Peggy has grown on me and her influence in the future is something to be excited about. Betty had more of a presence is this season than the previous 2 and that was inevitable. The storylines given her were opening up so many possibilities but the Henry Francis angle was a bit of a disappointment primarily because I felt the proposal came too sudden and was too drastic with very little for the audience to build on. It almost felt like the writers needed to throw in a big twist to her story and this was a convenient choice. A probable explanation is Henry acting on impulse just as Betty did in spurts scattered throughout earlier episodes. She was after all a caged bird either by others or by her own hand. The temptation not just of a release but that of a new start is something she longs for and probably deserves. (A Don-Betty reunion is still a possibility but I’m not sure if I’m looking forward to it all that much.)

One element of a successful season finale is leaving the door open for us to speculate what will happen when we tune back in. There are so many promising things at the end of this episode. Don is rebuilding the family he was absent from for most of the season – the people who matter at Sterling Cooper. For him to instigate the breakaway will make fans love him even more. He has taken matters into his own hands for other things in life like his family and the affairs he’s had. Now he’s claiming a larger stake at the firm he helped succeed. The importance of Don was always implied but it is only now that you really see how entrenched he is not in the business of advertising but in love for advertising. The season-ender brings together the people we want to see succeed as a group. Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce is a new beginning for old faces.

The Joan-to-the-rescue scene was probably my favourite. Joan Halloway was, for all intents and purposes the heart of Sterling Cooper. She not only knew what was what and where it was; she was also there for everyone. Even when she wasn’t employed at the firm she still managed to wiggle someone out of a bind. She was the missing piece and I find it interesting to have such a maternal scene in an environment dominated by men. The success of her return was highlighted more because of her low-key presence through the majority of the season. It’s like the forgotten sidekick pulling through at the end. Of course she doesn’t deserve such a demotion.

Their audacious scheme to start a new agency provides the perfect vehicle for us to cheer for them. It is swashbuckling and holds so much promise amidst the vacuum in American society after JFK. As the era they exist in draws to a close, theirs is just beginning. There is uncertainty all around but they are approaching it with a brashness that personifies advertising whether in the 60s or now.

“Because there are people out there who buy things and something happened, something terrible, and the way they saw themselves is gone. Nobody understands that. But you do. And that’s very valuable.” –Don Draper to Peggy Olsen.

Mad Men takes a break but it leaves us excited yet speculative about the characters and the bold new environment they find themselves in. The dynamic of everyone towards everybody else will surely change but that’s how new beginnings are.

A Mad Men Season Three Podcast

November 14th, 2009

What’s really interesting about Mad Men’s third season is that, because of how strong the finale was, it makes criticizing the season as a whole somewhat difficult. It requires sort of forgetting about how great the finale was, and going back to consider just how everything came together. The finale, in some ways, rewrote some of our concerns about the season: we wanted more Sterling Cooper drama and we got more Sterling Cooper drama, and we complained about Joan’s marginalization and suddenly Joan was back front and centre.

So when I joined The House Next Door’s Luke De Smet and The A.V. Club/etc.’s Todd VanDerWerff for a special TV on the Internet/House Next Door Mad Men Season Three podcast, there was a definite sense that the strength of the finale has in some way coloured our opinions on the rest of the season. I’m not suggesting that the third season was bad, but rather that in our enjoyment of the finale (and a couple of other key episodes) we may have spent more time talking about what works than we did talking about what didn’t (although we do discuss some of the story elements that were perhaps underdeveloped). It’s a great conversation, discussing a number of key subjects and focusing on different areas of the show’s success, but there were a couple of more negative things I wanted to say about the season that almost didn’t fit into the podcast’s narrative thanks to how much goodwill the finale created for all of us.

As such, after the jump I’ll go into detail on the one major issue I have with the season that didn’t make it into the podcast, but do go have a listen before reading on.

One of the things that I saw online after the finale was the assertion that Conrad Hilton was a MacGuffin, which is something I find legitimately fascinating. If Conrad Hilton had remained a random partygoer at Roger and Jane’s party, then perhaps this would be a fair point. However, Conrad Hilton was so clearly defined as an individual that to claim he is a MacGuffin is to ignore his larger than life identity. Conrad Hilton was a self-made man, rising from nothing to create a huge empire, so in Don he saw someone not entirely unlike himself. That was clear from the start of their relationship, and was also at the heart of their conversation in the finale: Connie has been manipulating Don in an effort to test his character, to see if he is capable of standing up to the kinds of pressures he faced up to and whether he’ll be ready for something more important in his future. I thought the scene captured why Don, who’s always resisted images of the future due to his focus on maintaining his identity in the present and avoiding his past identity, would feel stymied by Hilton sending him flying across the world.

However, while I don’t believe that Hilton was a MacGuffin, I will argue that the storyline was significantly mishandled towards the end of the season. There was a point where Don was constantly being pulled out of bed by Hilton, and where it was keeping him from being home, which seemed like it was creating tension in his marriage. However, once Don decided that this was actually a brilliant cover for falling into bed with Sally’s former teacher, Suzanne Farrell. And at that point the two characters literally replace one another, with Suzanne serving as Don’s distraction from home and the show pretty much ignoring Hilton until that scene in the finale.

I have two issues with this, the first about the character of Suzanne herself, who is definitely more of a MacGuffin than Hilton is. I understand that there is something about the character which makes her appealing to Weiner, being a sort of flower child before her time and offering a more laid back mistress for Don as his humble upbringing rises to the surface. However, I never felt like she really evolved beyond being this sort of ephemeral being, never becoming anything close to a real character. A lot of people were wondering online whether she was legitimately crazy, which is less the result of subtle hints and more the result of a complete lack of hints leading the audience to presume something downright bizarre. I can fully understand why Don would find her attractive both physically and emotionally during this time, I want to make that extremely clear, but I don’t understand what it accomplished in terms of his character or in terms of the season’s story arcs. Don having a mistress makes sense for the story, but the character never developed into a significant-enough element of the story to justify the time we spent with her, especially considering that we abandoned Hilton in order to accomplish it.

And that’s my second issue with the storyline, the fact that it’s Hilton who ends up being important in the finale and Suzanne is never even mentioned. If the show’s goal is to keep Suzanne around for the fourth season, I feel as if we needed to see something of her in this finale to underscore her value to Don, even if the way he broke it off with her made sense as his past has been unraveled by Betty and he needs to try to save his marriage. The show dropped Hilton like a sack of potatoes to introduce her, and then dropped her like a sack of potatoes once she was no longer useful, to the point where both characters felt like they never really mattered as much as they could have to the season’s overall arcs. Betty’s Henry Francis was no better developed, sure, but he was never a replacement for another character, nor was he at any point as dominant as Hilton was to the storyline.

It’s the one question I’d be really curious to ask Weiner right now, in terms of whether there was any sort of rushing around with these characters that influenced their impact in any way. I know that Weiner has indicated that they were unsure of how important Hilton would be until they got Chelcie Ross in for the role and discovered how strong a presence he was, and perhaps that ended up convoluting that third quarter of the season and providing some narrative hiccups.

Cultural Observation

• Just to be also clear, I thought both Abigail Spencer and Chelcie Ross gave strong performances in the respective roles, so I think this was an issue of overall season organization rather than of any individual failure.

Parece que según va avanzando la temporada 2009/2010 las series se van posicionando en el panorama televisivo. Esto viene a significar que aquellas que no alcanzan lo mínimo exigido por sus cadenas terminan canceladas, lo que ya le ha ocurrido a las desaparecidas “The Beautiful Life” (The CW) o “Eastwick” (ABC).

En esta ocasión concreta el canal en cuestión es FOX, y la serie que no volverá a la temporada que viene es “Dollhouse”.

A muchos ya nos sorprendió su renovación la temporada pasada cuando sus rankings de audiencia no se elevaban lo normal para una serie de FOX. Sin embargo consiguió (inexplicablemente) renovar para una nueva temporada. Ahora de nuevo las audiencias no pasan de los 2 millones cada semana y el canal ha decidido retirarla de la parrilla. Aunque primero nos ha asegurado que terminara de emitir la temporada completa que tiene 13 episodios, para darle al menos un final digno, que sin duda se merece.

Aunque la primera temporada sirvió para presentar a los nuevos personajes, la cual considero muy buena y lejos de lo normal en televisión (donde todo ya está visto) esta segunda temporada ha bajado la calidad. La trama sigue siendo demasiado similar, con puntos de acción pero no tantos como consideraría de una serie tan peculiar.

La cancelación es bastante lógica, donde muchos productos alcanzan mayores índices de audiencia en la misma franja horaria. Pero decir que los viernes siempre ha sido uno de los peores días de emisión en Estados Unidos, y tener un poco de paciencia no les vendría mal. Yo al menos acabaré de ver la serie, esta última temporada porque me enganchó desde el primero momento y al menos espero que por parte del director nos de el final feliz que todos estamos esperando.

Carlton Cuse, el escritor y productor ejecutivo de Lost, anunció en su cuenta de Twitter que el actor William Atherton -que ha participado en La Ley y el Orden y Esposas Desesperadas- aparecerá como estrella invitada en la última temporada de la serie que en latinoámerica se emite por el canal de cable AXN.

Atherton, de 62 años, es conocido por protagonizar la saga de acción Die Hard y la comedia Ghostbusters.

Cuse comentó: “Damon y yo somos fanáticos de Die Hard, y Atherton es un actor impecable. Nos encanta tenerlo en Lost”.

El intérprete es uno de los nuevos rostros que en la sexta etapa de la historia -que narra la experiencia de un grupo de sobreviviente a un accidente aéreo- aparecen como invitado.

También lo hará el actor Hiroyuki Sanada, conocido por su papel en El último samurai o en su más reciente film Speed Racer.

Los detalles sobre el personaje que interpretará Sanada o el número de episodios en los que participará se mantienen en secreto, ya que los productores de la historia no quisieron dar detalles acerca de su nueva adquisición.

Sin embargo, en algunos portales de internet ha trascendido que el intérprete japonés podría encarnar a un hombre misterioso y mítico que guiará a John Locke después de la alteración en la línea del tiempo provocada por la detonación de la bomba.

La incorporación de ambos artistas se suma a la del actor John Hawkes, conocido por su participación en la serie Deadwood de la cadena HBO.

Well, I got to say it’s been a long road but i’ve finally come to the end of the season. I was real excited and anxious to find out about what would occur in the events of this episode. In this episode we are dealing with a former villain, I just love to call the bad guy’s villains even though this isn’t a super heroe show, Lombard make a return. We see he is presented with a case in which he has to testify in court against a man named Labritzy or he will face time in an order of contempt. Sonny & Tubbs have to protect Lombard throughout the episode even though Sonny is bitter towards Lombard since he was responsible for the murder of his ex-girlfriend, Barbara, earlier on in the season. Labritzy plots on the murder of Lombard fearing that Lombard will rat him out, and so Lombard faces a couple gun shot wounds on his shoulder which he recovers quickly from. Sonny & Tubbs approach Lombard for protective custody but he refuses but, he changes his mind after men he closely worked with were actually plotting on his own death. Luckily, he got saved by Sonny & Tubbs in time for his life to be saved. While having Lombard in protective custody we find a more rationale side to Lombard, rather than this cold-hearted businessman. He states how the type of business he does is very beneficial but comes with a great cost since the relationship he has with his son is very much distant due to the things he does. Although, his son is very much on the right path seeing as how he is in college headed on the right direction. After, am ambush at the safe house where Lombard was being held, he flees and goes to see his son later being caught by Sonny & Tubbs. Lombard’s son asked his father to simply testify in court in order to repent for what he has done and Lombard agrees to do so for the sake of his son. One thing I would like to say which was mentioned was when Tubbs said something about the streets being the greatest educator and Lombard mentioned something about how that is only possible if you live long enough to tell it. I thought that was very interesting because it is very much true, you learn a lot about the world simply by putting yourself out in the streets but it can be very risky seeing as how it can cost you your life. In his final moments before appearing in court, Lombard seems to want to make things right for what he’s done stating that he’s done “a lot of bad things”. When taking Lombard to court, Sonny’s Vice Squad was top elite making sure the safety of Lombard was secure and that he would make it to the court alive. It turned out to be a complete disappointment because Lombard ended up not testifying against Labritzy in court and his son walked out in shame that his father would not testify. Lombard simply states that his reason for not testifying were simple, it was just something he could not do because it is a code of conduct that he simple lives by. In the end, Lombard is seen driving off from the court and as he is doing so a car from behind with two passengers are seen loading their weapons chasing right behind Lombard. Implying that Lombard would meet his death soon after. I really did not expect the season to end this way, I was expecting something with much more closure. A lot of questions were simply left unanswered. Such as, what will become of Sonny and Gina? And, will Tubbs ever find love in his life? I believe if these questions were answered I would much more content with how this season ended but the fact that these questions were unanswered leaves me with unease and anxiousness. I mean, Sonny & Gina ended off on a bad note but whose to say that something won’t spark between them. Also, whose to say Tubbs won’t find a woman he can actually be with who won’t go off acting crazy doing something out of the ordinary. Overall, I enjoyed watching this show and believe in some ways it deals with real life issues essentially although mostly dealing with drug dealers and such but these are real life issues. There are really people out there who sell drugs heartlessly and don’t care nothing much of their customers as long as it gets a dollar in their pockets. I just felt a little disappointed with the way turned out in the end, the finale ended as if it was any other episode there wasn’t much closure in this episode just ongoing events. Although, this was a show revolving around how Miami Vice officers would pretty go around handle crime situations and such the story pretty much revolved the basis of love. We have seen relationships rise & fall and rise again only ending in failure. I enjoyed the clothing attire in this show, it was very reminiscent to that of Tony from Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, which is probably due to no coincidence what so ever since both take place in Miami around the 1980’s. So, perhaps that was the style of dressing in those times. Overall, this was a great show and I would recommend anyone to watch it so if you’re into crime solving with some plot twist and a little comedy definitely check out Miami Vice. Maybe just maybe I might consider checking out Season 2. We shall see.

Peggy will be vlogging throughout the show’s hiatus. Here’s her first effort, from a few weeks ago. Thanks to the Guardian for the shout-out.

Last night was the Season Finale for Mad Men. It is a good show, and the internet says you are uncool and stupid if you don’t watch it.

I normally hate on shows that douchebags insist I watch. But Mad Men is one of the few that lives up to the hype. I am a sucker for beautiful camera work and clever dialogue.

One of my favorite characters is Roger Sterling (brilliantly played by  John Slattery), so I enjoyed this video:

“Shut the Door”

November 8th, 2009

“I’m not going…I’m just living elsewhere.”

Every episode of television is a collection of scenes, individual set pieces designed to present a particular moment or to evoke a particular emotion or feeling. The scenes serve one of many potential purposes, whether it’s establishing a standalone plot within a particular episode, calling back to a previous scene or event in another episode, or even simply being placed for the sake of foreshadowing. A scene can change meaning as a season progresses, an awkward encounter with an overly touchy politico turning into a legitimate affair by the addition of new scenes that speak to the old one, for example. And, at the same time, other scenes are simply brief thematic beats designed to give the viewer the sense of a particular time or place, with nothing more beneath them than the aesthetic value apparent in the craftsmanship involved.

A great episode of television, however, is where every single scene feels purposeful, and more importantly where there is no one type of scene which feels dominant. There can still be scenes designed to engage with nothing more than the viewer’s sense of humour, just as there will be scenes that feel like the culmination of two and a half seasons worth of interactions. In these episodes there is a balance between scenes which unearth feelings and emotions from the past that have been kept under wraps all season and scenes which create almost out of thin air entirely new scenarios that promise of an uncertain future.

In a season finale in particular, this last point is imperative. A great season finale assures the reader that, as the quote above indicates, the change which is going to take place in the season to follow is both fundamental (in presenting something which surprises or engages) and incidental (in maintaining the series’ identity), both chaotic (in the context of the series’ fictional universe) and controlled (within the mind of the show’s writers). It is an episode that must feel like the fruit of the thirty-five episodes which preceded it while also serving as the tree for the twenty-six episodes which will follow. It is the episode that, for better or for worse, will be more closely scrutinized than any other, and for which expectations are exceedingly high.

“Shut the Door. Have a Seat.” is more than a collection of scenes. It transcends the concepts of script and screen to capture characters in their most vulnerable states, in the process tapping into the viewer’s emotions with a sense of purpose that the show has never quite seen. Where past amazing episodes have sometimes hinged upon a single scene or a single moment, or on the creation of a particular atmosphere, this finale is like a never-ending stream of scenes that we have been clambering for all season: characters say everything we wanted them to say, do everything we wanted them to do, and yet somehow it never felt like puppet theatre where the characters would follow the whims of Matthew Weiner more than their own motivations.

It is a finale that never wastes a single scene, and which marches towards an uncertain conclusion with utmost certainty. Somehow, in a finale which does not shy away from scenes which are both disturbing to watch and destructive to the show’s tempestuous sense of balance, it maintains a cautious optimism by demonstrating that not everything will fall apart at once, while retaining the right to have everything in shambles by the time we return with Season Four. It’s a singular achievement, an hour of television which sits perfectly in the gap between the past and the future while never feeling as if it takes us out of the present, the moment in which these characters are captured in these scenes.

So, shut the door and have a seat: we’ve got some discussing to do.

There’s so much going on in this episode that to boil it down to a single image seems false, but I’m going to follow the episode’s lead on this one. In this, the show’s third season finale, two families are fundamentally changed: the Draper family becomes the sort which has two Christmases, and Sterling Cooper becomes the sort who wakes up and discovers that their parents and some of their siblings have left them behind to fend for themselves. At the heart of both families, as the finale crystallized but has been clear of all season, is the fact that neither of them was secure to begin with. For all that we are meant to care for the Draper family and hope they stay together (as we, like the State of New York, don’t want divorce), and for all the ways we enjoy the dynamics of Sterling Cooper, from the beginning of the season they have been shells of their former selves simply waiting for their expiration date.

I think, to some degree, this explains why the season as a whole felt off in certain ways. Last week, especially, felt less dramatic than it should have: JFK’s death destroyed the fabric of a nation, and yet somehow its impact on the Draper family didn’t feel organic, didn’t feel real. The reason isn’t that the episode was a failure, but rather that it had been broken long before that moment, and Betty’s decision is more a delayed reaction than a sudden realization. The season has used a baby and the truth about Dick Whitman to patch up a relationship that was perhaps shattered the moment Betty slept with Captain Awesome, or perhaps even back when Don first began keeping a mistress. In fact, it is entirely possible that the marriage only exists in a hotel room in Rome where the original infatuation still lingers, and where Don’s idea of the marriage is something more than providing all that Betty ever wanted while retaining the right to satisfy his own needs outside of the marriage.

When Don and Roger are leaving Sterling Cooper for the final time, and Roger asks when they’ll ever work in an office like this again, Don points out that he never expected he would ever work in an office like this one. It’s one of the moments where the parallel between his two families becomes apparent, as the Dick Whitman we saw witness his father’s death by frightened horse is not the Don Draper who stands beside Roger saying goodbye to Sterling Cooper. He bought into the lifestyle of being an Ad Man, and the lifestyle of being a Husband/Father, because he was doing what society expected, and what allowed him to continue living a lie. And yet, as the episode quite clearly points out, his limitation has always been his ability to deal with people: Roger argues that Don doesn’t value relationships, and that this is why he isn’t an Accounts man by any stretch of the imagination.

This, ultimately, was the point of the Conrad Hilton experiment. The season’s largest flaw, in my book, is the out-and-out replacement of Connie Hilton with Miss Farrell, Don’s latest mistress. There is something fascinating in the Hilton relationship, especially the idea of Don being placed into the same category as a self-made billionaire and being pulled under his wing. When that story effectively died and became an excuse for Don to be spending time away from home, it seemed as if an important part of Don’s journey this season died with it. Don has always been stuck in the past, but what Hilton offered was a future. Even after they part ways on less than amicable terms, Hilton having dropped the news about the sale of PPL and Don having questioned Hilton’s manipulative treatment, Connie notes that some other time they might try again. This implies that at some point in time things might be different, and that Don might perhaps some day be ready for something beyond his current station. It’s an impulse that has Don trying to control his future as opposed to suppressing his past, the exact opposite of his affairs (which are about evading the present).

You could argue that Don throws himself into his plan to leave Sterling Cooper behind because he has no other family to go home to, sleeping in Gene’s room with a broken alarm clock and being told that he needs a divorce attorney. And there’s evidence of this in how he starts the project off with the sense that he has something to prove, and with an assurance that he isn’t just doing this because he doesn’t want to go to McCann Erickson. It’s important to make the distinction, however, that Don is not evading Betty and the kids, and the episode doesn’t seek to so either. Even as the project ramps up and things go from harebrained scheme to actual reality, the episode does not present it as an escape for Don. In fact, far from an escape, in many ways his departure from Sterling Cooper only heightens his emotional response to Betty’s decision. Don initially responds to Betty as if she were crazy, even suggesting that she repeat the first season’s trip to the doctor’s office, but his passive approach disappears to the point where he allows his emotions to burst to the surface.

And when they do, the episode becomes all about the juxtaposition of the electrifying feeling of building something new and the horrifying glimpse into something falling apart. When Don discovers that Betty is not simply responding to his own infidelities, but has in fact committed her own of sorts with Henry Francis, he becomes unhinged. Yes, he was drinking, but the scene was nonetheless the most lucid perhaps we’ve seen Don within this marriage in quite some time. He’s spent so much time keeping his own secrets that he never quite bothered to ask whether Betty had any of her own, and seeing him wrench her from the bed (as if pull away the covers to discover the truth) so violently was painful. And then we have the tragedy of the next morning, as Don and Betty sit and tell their children that there will be two Christmases. Bobby was right: the living room is never good news, and unfortunately Sally is more acutely aware of what this particular news means. She knows that Don isn’t just leaving but rather being told to leave, and while Bobby mourns the loss of a father Sally mourns the loss of a family (which isn’t new for Sally, who had to deal with both Gene’s death and baby Gene’s disruption of the existing family unit). And we, as the audience, are left giddy with excitement over the potential of Sterling Cooper Draper Price while nearly in tears over the dissolution of our central family.

There are an absolutely ludicrous number of amazing scenes with Don in this episode, to the point where I will be absolutely shocked if this episode doesn’t win Jon Hamm an Emmy. However, what makes the episode so stunning is how we can see the changes in Don within those individual scenes. When he first calls Peggy into his office, his worth has been placed under the microscope and he has something to prove, which leads to his arrogant presumption that Peggy will simply follow him like a poodle. In that scene, Peggy says everything we’ve wanted her to say, standing up for herself and her worth while challenging Don’s assumption that she is an extension of him more than an individual person. Peggy’s character has always been one for brooding, for having to deal with things in her own way (like going to Duck as a new surrogate father of sorts) and not being able to come out into the open, but Elisabeth Moss perfectly captured just how much Peggy has changed. Perhaps it’s sleeping with Duck that finally gave Peggy the perspective to be able to speak her mind, a connection I wish had been made more clear in previous episodes but which was nonetheless subtly indicated here.

And yet, beyond Peggy’s own story, her two scenes with Don are important bookends for his character’s change in the episode. When he shows up at her apartment on Sunday, he is a broken man who finally understands what Peggy brings to the table: she is someone who, like all of these people who have taken JFK’s death to heart, has lived through adversity and managed to persevere to the point of being able to see how they’ve changed. This, Don senses, is what he has been missing. Peggy was brought on as a copy writer because she had good ideas, and Don latched onto her in some ways because he knew it would piss other people off and he got off on that. However, the argument he makes here is that he kept her in some ways because she is able to rewrite his own past, having experienced a life-changing event but managing to continue on living with a new sense of self-awareness. Don never got that chance, forced to live a complicated lie to the point of losing some sense of his own identity, and between their two conversations he seems to have come to terms with it. He seems to have lived far enough on the edge, and seen deep enough into the precipice that is his family’s demise, to understand that he needs Peggy because she understands how people respond to things in a way that other people, including in many instances himself, do not.

However, as noted, the chain reaction of events resulting from Connie Hilton breaking the news that Putnam, Powell and Lowell will be sold as of January 1st is both an exercise of Don Draper’s emotional turmoil and an absolutely thrilling ride for the audience. There was something electrifying about the entire storyline, as it played into the sense that the Sterling Cooper drama has been somewhat lacking ever since a lawnmower ran over someone’s foot. As opposed to creating more drama, it was as if that event halted it entirely: Lane Price remained in charge, the status quo was maintained, and nobody talked about how the company was not the same was it was before. Even Roger and Don’s relationship, once so foundational to the setting, is in shambles when we begin, so the opening plays into all of that tension. Don doesn’t trust Roger, nobody trusts Lane, and someone like Pete is downright disgusted at the whole operation.

But yet when all the pieces start to fall into place, it becomes almost (I probably already used this word, but it’s what kept popping into my head while watching) electrifying. It’s not often that a show like Mad Men has you on the edge of your seat, but this story was hitting all of the right notes to have me legitimately excited. I’ve loved Jared Harris in the role of Lane Pryce, so seeing him be spurned one time too many by London and joining forces with the turncoats was worthy of a cheer had I not been afraid of waking up others, and the moment when it becomes clear that Roger is going to call Joan in for service I’m pretty sure that I was downright giddy. Heck, there was a beat where the Art Department being locked felt like an opening to bring Salvatore back into the fold, and the way the episode was going I half expected him to get called into the office. Some on Twitter have compared it all to a heist film like Ocean’s 11, and I think that’s a fair comparison: there was definite tension in whether the plan was going to be successful, and yet to some degree you always knew that they would make it in the end.

What I loved about the story were the little moments, like Peggy refusing to get Roger coffee, or Cooper freaking out over the moving of his precious office furniture, or Trudy bringing everyone sandwiches at the new office. The storyline, by necessity, introduced some levity into the proceedings. While there was a definite sense of retribution in Pete’s recruitment scene, as everything Don said about him being ahead of the curve and seeing the future are the kinds of things that we critics have been writing about all season, there was also the sense of humour of him being in a robe, or Trudy standing within earshot and getting a goodbye from Don. As much as what Don said was true, appealing to Pete’s ego is very different from appealing to Peggy’s, and the episode used this distinction to its advantage. I loved scenes like the awkward elevator ride where Pete isn’t sure how much Harry knows, leading to the great “Hey everybody, Harry Crane is here!” delivery from Vincent Kartheiser where he talks as if he’s worried the bug planted on him won’t pick up his normal speaking voice. I love that Harry, when told the plan, has to ask his wife about it first. And while I was always somewhat paranoid there would be a leak (like Duck finding out about the plan, or something else fouling things up), the sense of fun within the storyline kept turning me back into an excited kid at Christmas waiting to see what happens next.

There is a sense of sadness in the storyline, without question, considering that this means that people like Paul Kinsey and Ken Cosgrove were left behind, along with the entire secretarial staff and Moneypenny. I don’t quite know what to think about this, especially considering the episode played it both for comedy (“We’ve been robbed!”) and for drama (Kinsey’s anger at discovering that Peggy, too, is gone with the rest). The episode gets away with the airy idealism of the journey from idea to reality because the news won’t break until Monday morning, and in some ways the conclusion is all about the way Monday morning feels: one moment you’re remembering the weekend that was, and the next you’re stuck facing a new reality. For Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce, it’s the fact that their clients have jumped ship to an agency running out of a hotel and that their only phone call is their Head of Media wondering what room they’re in, and for the former remnants of Sterling Cooper it’s a ship without a captain, a rudder, or a sail (take your pick of who best represents these particular parts of a ship amongst the departures).

The finale is very careful not to paint a picture in its conclusion that is in any way dire. The tension in the conclusion is drawn not from a sense of failure but by testing unknown waters in an effort to see if one should, or can, swim in them. This is not a show to create action-packed finales where characters are taken to wit’s end and placed in some sort of cliffhanger, which would have resulted from the plan failing. Instead, it wants its characters to have to live with their actions, and it wants the series to follow their efforts to do so. As such, we find Don Draper walking towards his temporary apartment as he starts a new life to the sound of Roy Orbison’s “Shahdaroba.” It is a life where he is still a father but no longer a husband, and a life where he is still an Ad Man but no longer one who can say that he is safely employed.

And, as such, Mad Men is now a show about a man who is still a father but no longer a husband, and about Ad Men (and Women) who are stepping out into uncharted territory. The show’s challenge moving forward is finding its axis, discovering how to have a character like Betty Draper (on a plane to Reno with Gene and Henry Francis to ensure the divorce goes through) remain central, and how to potentially keep the remnants of Sterling Cooper (Kinsey, Cosgrove, etc.) within the series. Or, perhaps, it could excise elements of them all together and adopt an entirely new structure that reflects this new period in their lives. What it does make clear, though, is that unlike the second season finale’s complete uncertainty there is now a clear setup for the fourth season, and while there will still be speculation over how far forward in time we leap (joining the new agency in progress down the road) there is no question that the central question will be the success of this new venture within a changing global climate.

But for this hour, there was little sense of the global climate, and no scenes that felt (relatively) wasted on historical reference or period setting. This was a finale that told a story about characters and which delved into their past, present and future in order to create an almost seamless experience. From one conversation with Conrad Hilton came a series of events which managed to solidify themes that the season had perhaps overlooked, depict scenes that we knew have been coming since perhaps the show’s first season, and also gave us a glimpse into the future that was both tragically uncertain and, perhaps best of all, legitimately exciting. “Shut the Door. Have a Seat.” is simply a masterstroke of storytelling, elevating both the season and the series to foreseen, but still stunning, heights.

Cultural Observations

• Don’s treatment of Betty, calling her a wore and pushing her around a bit, is not the first time this has happened, and evokes a scene like the one with Bobbie in the restaurant. However, that was Don being in control, and Don is never really in control in this scene: he is broken down, and it shows in the explosiveness behind his anger.
• The idea that it is the death of Dick Whitman’s father that has been the purpose behind all of this season’s flashbacks to Dick’s childhood made sense in the context of this episode, where Don has to question the impact of a father on a child’s life considering his family is leaving him, but at a certain point the flashbacks became a bit strange in the context of the season. I think they work in the premiere and the finale, but their overall impact in the middle portion of the season was negligible.
• Any Canadian viewers get a total “Heritage Minute” vibe from the Wheat Co-Operative sequence?
• It’s interesting that the new agency never once considered Ken Cosgrove. I don’t disagree with the decision, but we never saw why Don’s thought process went right to Pete (although the evidence is there in the fact that Pete, unlike Ken, has reason to be upset with his current station). It seems like they chose people based on how close they’d be to the chopping block within a merge, to some degree, with makes sense.
• Lane Price’s phone conversation with London, in particular “Happy Christmas!,” was stunning. Seriously, while I’ve been missing Jared Harris in the back half of the season, he was so darn great in this episode that it’s like he’s been around forever. The only thing we were missing was a glimpse at how his homesick wife is going to deal with the decision, although I understand why the episode didn’t go out of its way to answer that question.
• Between this episode and “A Guy Walks into an Advertising Agency,” John Slattery might as well submit in Best Supporting Actor in a Comedy.
• You can check out other great reviews from Alan Sepinwall, James Poniewozik, Keith Phipps, and Mo Ryan (who gets props for “Sterling Coup”).

Whoa.

If you don’t want me to spoil the season finale of Mad Men for you, stop reading right now.

Okay — now that we’ve got that settled, can I say again “Whoa”!

Taking a page from the “Jerry Maguire” playbook, looks like Don and the Gang and his merry meddlers have left the building and are gonna go it alone next season.

Stealing some last minute accounts? Check. Grab some key players? Check. Cleared the office and grabbed the whiskey? Check and check!

Best scene: Don kicks the Art Department door down

Runner up:
Roger: Peggy, can you get me a cup of coffee?

Peggy: No.

Best line:
Joan: Sterling Cooper Draper Price? Yes Harry, it’s room 435.

Will Don and the wild bunch still take back Madison Ave by storm? What happens with Betty in Reno? And will Cooper quit being a germophobe?

Can’t wait for Season 4, Mr. Weiner…;)

“Take a Dive”

November 8th, 2009

I was going to write about how it’s been a while since I’ve checked in with Bored to Death here at Cultural Learning before I realized that, in fact, I’ve never checked in on it at all. I watched the pilot and was intrigued if not overly engaged, and since that point I’ve sort of been watching the show off and on while following critics’ reactions to the series. So, instead of reaffirming previous statements about the show or potentially offering a different point of view, I need to start from the beginning.

I like this show, but I’m having trouble falling in love with it. There’s something about Ames’ style and the way the show is being organized that keeps us as an audience at a distance, which the pilot was indicative of: there were logical leaps and bounds that were simply never explained about why Jonathan would ever become a private detective. And while I’m aware that part of the show’s charm is how uncomfortable Jonathan can be in that environment, and that the randomness of some of the cases often gives the show a unique sort of tone, I wanted to be able to watch “Take a Dive” and completely buy into the character development it seemed to imply. This show is full of great actors and some very solid material, but there a few points in this finale where I questioned less this individual episode (which I really enjoyed) and more how, precisely, these kinds of developments haven’t taken place up to this point.

The show has sort of been meandering around the same themes for a while, and the finale was largely a vessel through which Jonathan, George and Ray all find some sense of purpose in their largely aimless existences. Because of the talent involved, this episode goes well, but I do wish that the investigation of that aimlessness had been a bit more even.

There’s a really nice scene in this one where George and his ex-wife Priscilla are in bed, and George observes that they’ve finally reached the third act: Married, Divorced, and now Lovers. He evokes the adage that there is never actually a third act in life, but what’s interesting about Bored to Death is that it was actually missing the Second Act. This episode was a nice cap-off to the season, and moments like the final scene of George and Jonathan being glad they’re in each other’s lives and play boxing around the ring in the darkened theatre are indicative of the camaraderie that the show has occasionally considered. It felt like a goodbye to a show of characters that had really grown, which was odd considering that we never really got the second act where any of that growth could have taken place. The pilot was so quick to rush into Ames’ Private Eye business as the show’s procedural hook that it never bothered to really contextualize it within his life.

It took this episode, as he lies post-coital with Stella (Jenny Slate, pre-SNL), for him to realize that perhaps the reason he was unable to complete his novel (which was the end of season’s slow-burning serialized development started a while back with Bebe Neuwirth as his editor) is because he wasn’t writing about something exciting like his work as a private detective. However, this has been staring him in the face for a while, and the show has just been slow to have him pick up on it. Never mind that he actually did write about it for the comic that he and Ray put together following the show’s best episode, featuring Ray and George getting high while Jonathan gets victimized. It’s as if the pilot rushed its way into being both Acts One and Two (establishing Jonathan’s problem of both writer’s block and commitment issues), and then it just sort of meandered through Brooklyn for a while, wavering in quality until it reached its Act Three and brought its characters some sense of closure.

I don’t think this is a terrible thing, as those episodes have been divisive but have also made some loyal fans out of those who enjoy the show’s variable sense of humour. I thought that the finale wasn’t firing on all cylinders so much as it was letting the characters do the work. Paul Feig directed the episode in a very laidback style, so scenes like Jonathan and Stella playing nerf basketball were punctuated with beats like Jonathan biting at the ball in her hand, or the pile of books falling over in the midst of their play. The episode also resists one of its two potential punchline (pun unintended): while the fights themselves were predictable (our heroes are too hapless to win, and you knew that the first two fights would split), the show gave Stella her less than graceful exit (urinary tract infection) but actually left George standing tall. Despite my expectation, Priscilla wasn’t lying about Antrem’s heart condition, which really shocked me – I kept expecting the credits to switch to Antrem and Priscilla having sex and celebrating the ruse, but it didn’t happen.

And I think that shows you were the show is ultimately at when it comes to those type of stories. It really loves these characters, perhaps because Schwartzmann is playing a version of Ames himself and perhaps because they’re just having a lot of fun with this great cast. The episode takes some shortcuts to pretend as if there has been consistent development all season, like Ames playing private detective and searching out his would-be blackmailer using his P.I. skills, but in doing so it was ultimately engaging. I like the show better in this mode than I do during some of its more aimless journeys, and considering just how great this cast is I’m willing to follow them into a second season knowing that things might be just as uneven all over again.

At the very least, I wasn’t bored.

Cultural Observations

• Loved seeing Sarah Vowell (who, alongside being a regular contributor to public radio, also voiced Violet in The Incredible) covering the fights, and those initial sets of interviews were all pretty great: I especially enjoyed Ray’s opponent being so masochistic, a runner that the show put to good use but didn’t overuse.
• John Hodgman was another great edition to the cast, and as was Oliver Platt for that matter. The show did well with guest stars along the way, and I hope that can continue in season two.
• And speaking of continuing: while some episodes didn’t give him much to do, and he’s a big movie star now, I hope that Zach Galifianakis has time to do Season Two.

A fitting end for Andrus and the Argos

In an all-around ugly season, the Argos saved perhaps their worst performance for last. Despite resting several starters with the playoffs looming, the Montreal Alouettes took command early and romped to a 42-17 win in Saturday’s season finale at Rogers Centre.

The Alouettes, with backup quarterback Anthony McPherson starting in place of the league’s top passer, Anthony Calvillo, scored on their first three possessions and took a 26-4 lead to halftime. McPherson was near flawless all afternoon, completing 16-of-20 passes for 151 yards and two touchdowns before giving way to third-stringer Chris Leak to start the fourth quarter. McPherson also ran for 55 yards.

For the Argos, it was only a fitting end to a season of frustration. Even so, head coach Bart Andrus had positive things to say about his squad after the game.

“I told them how much they persevered throughout this year,” Andrus said of his post-game speech. “The way they came to work, their professionalism — this is a good group of people.

“When you have a group that works as has as they work, it’s just a matter of time before positive things begin to happen.”

Of course, time will tell if Andrus is around to witness a possible turnaround. He declined to comment after the game regarding his future and the future of the franchise as a whole. After a 3-15 campaign and with talk of the team potentially being sold, Andrus is as good a bet as anyone not to be back in 2010.

With little more to play for than pride, Andrus handed the starting quarterback duties for the finale to rookie Stephen Reaves. The southpaw struggled from the get-go in his first CFL start, overthrowing Brad Smith on Toronto’s opening possession for an interception that led to a Damon Duval field goal. In all, Reaves threw four picks and had another negated by a roughing-the-passer penalty.

“It was tough,” Reaves said afterward. “I pressed too much. I have to do a better job of taking what the defense gives me. I’d love to have a few of those back. Overall, a tough day against a tough defense.”

Reaves wasn’t the only Argo to slip up on an error-filled day. Andre Durie returned a first quarter kick 104 yards for an apparent touchdown, only to have it called back because of an unnecessary roughness call on Raymond Fontaine. Earlier in the quarter, long snapper Etienne Legare airmailed a snap to Justin Medlock, resulting in a turnover and an 18-yard McPherson touchdown pass to Kerry Walkins one play later.

Running back Jamal Robertson scored Toronto’s only touchdown on a one-yard run late in the third quarter but struggled horribly the rest of the afternoon, finishing with negative six yards on five carries. The Argos finished with zero rushing yards as a team.

If it’s true that what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, then the Argos will have something to take from this nightmarish season. Durie, for one, suggested the team gained mental toughness that will provide an important boost in the future.

“We’re looking forward to more stability next year,” he said after the game. “Every championship team goes through losing, and we had a lot of it this year. We all stayed mentally strong though, and we’ll take that into next season for sure.”

Perhaps the biggest thing that will come from Saturday’s loss is closure. And with that, a fresh start.

“I’ll go to bat with these guys anytime,” linebacker Zeke Moreno said after the game. “I’d love to come back next year and see no new faces. We have the talent and the potential.”

Adriano Belli and the Argos look to finish on a strong note Saturday

The CFL regular season consists of 18 games over four months, but you can forgive the Argos for feeling like it’s lasted a lot longer. At 3-14 and long eliminated from postseason play, Toronto wraps up the 2009 season Saturday at Rogers Centre against the league-best Montreal Alouettes.

The Alouettes, 14-3 and locked into a first round bye, will likely spend much of the afternoon with big guns such as Anthony Calvillo and Avon Cobourne stapled to the sidelines to ensure their health for when the games actually matter. Similarly, Argos coach Bart Andrus will be sending out a few fresh faces, though for different reasons — he’s holding auditions for next year.

“It’s the last game,” Andrus said after Friday’s walk-through. “It’s their last opportunity to play and make an impression. Still, we’re approaching it from the standpoint that we’re playing to win this game.”

The most notable new face in the Argos lineup will be at quarterback. After spending almost the entire season on the practice roster, Stephen Reaves will get the ball for his first career CFL start. Reaves came in in relief last Saturday in Edmonton, completing 10-of-16 pass attempts for 122 yards and a touchdown in Toronto’s 36-10 loss.

“The last few weeks everyone has been auditioning for jobs,” Reaves said Thursday. “In this league, it seems like it could be one play that could either get you back or not get you back the next year. Personally, I see it as an audition for me.

“I’m grateful for the opportunity,” he added. “It’s not under the circumstances everyone wants, but I’m excited and hopefully we come out with a win.”

While Reaves and the Argo offense will be looking to finish on a strong note, the Toronto defense, which enters the finale amongst CFL team leaders in several major categories, is left to lament a season of strong play left to waste. Still, that doesn’t mean they’re ready to mail it in a week early.

“It’s the same mindset as every other game,” said defensive tackle Kevin Huntley, who leads the Argos and sits sixth in the CFL with nine sacks. “We want to go in and compete and do the best we can, regardless of whether they’re going to the playoffs and we’re not. We want to end the year on a good note.”

Adriano Belli, Huntley’s partner in crime on the defensive line, echoed his sentiments.

“Tomorrow’s our Grey Cup,” Belli said after the walk-through. “We’re going to go out there and have fun.

“More than anything, we feel bad for our fans, though it hasn’t been for a lack of effort. We’re going to play our hearts out.”

The Argos and Alouettes kickoff at one Saturday.

Eureka: What Goes Around, Comes Around (Season Finale)

Burn  Notice: Long Way Back (Season Finale)

Throwdown with Bobby Flay: BBQ Chicken

The men’s soccer team couldn’t have taken a bigger step back after getting two big wins against Boston University and a rout of Albany. After those wins the team looked like a serious threat to get a bye in the America East Tournament but they struggled big time on the road in their last two games, losing to Hartford, 3-0 and Binghamton, 4-0.

While the team did play better than in their appearance against Hartford, the offense was shut down again, and a big reason for that was lock down defender Liam Carson, who did not give Andrew Bulls a good chance at a goal, and Jason Stenta, who saves everything that came his way.

Binghamton got on the board quick when Greg Mathers dribbled past two defenders and shot the ball to the far right post for a goal in the seventh minute.

The UMBC defense did not allow many chances for a while but Jake Keegan scored his sixth goal in the 63rd minute. Then in the final seven minutes Binghamton scored two insurance goals, one by Matt Kristek in the 84th minute, and one by Tyler Bailey just less than four minutes later.

The Retrievers are in the conference tournament though and will travel back up to Binghamton for the quarter final game on Saturday.

UMBC (12-4-0, 3-3-0):
F- Andrew Bulls (15 goals, 10 assists, 38 SOG)
F- Levi Houapeu (14 goals, 11 assists, 28 SOG)
M- Sean Rothe (1 goal, 1 assists, 4 SOG)
M- John Paul Waraksa (0 goals, 3 assists, 0 SOG)
M- Mark Lubetkin (0 goals, 4 assists, 1 SOG)
M- Andy Streilein (1 goal, 1 assists, 4 SOG)
B- Jason McCarron (11 Starts)
B- Chris Williams (12 Starts)
B- Liam Paddock (15 Starts)
B- Vince Savarese (16 Starts)
GK- Phil Saunders (58 Saves, 16 Goal Allowed, .784 save%)

Key Reserves:
F- Matt Knight (3 goals, 2 assists, 7 SOG)
M- Dustin Dzwonkowski (3 goals, 2 assists, 5 SOG)
M- Milo Kapor (1 goal, 3 assists, 11 SOG)
M- Dave Vaeth (0 goals, 2 assists, 0 SOG)
B- Joe Green (9 games played)

Binghamton (8-7-1, 3-3-0):
F- Jake Keegan (5 goals, 3 assists, 39 Shots)
F- Adam Whitehead (1 goal, 0 assists, 11 Shots)
F- Scott Zobre (2 goals, 0 assists, 27 Shots)
M- Chris Terry (0 goals, 0 assists, 1 Shot)
M- C.J. Scirto (0 goals, 0 assists, 0 Shots)
M- Kyle Kurcharski (2 goals, 6 assists, 15 Shots)
B- Kyle Manscuk (2 goals, 0 assists, 7 Shots)
B- Liam Carson (16 Starts)
B- Matt Robertson (10 Starts)
B- Austin Hughes (4 Starts)
GK- Jason Stenta (73 Saves, 17 Goals Allowed, .811 save%)

Key Reserves:
F- Andy Tiedt (2 goals, 0 assists, 27 Shots)
M- Greg Mathers (1 goal, 0 assists, 13 Shots)
M- Tyler Bailey (1 goal, 0 assists, 8 Shots)
M- Yusuf Yusuf (1 goal, 0 assists, 6 Shots)
M- Josh Sailar (1 goal 0 assists, 6 Shots)
B- Joel Collins (11 games played)

The season finale, a win and UMBC earns the three seed in the America East Tournament and will host Boston University, a loss and they hit the road as the five seed and go to Stony Brook. It is a very difficult situation to be in. No matter what the standings are nobody wants to play Boston U in the first round, except maybe Binghamton (who would play them in Binghamton is they beat UMBC) because the Terriers never play well there. UMBC is almost better off with a loss. They would play Stony Brook (who they beat 2-0) and then most likely travel to New Hampshire to play a team that is undefeated in conference play but is not as good as the record. But under no circumstances do teams throw games. They want that win, they want to go into the tournament on a high mark, they want to play a home game, and most of all, they want to beat Binghamton who has been one of the top teams in America East soccer for a long time.

Who Won SYTYCD Canada Season 2?

October 25th, 2009

Since I’ve been home this year, and since it has as a result been on every Tuesday evening, I’ve been following So You Think You Can Dance Canada where I didn’t last year. What I’ve discovered is that this is a show that can be really engaging for the reasons that any dancing competition show is, but that it constantly claims to be something “different.” It’s a weird cultural superiority scenario, wherein the mosaic we like to consider ourselves part of is somehow reflected by the decision to classify genres of dance more distinctly or how what the American show is claiming as progress (Tap Dancers! Krumpers!) was already achieved this season in Canada. The judges, as I ranted about early on during the competitive rounds, are also far too nice, often failing to critique routines that deserve some sort of constructive feedback.

It’s all part of the reason why I found tonight’s finale anti-climactic, as its celebratory tone was not that different from the self-congratulation that defines the show. I don’t think the show is misplaced in thinking itself to be entertaining or valuable to the development of Canadian dance, but there’s a point where that becomes the “point” of the show. And the result is that I actually don’t think we’ve spent enough time with these contestants for me to really suggest I am invested in them, or for that matter that the show is invested in them. The finale only further cements this fact, with some strange (if not entirely unjustified) approaches that indicate once and for all that this is not a show about dance so much as it is about how Canada is so uniquely situated to host a show about dance.

And tonight, Canada picked their ambassador.

[SPOILER ALERT: If you've not yet watched the finale, I'm about to ruin the ending, so tread carefully!]

And Canada’s ambassador of dance (this year), and the winner of $100,000 and a new Mazda 3, is Tara-Jean Popwich. It’s not the most surprising event of all time, for everyone but Tara-Jean who was overwhelmed with emotion, as she was never in the bottom and was beyond charming pretty much the entire season. She was the one person whose personality really seemed to capture the hearts of audience, and her victory felt like the right kind of celebration. Everett and Jayme Rae, as I had expected, were eliminated immediately, leaving Vincent and Tara-Jean to take home a brand new car and build some legitimate suspense as to whether a male dancer would take home the crown. It felt like a fitting ending to the season’s dance narrative, although the finale itself may not have reflected this as clearly.

While the episode started with an enjoyable Sean Cheesman theatre number, and then the Top 20 coming out in segments to the crowd’s excited response, after that point something very weird happened. As the judges went through their choices for “encores” (which is now a franchise/reality show tradition), they very intriguingly introduced them almost exclusively by genre rather than the people who danced them. Blake asked for “something” from Luther, as opposed to any particular routine, and most everyone else asked for something specific but only through its connection to a particular style (like House) or through the work of an individual choreographer (like Blake, or Stacey). It’s a fascinating distinction, because it implies that what really made each number special was inherent in the choreography and not in who danced the piece.

I don’t question the role that choreographers play in this show, but for me this finale should have been a celebration of the dancers as opposed to the choreographers. When Melanie and Vincent finish performing their great Paso Doble, they’re asked about how hard the choreography was. When Kym and Emmanuel finish their encore of Blake’s trippy magician piece, they’re asked about working with Blake (the same about others in terms of working with Luther). There are only a few instances where I felt that the encores are a chance to actually see more of these contestants rather than letting the show boast about the variety of its choreographers and the diversity of its styles. And in fact, I actually wonder whether this hasn’t been a problem all season, because I don’t know if I really connected with any of these dancers. I don’t dislike them, or anything, but the show has never seemed to be “theirs” in the way I think I want it to be.

Eventually, the Top Four came to the forefront, but only in the final half hour of the show – sitting ninety minutes without getting a chance to focus on each contestant, and problematically repetitive ones that already aired (mostly) during the finale and where the judges each got to say something while the dancers got out a mere few words, just didn’t feel “right” to me. It was one big emotional mess, and while Jean-Marc’s cryfests are part of the show’s identity (if not a part I find particularly fun to watch, even if I appreciate his emotion) to have them infest the moments where I feel we should be getting to know them better as opposed to hearing their resume on the show being listed off by the judges (who, as the piece above indicates, are not my favourite people in the world).

The two-hour finale was a bit unbalanced, with the entire first hour consisting of encores with no sign of the results. I get the impulse for this decision, trying to avoid the bad news in order to be able to continue celebrating the season that was. However, it made me actually forget who the Top 4 were, and I think the show could have done really well copying the American edition (scandalous, considering how much the show prides itself on its singularity amongst editions of the show) and giving us interviews with each of the contestants that tell us about their background in dance and how they’ve enjoyed this experience. That we never got this kind of information seems very strange to me: while one could argue that the eTalk Daily special last week with the entire top four would be considered a substitute for those types of moments, that (from the bit I saw) turned into a fan-driven affair that didn’t actually treat the contestants with the same type of respect that the choreographers seem to get (screaming fans can do that to you). It made for a finale where the people in the audience actually looked bored at a few points, and I can imagine the audience at home would similarly tire as every commercial break teased results that never seemed to come.

The constant stream of encores confirmed what we knew before: Canadians can dance, and they did it well this season. Stacey Tookey makes her presence felt as expected, with three separate routines given encores, and as expected the various “unique” genres make their presence felt with Dance Hall, House, Jazz Fusion and all of the other variations on other genres that the show enjoys singling out. The original pieces (the Top 20 with Cheesman, the Top 10 with the injured Mia Michaels) were new and as a result the more interesting numbers of the evening, but they made up so little of it that it couldn’t help but feel a bit redundant in the internet age when all of the routines can be relived 24/7 on YouTube.

Cultural Observations

• Interesting to see Mia choreographing a piece about her recent decision to “resign” (her words) from the American version of the show, as everyone is transfixed by a huge chandelier and unable to look away. It’s a really evocative piece, and it shows that she really did have a tough time making that decision (one that could have, perhaps, been made for her with the back injury she suffered during rehearsal. The piece was marred, though, with some post-production slow-motion that kills any sense of the show seeming live (which is already impossible since there’s so much costume work to be done, but still).
• If Mia Michaels was really watching this live as suggested, she must have gotten a chuckle (or thrown something at the TV) when the oft-appearing Tylenol Back Pain commercials popped up.
• Didn’t realize that Kenny Ortega was on the show last year, and that he probably would have appeared this year (being Canada’s equivalent to Adam Shankman) if it were not for Michael Jackson’s untimely death and the need for him to be hands on directing “Is This It” (which was likely his justification for doing the show, as it does count as promotion).
• The one montage that did focus more on the dancers? The piece on how often they injured themselves is the closest the show came to showing us some behind the scenes footage, and it was actually really interesting to see just how varied the injuries were (and even some rehearsal footage where it went down). Really cool stuff (except for, you know, the injuries).

Last night’s season finale of Bravo’s Real Housewives of Atlanta was pretty good. Here’s the breakdown:

NeNe Leakes is dealing with the emotions of finding the man who she feels is her real biological father. I really feel that this season NeNe found herself suffering from uncontrollable emotions as a result of her family issues. She was writing a book that no doubt pushed and drained her emotionally and she took her emotional frustrations out on those around her. The fact that her husband was not in support of her finding out if this Alan person was her real father hurt her. All of this explains to me why NeNe was so angry about the “Tardy For The Party” disappointment. Kim not wanting her on the track didn’t really seem like a big deal to me. Maybe NeNe knew something that we didn’t, but I feel that NeNe was so upset because this was another letdown at a time when she was being disappointed by so many people who she cared for. Her natural reaction is rage. I truly hope she finds her emotional center.

Lisa Wu Hartwell and her husband Ed have being dealing with some issues themselves. Ed has had to come up against his biggest fear…no longer being able to play professional football. I was actually rooting for Ed. I hoped that he was able to continue to pursue his dream career. Oh well!  That didn’t happen. Ed was told, and acknowledged himself, that professional football was not possible because of his knee injury. During the finale, Ed and Lisa had a talk about making some lifestyle changes. As a result of the loss of his football money, he decided it would be best to downsize their home. Lisa did seem a bit taken aback at the thought of moving from their current home to a measly little house sitting on 9 acres. How dare Ed even suggest it! Back to reality, they decided to make some improvements to Ed’s bachelor pad and move in there. Lisa, no one wants to go backwards, but you better wake up and smell the economy!

Kim Zolciak pretty much made a 360 degree life turn this season. At the beginning of the season, I thought Kim had learned the importance of independence. I thought she had began to prize the thought of earning a living and supporting her daughters. Clearly not. As soon as “Big Papa” came back into the picture, it seemed that she got caught back up in the same spoiled, bratty, whirlwind and managed to get engaged in the process. I have to agree with NeNe that Kim is ridiculous to be going around bragging about being engaged to a married man. Whatever. The season finale informed us that “Big Papa” still hasn’t set a wedding date or gotten a divorce. Surprise there. Kim also proved to be a bit selfish this season. She took NeNe off of the song and she missed Kandi’s concert, something that was very important to her new bff, Kandi. I’m interested to see what happens between Kim and NeNe on the reunion show. They had a physical altercation and I’m sure the crap is going to hit the fan next week. The reunion show wouldn’t be right if there wasn’t a brawl between the two of them.

Sheree Whitfield did her thang this season. Even though the season started a little shaky for her, she found her way. We got to see another side of the prim and proper Sheree. She showed us that she can get a little ig-nant when she needs to. She snapped on Kim and the event planner who was supposed to plan her independence party. Sheree proved that she is no pushover. She also continued to work on her fashion line this season. After missing Lisa’s fashion show, Sheree knew she was going to have to really “bring it on” when time came for her own. The season finale was her fashion premiere. FINALLY! With Dwight in the driver’s seat, the show had to be perfect, right? Well, I’m happy to share that the show seemed really nice. I wish we could have seen more of the fashions, but it is what it is. Sheree seemed pleased and I guess that’s all that really matters.

We really got to see into the life of Kandi Burruss this season. We knew that she was a singer and a songwriter, but she has done a great job of keeping her personal life private. That has changed. We were able to walk with her in her journey to unite her then fiance, AJ, and her mother. Her mother was totally against Kandi and AJ’s relationship, but during the season finale we saw Kandi’s mother make her peace with AJ and their relationship. I was personally happy to see that, since we all know that AJ was killed a few weeks ago. My heart goes out to Kandi and AJ’s family. What a terrible loss. I wonder if she’s going to return to the show next season. Despite her loss, I really hope she does. There is something really brewing between Kandi and NeNe, so it would be interesting to see what happens. NeNe feels that Kandi owes her an apology. I don’t understand why, but I am looking forward to see what happens next.

I can’t wait for the Reunion Show! Stay tuned!

Los Leo de este año que viene están exentos de salud pobre y de la presencia de malas fuerzas y el dicho “Año nuevo, vida nueva” les hará efecto.

• Salud: Gozarás de una salud impecable, aunque yendo al gimnasio quizás la mejores notablemente. El estrés del trabajo se verá compensado por los amigos que fieles, te apoyarán cuando lo necesites.
• Dinero: Se te presentará alguna que otra oportunidad en este campo. Puedes escoger alguna o no, pero te conviene evitar la avaricia en todo momento para no estar fuera de control.
• Amor: Pronto llamará el amor a tu puerta, pero es posible que no te percates al momento. Tus relaciones amistosas van viento en popa e incluso podrás hacer nuevos compañeros, si sabes mantenerlos.
• Familia: Tus familiares siempre estarán ahí para lo que quieras, y tú debes de estar también con ellos. La enfermedad atacará a uno de tus seres queridos, recayendo sobre ti el hecho de cuidarle y de tranquilizar a los tuyos.

El 2008 transcurrirá por lo general bien, con un par de altibajos fáciles de superar.

Todo ello con el simbolito de Leo (debíamos de hablar sobre nuestro signo) y con una presentación alejada de la monotonía de anteriores redacciones (bueno, ¿y esto qué más da?)

Pos eso, ahí terminan las chorri-redacciones de las que me llegué a sentir orgullosísimo hasta ahora que las releo todas de vez. Ya empezaré a rellenar huecos del blog con la segunda -y, de seguro, más violenta- tanda de textos.