So Mad Men is finally back, and with it a new attempt at a regular feature: Three Up, Three Down. The idea here is to identify the three characters who had the best and worst turn of events per episode. Hopefully this won't be too much of a rip-off of Grantland's character power rankings.
Three Up
3. Pete Campbell - I generally enjoy watching Pete's flailing around and getting the cold shoulder from the other partners, as he usually gets what he deserves. But facing marginalization due to his crappy office and Roger's continual crashing of his meetings, and an ongoing issue at home as Trudy works through post-partum depression, it was kind of nice to see him win one. He got his bigger office and managed to pull a nice one over Roger, sending him to Staten Island for a phantom 6 am meeting. I'll admit to also liking the awkward moment he had with Peggy when she was with Joan's baby, more for my own entertainment than anything else.
2. African-Americans. As a group they've never fared well on this show; Don almost got a man fired in the first episode by asking about his smoking preference, and Carla got a raw deal when Betty let her go. So when a group showed up at the SCDP office after seeing the EOE ad they ran to tweak Y&R for their water-bombing protesters, it was a strong move forward. I'm very excited to see the integration of the SDCP office.
1. Megan Draper. I don't know if there's a supporting character that's become more important more quickly than Don's secretary-turned-wife. Her ability to make Don happy and her quick rapport with the kids marked a sea change in Don's personal life. Her further willingness to accept Don's past and embrace it shows even greater capacity to lead Don away from the darkness in his life. And then there was her performance of "Zou Bisou Bisou" at the surprise birthday party she threw for Don, equal parts charming, sexy, and kind of goofy. Throw in her kinky cleaning in lingerie make-up sex plan and she's absolutely riveting. Well done Jessica Pare, and here's to hoping you spend more of the season singing in French than writing coupons for condiment companies.
Three Down
3. Lane Pryce. I almost went with Peggy here for her pot-influenced dressing down of Don at his own birthday party, but in retrospect Lane gets the nod as we really saw in this episode the loneliness that's at his core. Sure, his wife is in New York now, but they are contented at best. The continuing cash flow issues at home and work aren't helping. And then there was his not-so-subtly racist decision to hold onto a wallet he found in a cab rather than hand it over to the non-white driver. His phone banter with the owner's "girl" was sad-cute, which just became sad when the owner showed up to claim his wallet and can't stop talking about what a gentleman Lane is. Pryce's pep talk to Joan helped balance things out a bit, but I was kind of worried he was going to make a pass at her. I still am, to be honest.
2. Harry Crane. I have a feeling he'll show up here often, as he is SCDP's punching bag. Still, it was a pretty bad episode for him. He gave Don a walking stick for his birthday, which went over as well as you'd think. He spent a fair amount of time telling Stan what he'd do to Megan if given a chance - with Megan standing behind him for most of it. Finally, he allows himself to be bought out of his old office so Pete could have a better space. The $1100 aside, a pretty sad week for Harry. He'll have more.
1. Roger Sterling. You know Roger is facing the an ever-expanding void when he has to start crashing Pete's meetings in order to stay in front of clients. And then he has to pay off a secretary to spend some time covering his office! Roger has sunk, and can't quite find a way out. That's as true at home, where he realizes he's lost the Marry Your Secretary sweepstakes to Don. He's dismissive of Jane in a few settings, making one wonder at what point she'll become the next ex-Mrs. Sterling. That their bickering led to spoiling the surprise of Don's birthday party was just icing on the cake. Roger really needs to find a new client to occupy his time.
Tuesday, March 27, 2012
Tuesday, March 06, 2012
There goes the Fred Flintstone cameo
I mentioned it in passing in the last post, but Fox officially cancelled Terra Nova yesterday, and for the claims it's being shopped around it's probably not coming back. This doesn't bother me terribly, as I'd given up on the show a while ago (though I've seen in more than one place that it was improving with the last few episodes).
What I did find interesting was this piece (which made me change the original title of this post) talking about longer-range effects of the cancellation. I have mixed feelings about each point.
Harder to get sci-fi on prime time network TV - this is probably true, though it was hard enough to get sci-fi on beforehand that it may not matter much. Fox does seem the most disposed to bring sci-fi shows to air, and I expect they'll lick their wounds and try again. That or they'll get on the Once Upon a Time/Grimm fantasy train - is HBO still trying to get American Gods on the air?
Tighter budgets - I suppose the cancellation could exacerbate this, but isn't this where network TV was heading given smaller audiences?
Less ambitious programming - not sure I buy this, the networks have every incentive to continue being ambitious in the face of competition from basic cable, the Internet, etc. They need to manage how that ambition is used, something that I think comes through with shows like Awake, whose double-track story is ambitious in a way that networks can handle in the current financial climate.
I suppose we will see fewer shows set 85 million years in the past, though.
It was a true family-friendly show - well, sort of - I don't know if some of the dino violence was really good for all ages - but it was a more family friendly than, say, The River. I don't expect this cancellation will put the kibosh on networks trying to find shows that appeal to the kids and their parents, but I do wonder if that's even worth it anymore. Aren't the kids off in their room streaming Disney Channel shows or something while the folks are in the living room watching Dancing With the Biggest Loser Network Fashion Stars?
What I did find interesting was this piece (which made me change the original title of this post) talking about longer-range effects of the cancellation. I have mixed feelings about each point.
Harder to get sci-fi on prime time network TV - this is probably true, though it was hard enough to get sci-fi on beforehand that it may not matter much. Fox does seem the most disposed to bring sci-fi shows to air, and I expect they'll lick their wounds and try again. That or they'll get on the Once Upon a Time/Grimm fantasy train - is HBO still trying to get American Gods on the air?
Tighter budgets - I suppose the cancellation could exacerbate this, but isn't this where network TV was heading given smaller audiences?
Less ambitious programming - not sure I buy this, the networks have every incentive to continue being ambitious in the face of competition from basic cable, the Internet, etc. They need to manage how that ambition is used, something that I think comes through with shows like Awake, whose double-track story is ambitious in a way that networks can handle in the current financial climate.
I suppose we will see fewer shows set 85 million years in the past, though.
It was a true family-friendly show - well, sort of - I don't know if some of the dino violence was really good for all ages - but it was a more family friendly than, say, The River. I don't expect this cancellation will put the kibosh on networks trying to find shows that appeal to the kids and their parents, but I do wonder if that's even worth it anymore. Aren't the kids off in their room streaming Disney Channel shows or something while the folks are in the living room watching Dancing With the Biggest Loser Network Fashion Stars?
New on TV Roundup
Quickish hits on three news shows I've been/just started watching.
Alcatraz is the one that most fits my interests. In 1963, the prison closed and the prisoners were transfered... except they weren't. They've been showing up in the present day - at the behest of whom it's not known - and doing the sorts of things that got them sent to the Rock in the first place.
Set against them is an unlikely pairing of a San Francisco cop and a comic book store-owning Ph.D. who is an expert on Alacatraz. They work, nominally, for a secretive federal agent who heads up a group that apparently expected the inmates to return and has been working to find them. He also has an assistant who appears to have also been a psychologist attached to the prison at the time of the vanishings. Confused yet?
For all the time traveling and whatnot, the show itself isn't that hard to sort out. The plots are split into the current time and an early '60s timeline when the prisoners were still in prison. That timeline includes appearances by the warden, a deputy warden (who didn't jump) and the prison doctor (who apparently did). Conceptually it makes sense, but in practice I think it's limiting, as the current day plot lines all seem to end out of the blue. Better that than a lot of exposition, I suppose.
Decent cast - Sam Neill plays the fed, Jorge Garcia gives us Lost fans a fix as the Ph.D., Parminder Nagra as the shrink, and Robert Forster as the cop's "uncle" - but they don't have enough to work with.
Ratings have been meh, and Fox is cranking through episodes in a way that guarantees it won't air during May sweeps. Still, now that House and Terra Nova are gone, there's a pretty large hole to plug on Mondays.
Theoretically, that hole could also be plugged by Touch, which was previewed a while ago and will start to air regularly later this month. It's the story of a man (played by Kiefer Sutherland) who has to parse the number-based clues brought to light by his son (who is autistic, or who has a condition similar to autism, it's still being sorted out). In the preview episode it led Keifer to delay a man from boarding a bus, which allowed him to be on site to save a bunch of kids from dying on a burning bus (it also turns out the guy used to be a fire fighter, and he had some sort of interaction with Keifer's wife, a 9/11 victim, on that day).
If this all sounds vaguely one-worldy mystical, it's because the show is from the mind of Tim Kring, who took a similar look using people with superpowers on Heroes. This isn't that sort of show at all, but there's a similarity of tone and feel, from the subplot involving a cell phone to the somewhat self-important opening narration (which is still light years less annoying than what Heroes used to throw at us).
Hard to say where this is going based on one episode, but without more substance to balance out the show's main gimmick I don't think it'll do well long-term.
Finally, I finally watched the first episode of Smash, NBC's Broadway drama, and I was pleasantly surprised. It has a good cast used well, from Debra Messing's slightly neurotic show writer to Anjelica Huston's imperious producer. The show also helps makes cosmic sense of Katherine McPhee's loss to Taylor Hicks on American Idol all those years ago. She plays the ingenue who is up for the lead in a new musical about Marilyn Monroe, squaring off against the long-time chorus girl played by Megan Hilty (a Broadway lead in her own right).
All of the characters fill some sort of stereotypical role, such as the lecherous but brilliant director and the alternatively supportive and put-upon husband, but the acting and writing is good enough to keep things fresh. I am not looking forward to the inevitable clashes from the adoption Messing's character and her husband are trying to finalize, though. I'd much prefer some garden-variety cheating.
A strong premiere has given way to middling ratings, it's getting some help now by airing right after The Voice. Even with average numbers, Smash benefits from airing on NBC, which has great yawning chasms on its schedule, especially where drama is concerned. And based on some of the pilots NBC is working with (including an hour-long dramatic take on The Munsters and a show which appears to be based on the educational computer game Oregon Trail), you'd have to think Smash will be back. I just hope NBC doesn't try to push it as their big hit drama. The show's not strong enough for that. It really needs to be treated as the sort of solid show that NBC can build upon. God knows they have a lot of building to do.
Alcatraz is the one that most fits my interests. In 1963, the prison closed and the prisoners were transfered... except they weren't. They've been showing up in the present day - at the behest of whom it's not known - and doing the sorts of things that got them sent to the Rock in the first place.
Set against them is an unlikely pairing of a San Francisco cop and a comic book store-owning Ph.D. who is an expert on Alacatraz. They work, nominally, for a secretive federal agent who heads up a group that apparently expected the inmates to return and has been working to find them. He also has an assistant who appears to have also been a psychologist attached to the prison at the time of the vanishings. Confused yet?
For all the time traveling and whatnot, the show itself isn't that hard to sort out. The plots are split into the current time and an early '60s timeline when the prisoners were still in prison. That timeline includes appearances by the warden, a deputy warden (who didn't jump) and the prison doctor (who apparently did). Conceptually it makes sense, but in practice I think it's limiting, as the current day plot lines all seem to end out of the blue. Better that than a lot of exposition, I suppose.
Decent cast - Sam Neill plays the fed, Jorge Garcia gives us Lost fans a fix as the Ph.D., Parminder Nagra as the shrink, and Robert Forster as the cop's "uncle" - but they don't have enough to work with.
Ratings have been meh, and Fox is cranking through episodes in a way that guarantees it won't air during May sweeps. Still, now that House and Terra Nova are gone, there's a pretty large hole to plug on Mondays.
Theoretically, that hole could also be plugged by Touch, which was previewed a while ago and will start to air regularly later this month. It's the story of a man (played by Kiefer Sutherland) who has to parse the number-based clues brought to light by his son (who is autistic, or who has a condition similar to autism, it's still being sorted out). In the preview episode it led Keifer to delay a man from boarding a bus, which allowed him to be on site to save a bunch of kids from dying on a burning bus (it also turns out the guy used to be a fire fighter, and he had some sort of interaction with Keifer's wife, a 9/11 victim, on that day).
If this all sounds vaguely one-worldy mystical, it's because the show is from the mind of Tim Kring, who took a similar look using people with superpowers on Heroes. This isn't that sort of show at all, but there's a similarity of tone and feel, from the subplot involving a cell phone to the somewhat self-important opening narration (which is still light years less annoying than what Heroes used to throw at us).
Hard to say where this is going based on one episode, but without more substance to balance out the show's main gimmick I don't think it'll do well long-term.
Finally, I finally watched the first episode of Smash, NBC's Broadway drama, and I was pleasantly surprised. It has a good cast used well, from Debra Messing's slightly neurotic show writer to Anjelica Huston's imperious producer. The show also helps makes cosmic sense of Katherine McPhee's loss to Taylor Hicks on American Idol all those years ago. She plays the ingenue who is up for the lead in a new musical about Marilyn Monroe, squaring off against the long-time chorus girl played by Megan Hilty (a Broadway lead in her own right).
All of the characters fill some sort of stereotypical role, such as the lecherous but brilliant director and the alternatively supportive and put-upon husband, but the acting and writing is good enough to keep things fresh. I am not looking forward to the inevitable clashes from the adoption Messing's character and her husband are trying to finalize, though. I'd much prefer some garden-variety cheating.
A strong premiere has given way to middling ratings, it's getting some help now by airing right after The Voice. Even with average numbers, Smash benefits from airing on NBC, which has great yawning chasms on its schedule, especially where drama is concerned. And based on some of the pilots NBC is working with (including an hour-long dramatic take on The Munsters and a show which appears to be based on the educational computer game Oregon Trail), you'd have to think Smash will be back. I just hope NBC doesn't try to push it as their big hit drama. The show's not strong enough for that. It really needs to be treated as the sort of solid show that NBC can build upon. God knows they have a lot of building to do.
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