White Collar

White Collar (being aired in over here on the local 'shows that are part of courses at X College/University' channel) sounds on the surface like a story some of us have heard too many times. And, for the first four weeks or so of its run, I felt like there was no point in watching it, because I own Catch Me If You Can, which is a fantastic film. Now that the first season's over, I'm pleased to report that my initial disappointment with White Collar was unwarranted.

While its supporting cast of characters is outstanding, the show revolves around the relationship and persons of Neal Caffrey, a twenty-something, internationally renowned (?) master forger, con artist, and art thief, and the only law enforcement officer who's ever caught him, a well-respected veteran grunt in the FBI's white collar crimes unit, one Peter Burke. The series opens after Peter's caught Neal for the second time, and after hitting a wall in a big case, Peter gets permission to give Neal a second chance in the form of a tracking anklet and a job as a Bureau consultant. The problem is, all Neal wants to do is be reunited with his ex-wife, who he believes is being kept from him by some of Peter's colleagues in exchange for stealing and delivering one of the most elusive, rare, high-profile artifacts sought after by private buyers in the world - a mysterious music box. What Peter wants is to not only help Neal stay on the straight and narrow, but help him want to stay there; all Neal wants is Kate, unwilling to believe that his master con artist ex-wife could be using him to recover the box with no intention of remarrying. While the reason for the government wanting the music box is a mystery, the real, central mystery of White Collar is who's right about Kate's motives. Neal clings to the belief that she just wants to be with him, and is the same woman he loved and married, while Peter suspects that Kate is not acting in Neal's best interests, and that his (Neal's) lot will improve if he lets her go and move on, taking the life Peter continues to offer him.

While the mystery of White Collar is who's right about Kate, the focus is not so much on the way people are deceived by others, but the way people deceive themselves. Peter is a man whose confidence and security comes from being himself, while Neal, the professional confidence man, has destroyed his self-confidence and security by devoting himself to being a wide variety of someone else. The show has an excellent contrast going between Peter and Neal that only really started clicking late in the first season - basically, Neal fools people by being someone he's not, while Peter fools people by being himself, letting them run away with their assumptions. Peter is a man whose confidence and security comes from being himself, while Neal, the professional confidence man, has destroyed his self-confidence and security by devoting himself to being a wide variety of someone else. And the brilliant thing is, we the audience have been fooled by Peter, probably because of the character stereotype created by just about every other show or film featuring a blue-collar law-enforcement officer paired with or against a suave, white-collar criminal. He's uncultured, he's a shlub, he's naive, he's single-minded - choose your character stereotype, and White Collar will boot it out the window. As the season unfolded, we saw good reasons why Peter is so well-respected by his employees and his boss. We saw Peter be a completely realistic man who can identify good food and wine - his wife has a business catering high-profile functions, and often uses him as a guinea pig before presenting menus to her clients - but just because he taught himself to recognize it and analyze it doesn't mean that he likes it, and his favourite meal is pizza and beer. We saw Peter be a law-enforcement officer who we can actually believe deserves his rank and tenure, and who we can actually believe is the only person who could catch Neal, because no matter how much Neal convinces himself he can hide things from Peter, he can't. Peter is not some idiot out of Neal's league who caught him just by being determined.

I'd like to touch back on that statement about Peter's security coming from being himself. This is also where White Collar is, thankfully, not like other shows. Peter isn't some ass who thinks that as long as he's being honest and "true to himself", he's doing just fine. He has the self-awareness (and a loving wife) to know when he's in the wrong and needs improvement, and he doesn't wield his being-his-selfiness (what?) like a weapon, the way popular asses like the main characters on House and Lie to Me do. He's the ultimate TV picture of someone who's mature, and calm, and has reached middle age content with their life. In other words, he's the ultimate TV abnormality. ;)

The biggest reason to watch this show is its believability, and its sensibility. Peter and his colleagues are not stupid, or easily deceived by Neal and his friends. Neal is a believable portrait of a young man in crisis, and his distress and inexperience are little match for Peter's contentment, and probably close to the equivalent of Neal's lifetime worth of experience both professional and private. A lot of shows that have boasted strong first seasons have tanked after getting popular or renewed (or both), taking the path of the lowest common denominator, and although the first season of White Collar ended with the proverbial bang instead of the potentially more interesting option, I have hope that it will follow in the footsteps of other recent shows aired on Access like Fringe and The Sarah Connor Chronicles, whose second seasons eclipsed their first to become some of the finest TV ever produced, hands down. (Not that I hope White Collar goes the way of the dodo the way TSCC did. Man, I miss that show.)

All that blathering to say: well done, White Collar! Keep up the good work! Your writers are fantastic!

Further Signs Of The Media Apocalypse

So our current Telus free preview is Teletoon Retro, and I am just tickled pink to be spending a Saturday morning the way I used to spend Saturday mornings: ejoying The Raccoons, Inspector Gadget, The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle, The Bugs Bunny and Tweety Show, Fraggle Rock (not technically a cartoon, but whatever, it's on), and happy to finally have the chance to watch Batman: The Animated Series.

This isn't to suggest that every cartoon made back in the day was animated gold. My friends and I can happily cringe while remembering such un-illustrious fare as James Bond, Jr. and Stunt Dawgs. Earlier this morning was a double-header of Thundercats, followed by G.I. Joe. And "new" doesn't generically equal "bad" - there have been a couple of stand-out weekend cartoons this decade, mostly Skunk Fu! and The Penguins of Madagascar.

The disturbing thing is, I've seen so many absolute crap new Saturday morning cartoons in the past five or six years that it came to pass that as I was sitting here, sipping coffee and watching Snakeyes and Shipwreck inflitrate a subway train full of Cobra soldiers, the thought running through my head was, man. They don't make cartoons like they used to.

That's right. I found myself wishing that current Saturday morning cartoons could be as good as G.I. Joe.

Let the Media Apocalypse commence!

Dialogues of the Week!

Oh, it's a close tie - between new episodes of Fringe and Human Target (shocking, I know).

From Fringe, Episode 2.16, "Peter", where Walter explains and confesses himself to Olivia after she has become able to see objects from the other universe, and now knows that Peter is one of them. In this scene, a flashback to 1985, Walter has seen his double (or, as he likes to call him, "Walternate" - isn't that great?) make a critical error in observation that will result in him missing the cure for Peter's terminal illness, thus ensuring that Peter 2 will meet the same fate as Peter 1, and resolves to cross over to prevent this from happening.

Dr. Carla Warren: Walter, I'm sorry, but you can't.

Dr. Walter Bishop: Yes, yes, I think I can.

Dr. Warren: No, I mean you can't. Shattering the wall between universes would rupture the fundamental constants of nature...

Walter: ...That's just a theory; we don't know it to be true.

Dr. Warren: It's a good theory, it's why we've been lying to the military and telling them it's impossible... Walter. There has to be a line somewhere; there has to be a line we can't cross.

Walter: (after a long pause) I've always considered you as a scientist, Dr. Warren, despite your personal needs for religious claptrap. I see I was wrong.

Dr. Warren: "I am become death, the destroyer of worlds."

Walter: Don't you quote Oppenheimer to me!

It was a fantastic episode of what surprisingly became a fantastic show, packed with great twists on the standard cliches, and the series is well worth taking a look at. Caveat: you may want to avoid the introductions of most episodes, in which the deaths of the week usually occur, as those deaths are of the sci-fi/horror variety (think Alien or The Thing) and tend to be extremely nauseating.

On HumanTarget 1.10, "Tanarak", a standard tale of a mining company trying to cover up the nature of an unnatural, chemical-related death that's elevated out of the standardized drudge through great acting, great direction, doing things like watching Mythbusters (in the episode's climactic scene, main character Chris Chance grabs a flare gun to blow up a semi instead of using his sidearm, since gas tanks are made to not blow up simply by being punctured or shot - but a flaming puncture is a whole other story!), and, of course, great writing. This week goes again to Jackie Earle Haley's Guerrero, as he blackmails the mining company's corporate fixer:

Guerrero: (entering the startled fixer's car) Whoa, hey Taggart! Been awhile!...Oh yeah, I get it. I could be recording this, right? If I were you, I wouldn't say a word either. So here's the deal. I know you're working with Agrius. You're scrubbing evidence over this whole propylide mess, and I also know, dude, even if you destroy it all, you're keeping one folder for yourself, the one with the really good stuff in it. The one that guarantees you get paid on time, they never mess with you. Problem is this: this company's going down, bro. I think we both know there's no reason for you to be anywhere near it when it does. Make sense? ...Oh, what's in it for you? Dude. How about doing the right thing? How about just the satisfaction of knowing you helped a really good person out of a rotten situation (breaks down snickering) dude, I'm messing with you! I know where you live! And you know it! Tom's Diner, Nineteenth and Pine. Just leave the folders in the back booth by the can, okay? Tell your wife I said hi. (exits the car) See you, Taggart!

The cherry on top here is really that, in a three-man operation, the smallest one is their creepy, dangerous thug. It's a great running visual.

Dialogue Of The Week

Heard on Human Target episode 4, "Sanctuary":

(Chris and Winston are stranded with the guy they've been hired to protect in a remote part of Quebec (vive La Belle Province!), and in sore need of a contingency plan.)

Guerrero: (answering his cell) This is Guerrero.

Winston: It's Winston! Where the hell have you been? I called you, like, thirty times in the last ten minutes! Alright, listen. I thought this job was straightforward, but things have gotten kinda complicated, and we're gonna need your help.

Guerrero: Busy today dude. Sorry.

Winston: You're "busy"? Chance and the principal are in danger. What the hell could you be so busy with that it can't wait?

Guerrero: Winston, my life does not revolve around you. As hard as that may be for you to believe, I'm on another job.

Winston: Another?...Look. Fisher and his crew are here, now Chance is stuck up on that mountain with those psychopaths. Now, he told me you know a chopper pilot down in Montreal, and I need him here fast...

Guerrero: Well, I know who he means, but that's not really an option. We kinda had a falling out.

Winston: Well, can't you apologize?

Guerrero: Yeah, if I had a time machine, or a hell of a Ouija board....Listen, you're gonna be fine, man. You're, uh, capable.

Winston: "Capable"?! Who the hell do you think you're...

Guerrero: Gotta go.

Human Target

Thanks to increasingly high audience impatience and financial pressure to perform, TV shows have been getting off to stronger starts these past five or so years. Where it was once understood that pilots would be kind of awkward but just enticing enough to convince viewers to give a show some time to find its legs, the average program now has to hit the ground running in order to have a fighting chance - and most of the good ones still don't survive. Human Target, one of the newest residents of the airwave jungle, has hit the ground running through a U.S. Army obstacle training course with flying colours. What I'm trying to convey with that clumsy analogy, which probably came from having just read a chapter about boot camp in the memoirs of Major Richard Winters, is that the first three episodes of Human Target to go to air have been some very good TV that seems to be doing its best to avoid being a genre cliche.

The premise of Human Target is a very easy one to cliche, as it revolves around the business of a small private security company whose M.O. is to use their high-end clients as bait in order to draw out and apprehend their would-be assassins, robbers, whatever. Staffed by an operator (Chi McBride), a freelance information specialist (Jackie Earle Haley), and, of course, the field operator who acts as an unconventional bodyguard (Mark Valley), they're a legal business, not off the grid like the A-Team. They're also, as demonstrated to solid comic effect in the third episode, very well-connected. Although his history is still a bit spotty, it's been implied that main character Christopher Chance (Valley) has a CIA and/or U.S. Army Special Forces background, and that his past work has earned him a lot of favours in high places waiting to be called in, which also helps with legal side of things.

What is so far making Human Target work, strong acting and writing aside, is its eschewing of standard "special agent for hire" conventions. For example, on basically every other show in the genre, Guerrero (Haley) would be an omnipotent computer geek inept in every other aspect of life. On Human Target, though Guerrero knows his way around a computer and then some, he really is, as I referred to him above, an information specialist. He has contacts, he does legwork, he finds the missing pieces of the puzzle through a wide variety of means for Chris and Winston (McBride). And the best part is, neither him nor secret agent man Chris are omnipotent. They're smart, resourceful, and very well-rounded, but they don't know everything. In the second episode, when a fire in a plane's cabin put the pilots out of commission with smoke inhalation and Chris had to step in and help out, he may have a pilot's license but had, reasonably, never flown a 747, which meant he didn't know squat about its landing gear...but he did know where the cockpit manual was, and consulted it. Later in the same episode, when faced with a problem in the plane's wiring, he went to the pilot for help instead of phoning his tech expert, because Guererro's no expert on 747s - the pilot is. What makes Chris such a great character is that he knows how to use resources, and what makes Guerrero a great character, aside from not being an all-knowing, magical instant problem-solving computer nerd, is that he also knows how to use resources. This team is not an isolated one, which is very refreshing (not to mention plain ol' good storytelling). In the third episode, Guerrero had to keep an eye on someone who'd been poisoned with something that would eventually stop his heart, and his first move was to try to get a hold of his local contacts with medical training. When that fell through (one in prison, the other dead), he went to find a defibrillator, and while sitting around waiting for the need to use it, he read the manual. That's right, he didn't already know how to use a defibrillator, but as he reminded a high-strung Winston, they put those things on school buses. He can figure out how to use one. I would never say anything bad about MacGyver, but I'm glad that the characters on Human Target are not his inferior wannabes.

The three main characters have distinct personalities, interact well together, and, most importantly, each have a different role to play (no pun intended). Guererro does legwork in his capacity as an information guy, and he gets stuff done, but he's no field operative - that's Chris's job. Winston doesn't seem to do much leg work at all, which is fine as he's well suited to and very good at his role as operator and coordinator. As for personalities, Chris is no James Bond or Sam Spade, nor is he a lone wolf or infalliable. He's successful because he doesn't work alone. And Guererro is no awkward wallflower. He's successful in his field of work because he's confident, aggressive, kind of scary, and knows how to deal with people, and has a great tick of calling everyone "dude" without sounding contrived. He's easily shaping up to be my favourite part of the show.

The other major point in Human Target's favour is excellent action, stuntwork, and fight choreography. It also helps that Mark Valley has not only done stuntwork before, but is a West Point graduate and veteran of Desert Storm, and the show makes good use of his physical talents. There's plenty of proper dirty fighting going on, in which Chris makes reasonable use of his surroundings, and the show's even had him fight two women without getting all Mr. and Mrs. Smith stupid (though they couldn't resist using the standard cheesy tango music to accompany a co-ed fight at a black-tie function). This show probably also has a bit more financial freedom for its all-important action sequences due to the fact that their excellent "B-list" main cast probably comes with a reasonable price tag, and you know what? The solution to that equation is high-quality fun that keeps a decent distance from sensationalism.

Due to the unwritten rule that you are no longer allowed to have a cop/buddy cop/spy show with an all-male cast, they have introduced a sexy FBI agent to whom Chris has deliberately made himself accessible, and although his business operates more or less above board and he has friends in high places, he's still broken plenty of federal and international laws over the years - if someone can find him and make a charge stick. His fingerprints are on file, along with over a dozen aliases, but is otherwise blank, and now he's given someone in law enforcement a face to go with the names. I can't imagine what they plan to do with Lady Agent, but I do hope it doesn't involve her joining the team (which has a rock-solid dynamic and is just fine as it is) or adding an unecessary and cliched plot tension involving trying to arrest Chris.

It would seem that Fox has high hopes for Human Target, because where I live it's currently serving as the lead-in for 24, a great way to build an audience and ensure stable ratings. This one may actually be around for a while. I'm looking forward to seeing where it goes.

Sometimes, it's good to be wrong: Stargate: Universe

A while back, when the Sci-Fi Channel went through a revenue-based identity crisis and became the Syfy Channel (still looks like an abbreviation for syphilis), their flagship show was a new addition to the Stargate family. I was quite alarmed by the promotional materials for the show, what with it using words like "sexy" and "adventure" in the same sentence, and going on about how it's been specially made for people who don't like sci-fi, blah blah blah. As such, I made the skittish assumption that it was going to be Defying Gravity with a Stargate label, and resolved to stay away. Well, now we have Space, SyFy's Canadian equivalent, and now Space airs Stargate: Universe, and I all I can say is, I should have known better. The Stargate series happens to be quite fond of its good name, and not even the mighty SyFy channel can do anything to change that.

Stargate: Universe comes to us three years after the conclusion of SG-1 and on the tail end of Stargate: Atlantis's run; story-wise, that's also where it sits chronologically. Its premise is that the Stargate project - a military black op centering around the usage of wormhole technology created by a long-gone race known only as the Ancients - has finally found a nine-chevron address and the means to dial it, nine being the maximum number Stargates have. If seven chevrons gets you to another planet, and eight gets you to another galaxy, where the heck do nine get you? When the big day comes, and various troops, scientists, and dignitaries assemble at an off-world outpost to witness the first attempt to dial the mysterious new address, a surprise enemy attack throws a pretty big monkey in the wrench...and instead of getting everyone back to Earth, the project's lead scientist forces the new dialing sequence to completion, and everyone who survives the attack winds up on the Destiny, an unmanned, half-dead Ancient spacecraft with nothing but the clothes (and weapons) on their backs, and whatever they had the presence of mind to grab before running through the gate. Included in this group are a good but reluctant commander, an army medic who was coming to the deliberate end of her service, a solid young officer for whom the army was his only place to turn after a series of personal crises, and a large group of civilians including an MIT dropout who solved the equation that made the trip to Destiny possible, assorted Stargate Project scientists, a U.S. senator and his adult daughter, a ranking official from the IOA (the international body that oversees the Stargate Project), and the afore-mentioned lead scientist, Dr. Rush.

Hmm. Put like that, I can't help but hear the Gilligan's Island song in my head, but rest assured: the similarities between these two shows end at being stranded with a brilliant scientist and a beautiful but seemingly useless civilian.

The show's conflict stems from three primary plots: survival, the tension between cilivians and soldiers (particularly as pertaining to who's in charge), and the independent, hard to monitor actions of Rush, an extraordinarily talented pathological liar whose intellect is matched only by his disdain for others and his ruthless ambition and obsession to see the project through at all costs, a point of view not held by the mission's accidental military commander. As anyone familiar with the Stargate series would expect, the human interaction is of the highest quality and very interesting, as are the characters doing the interacting. Which is a good thing, because that's what SG:U is really about. Where SG-1 was driven by exploration and mythology, and Atlantis was primarily a military sci-fi, Universe is character-driven, which I suppose is where it becomes more accessible for those outside the sci-fi loop. With the regular, long-term Stargate script-writing collective behind it, this brand-new show has already put most everything else on the air to shame. It's even already put out a time-travel episode, Stargate's specialty, which fused everything good about Aliens and the original Predator with everything good about Stargate, and included the following sure-to-be-classic (at least in my house) dialogue exchange: "Well, this couldn't be any worse!" "I'm afraid that's a failure of imagination."

The only place I can see SG:U getting irritating soon unless handled in a very particular way is in the plotline involving Col. Young's visceral rivalry with Col. Telford, a pilot who was supposed to be the mission commander but was in the middle of a dogfight when everyone went through the gate. Young's crew has an Ancient communication system that allows them to contact Earth, even over a distance of several billion light-years, and involves trading bodies with someone at the other end, and Telford does his best to make sure he's almost always that person so that he can be involved with what's happening on Destiny. The way he sees it, Young stole his rightful position as mission commander. That's right, he'd rather be stranded aboard Destiny, because it's his mission, and he does his best to erode the crew's confidence in Young while insinuating his command agenda into their affairs. On top of that, with a lot of long-term bad blood existing between the two, Telford's got some heavy personal blackmail on Young and isn't afraid to use it without bothering to threaten first, hoping to do enough emotional damage to render Young incapable of command. While not an unrealistic character, as Young's opposite Telford is very intense, and I find that has a tendency to get tiresome fast on a series. But, Stargate is far superior to the average series, so we'll see.

Stargate: Universe isn't on at the moment, doing that irritating mid-winter hiatus thing that's now become a TV staple, but I'm looking forward to its return. As an added, bonus, the Stargate name should guarantee that this excellent new sci-fi won't go the way of the usual excellent new sci-fi (rest in peace, Sarah Connor Chronicles), that is to say it's not likely to be suddenly axed in two seasons or less whilst in the middle of a gripping story arc, and odds are it will be played out to its natural conclusion.

Best Dialogue on TV Tonight

Heard on a repeat of Fringe:

"Well, it's like I always say: if the government's covering something up, it must be Tuesday."

Is a reference to: the famed UFO/weather balloon crash at Roswell. Apparently, the official government statement regarding the crash was released on a Tuesday.

I feel like I've heard this line somewhere else before, but can't place it. Can you?

FlashForward

The main selling point for FlashForward, the new HBO/ABC interpersonal drama/sci-fi/procedural that premiered this past Thursday, has been stressing that it comes to us courtesy of the co-writer of The Dark Knight. That advertising sold me, and I'm glad it did.

The premise of FlashForward is so simple it's complex, and absolutely fantastic: on a normal day, everyone on the planet simultaneously blacks out for exactly two minutes and seventeen seconds - except, as the main character puts it, they didn't black out. They went somewhere else, and those who didn't die in the meantime came back with memories of events that have yet to take place. While everyone's "flashforward" happens on the same day and time - April 29, 2010, at 11 a.m. (California time) - everyone's flashforward is different. Except, of course, for the people who did actually black out and saw nothing, the assumed meaning of which is that they'll be dead by that time. The pilot wastes no time getting into the action, which is made sufficiently terrifying as the blackouts mean hundreds of thousands if not millions of deaths in car or plane crashes, swimmers drowning as they lose consciousness in the middle of the water, patients dying unattended on operating tables, and so on. The show appears to have tipped its hat to its largely British cast by honouring the mystifying British love for inappropriate slow-motion; thankfully, this is very brief. Overall, the chaos is neither overdone nor insufficiently chaotic, which is a hard line to walk, so kudos to all involved.

It looks like the show's focal point is going to be FBI agent Mark Benson (Joseph Fiennes), and those who are directly connected to him - his wife Olivia (Sonya Walger, Lost, Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles), their young daughter, his partner, Demetrius (John Cho, Star Trek), and probably his AA sponsor, Aaron, with Olivia's colleague Bryce as a wildcard. And, of course, the villains and/or people behind the blackouts, one of whom has been clearly identified (Jack Davenport, Miss Marple, Pirates of the Carribbean), and one of whom was revealed in the trailer for next week's episode (Dominic Monaghan, Lost). It's shaping up to be a reasonably interesting cast of characters, too. While it's been established that Mark and Olivia love each other and are happy together, with the script eschewing the overdone "wife is bitter with workaholic cop husband" story by making them both busy people who love their jobs (she's an ER doctor), they also have a bizarrely passive-aggressive relationship characterized by Olivia leaving Mark little anti-love notes or text messages saying things like, "You're a crappy husband. I HATE YOU." This confusing dynamic is made all the more interesting by Olivia's flashforward of herself cheating on Mark, a vision she hates and fears. The characters are divided into three distinct reactions to their visions of the future. Mark, Olivia, and Demetrius have seen evil or frightning futures and are terrified that their visions will come to pass; they will take deliberate action to alter or prevent future events. Aaron's flashforward included his daughter, a Marine killed by a bomb in Afghanistan, and with this confusing suggestion that she is somehow alive. With this vision, Aaron is given a new hope - and he is terrified that his future won't come to pass, and it is inferred that he will do everything he can to make it happen . Bryce, who blacks out just as he's about to commit suicide, sees a hopeful future that he doesn't elaborate on and wakes up brimming with life and joy - whatever he saw, he's looking forward to its arrival, just watching and waiting. It's an interesting division, these three distinct reactions, and I look forward to seeing how this all develops.

While the show's selling point has been fixated squarely on writer/director/producer David S. Goyer, who wrote the story for The Dark Knight as well as Batman Begins, on which he co-wrote the screenplay as well - and this is an excellent selling point - it should be noted that writer/producer Brannon Braga (Star Trek: The Next Generation), shares show creation and writing credits here, which will make it extra disappointing if the show suddenly tanks. Using the Batman films as a benchmark, intertwined and/or circular storytelling is Goyer's specialty, and in this respect the pilot sits head and shoulders in this respect above other recent sci-fi- themed shows with ensemble casts. In other words, Goyer can actually juggle multiple character storylines properly. His introduction of the show's characters was neither too cryptic (a device usually used to conceal a lack of genuine mystery or drama), nor was it a case of too much information. Beautifully done, sir. Some early on-line reviews have been complaining that the show has already clearly revealed several ultimate and character plot points. Well, that's what's commonly known as "foreshadowing", is a crucial element of circular storytelling (finishing a story the same way it begun; see: the Bourne trilogy), and in the hands of a capable writer, is one of the most paradoxically exciting and satisfying storytelling devices there is. I can't think of a single good story that is built and dependent on the shock value of its reveals. In my experience, good storytelling all about the journey. Any hack with a word processor can come up with a plot; for example, Lord Haversham was murdered, and everyone thinks it was his wife, since she was having an affair with his brother, but actually the butler did it. What will make that simple story awful or excellent is not learning what happened, but why and how it got from point A (the murder) to point B (who did it). Versions of that sample plot are the foundation of shows like Miss Marple or CSI - but not every episode is good, is it? The most skilled storytellers reveal all their secrets and tell you exactly how the story will end within the first act, but do it so well that you probably didn't catch it the first time around, and can't quite put your finger on why the story's conclusion was so right, but you know in your gut that it was. The Prestige is a perfect example of this.


FlashForward's staging and cinematography are beautiful, and the acting is strong, with Joseph Fiennes well on his to making amends for his title roles in the abominable Shakespeare in Love and the okay but forgettable Luther. Sonya Walger and Jack Davenport elevate the quality of any production they're in, and FlashForward also includes what looks like a long-term guest role for the elegant Alex Kingston, who is best known this side of the pond for a long stint on ER, but who I remember for her beautiful, heartbreaking turn opposite David Tennant in the Doctor Who two-parter "Silence in the Library"/"Forest of the Dead."

On the basis of the pilot alone, my only complaints with FlashForward are the irritating (gimmicky?) use of that capital F (instead of just letting "flashforward" stand as the inverse of "flashback"), the fear that it will either suddenly tank or keep improving until it is unceremoniously cancelled without resolution five weeks from now, and the fact that I have a very, very hard time making out most of the dialogue, which interestingly enough is also my only big problem with the recent Batman films. There's a certain low range which I can hear but barely understand words in, for example, I must concentrate very hard during Christian Bale and Liam Neeson's sparring sequence on the frozen pond in Batman Begins in order for their dialogue to be more than muted gibberish. This range problem is exacerbated on FlashForward by the fact that a large number of U.K. male actors tend to compensate for difficulties in maintaining an American accent by half-mumbling in an almost subvocal tone, which usually does the trick but is very hard to hear, and Joseph Fiennes is quite guilty on this charge. As he's the show's primary actor, well, either I'm going to start adapting to this range (which would be great), or drive my husband crazy by rewinding or asking, "what'd he say?" every twenty seconds (which would be hard to classify as "great").

In my opinion, FlashForward is worth the risk of the frustration that comes with a show being suddenly cancelled mid-story In a decade where series get axed if they don't top the Neilsen ratings within three episodes, making a good pilot has become more important than ever, and FlashForward is one of the finest pilots I've seen yet. Not too empty, not too full, it demonstrates the show's potential while delivering a surprisingly satisfying fourty-something minutes of TV. I'm looking forward to watching it grow.

"I don't wanna be a secret weapon! I wanna be an exposed weapon!" And so you shall.

Well, this just made my day. Not only were the rumours of an offer true, but District 9 star Sharlto Copley has accepted the role of Howlin' Mad Dog Murdock in the upcoming A-Team film! Well, I'll have to watch it now. This is going to be great. I'm remembering the energetic, life-filled, slightly manic glee bubbling off of Wikus in the first act of District 9, and topped off with one of those crazy little smiles of his, I can't imagine this guy not being perfect playing everyone's favourite pilot of questionable sanity.


I just hope they don't try to give it the Batman treatment. Chris Nolan's Batman worked because Batman wasn't meant as a joke, no one really liked Batman-as-joke except in the sense where it's so bad it's awesome - and there are some truly quotable lines in Adam West's Batman: The Movie, which does grace my shelf - and the comics and most of the cartoons were serious anyways. Whereas I assume everyone who loves The A-Team loves it because it's so much goofy, shameless, good clean fun. Also because it contractually guarantees at least one rolled or exploded vehicle per episode.

...We Should All Be So Lucky.

This sort of thing amuses me deeply. I was watching some A-Team the other day while cleaning up, and saw episode 1.5, "A Small and Private War", in which the A-Team is hired by an old cop to take down and expose the bizarro-A-team, a S.W.A.T. unit that's begun taking assassination contracts for extra cash. In this episode, one of the key bad guys is played by Dean Stockwell, who you may all know from Quantum Leap but who more recently had a great and well-played turn on the new Battlestar Galactica as skin-job John Cavil (best character exit ever, by the way! Freakin' brilliant!). One of the stars of The A-Team was Dirk Benedict (Face), who wound up kicking the crap out of Stockwell's character in "A Small and Private War." And as you all know, Dirk Benedict played Starbuck on the original Battlestar. Which means that everyone who's worked on the new Battlestar is now only one degree from George Peppard.

Those lucky so-and-sos.

:D

Eh, What?

Overheard shouted by author Michael Chabon (The Yiddish Policeman's Union) after getting clocked on the head with a Peanuts poster during a brawl on The Simpsons:

"You fight like Anne Rice!"

Classic.

...?

Battlestar Galactica as Social Science. Eh, What?

I finally have the last half-season of the new Battlestar Galactica in my grasp (more importantly, in my DVD player). Too bad an on-line article not directly related to the show blabbed all its reveals including the ultimate ending, the identity of the fifth Cylon, and what Starbuck finds in the (half-)season premiere! Still, it's always interesting to watch how a story builds when you know where it's going to finish; there's more to see, so to speak.

It's not an overly strong show, and has never quite lived up to its tight first season, and has a tendency for melodrama. But it has always been a strong sci-fi with a well-built mythology, not to mention that it looks great, and there are some things that it does incredibly well. Last night I happened to pause an episode on a frame of Tigh and Adama hunkering down with assault rifles in an airlock while waiting for an execution squad to burn through the door, and it hit me that Battlestar Galactica did something I've seen no other show do: be truly multi-generational.

Starting at the top, we've got Adama, who is literally the Old Man; Tigh, Ellen, Laura Roslin, Doc Cottle, The Cavils (you know, the dude from Quantum Leap and Dune), and Tom Zarek - the 50+ bunch. Then there are my people: Gaeta, Apollo, Starbuck, Hotdog, Anders, Tory, Dualla. Sandwiched in the middle are Athena and Helo, Tyrol, The Sixes/The Leobens/The D'Annas, Baltar. Watching the unfolding of the rebellion that opens season 4.5, I started realizing that the writers have throughout the series presented the members of each generation with the hopes, fears, impulses, and decision-making processes unique to each. It's rare to see multi-generational casts with so much balance in numbers between the age groups; it's even rarer to see each generation be presented well, especially Galactica's older crew who are neither loopy, incredibly obscene for "edgy" or "comic" effect (I'm glaring at you, Little Miss Sunshine!), or more irritable, stubborn, or unreasonable than their younger comrades. Battlestar isn't the first show to have three generations on-screen, but in my experience it's the first show to resist making caricatures of any of them. With this final season, I see how the writers slowly built and tied together the "human family" theme in a literal and solid manner.

I'm looking forward to the end, even though I know what it is, because in hindsight I can see how good the journey's been even during the show's weak patches. And I'm anxious to see if I called it right that the "dying leader" prophecy is about Adama, not Roslin. No magazine or paper managed to spoil that plot point, ha!

Good news, everyone! I've taught the toaster to feel love!

Also, Merlin series 2 will be hitting the BBC sometime this September. Which means that NBC and CTV should pick it up sometime next June. But, you know, you guys could air it by January, if you really wanted to (nudge, nudge).

Huzzah!

Reading Rainbow, 1983-2009

I'm not sure how long it'll take to process the idea that Reading Rainbow is officially off the air because no one will fund it anymore. Granted, I haven't watched that show in earnest since, I don't know, 1993, and haven't even caught it while channel surfing since, um, 2008 (hey, if you just happened to turn on PBS while LeVar Burton was having a storytelling adventure, don't try to pretend you wouldn't just happen to leave the TV on too). Getting the axe now makes this show only one year older than I am, and I'm quite attached to it. It's Reading freakin' Rainbow! How can it not be on the air forever and ever until LeVar Burton passes from old age and no one dare fill his hallowed shoes, like with Mr. Rogers or Mr. Dressup?

The rationale reported in the NPR article is that PBS and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, etc., are finding they have to focus on funding shows which teach kids the technical process of how to read; that we no longer have the luxury of funding a show that teaches kids how to read in the Dead Poets Society sense. I can't cognitively grasp the idea that so many kids are apparently not learning the mechanics of reading in, you know, school, that 26 years of teaching kids why to read and how to love it has to be tossed aside like a bag of mouldy tangerines.

I'm speaking as an outsider here, because I never had a problem with literacy, I don't have a kid to teach, and I'm not a social scientist or think-tank researcher. My mom says I started reading off the page when I was 3, and my childhood is rife with memories of being told to put down that book and not read at the table, at the social gathering, at the...you get the drift. I know very well that there are a lot of terrible, completely ineffective teachers blighting the educational landscape who have screwed up countless lives and couldn't find literacy (or other subjects) with a hunting dog and a Ouija board. But where did I get that snappy line about hunting dogs and Ouija boards? Not from a book, my friends! From Babylon 5 ! Ergo, TV plays a critical role in teaching children insufferably witty, self-satisfied language skills! I think I've proven my point.

Seriously, though. How did such a huge country get so dependent on public TV as a source of basic primary education that the Powers That Be need to ditch Reading Rainbow just because it's not hooked on phonics?

The Drive-In Channel

For someone who didn't grow up in the '70's, "exploitation film" is a mysterious and ambiguous term bandied around that has something to do with gratuitous sex and violence - but there's plenty of non-exploitation flicks that have that, aren't there? So what's the difference? Then Quentin Tarantino homaged the genre with Grindhouse (though one could say that all of his films homage exploitation films in some way), and I started to get a better idea of the difference between exploitation and plain ol' gratuity. I've only seen the Death Proof half of Grindhouse, and let's just say I saw and heard things that I never, ever wanted to see or hear Kurt Russell (or anyone, for that matter) say and do. I didn't expect anyone, not even Tarantino, to surpass his Kill Bill Vol. 2 in terms of, um, yuckiness (though I should state for honesty's sake that I appreciated that picture. I have my reasons.).

This month, our basic cable preview channel is The Drive-In Channel, and it turns out that those corny, innocent "enjoy a refreshing ice-cold beverage at our concessions stand!" commercials everyone knows to be associated with drive-ins are a very misleading representation of what's actually on The Drive-In Channel. In essence, it's 99% exploitation cinema, occasionally interspersed by said commercials, 70's short documentaries, The Incredible Hulk, and the odd Clint Eastwood western. And, it turns out, there is a very large gap between gratuitous sex and violence and the exploitation genre - "exploitation" is exactly what it is. I don't know how else to describe it.

Case in point: where else can you watch a film called Wild Women in Nature in the Raw, followed by Keyholes Are For Peeping, Goldilocks and the Three Bares, a film described as "a phone-sex operator suspects her artist boyfriend is killing topless dancers", and The Hooker Cult Murders, set in Montreal (holla!) and starring Christopher Plummer? (Who, while this hasn't affected my appreciation for him, I cannot resist herein referring to as Christopher Slummer. You walked right into that one, pal.)

The saddest thing in this whole business is that, when Quentin Tarantino made Death Proof, he was upping the quality of grindhouse cinema by inexplicable proportions. My advice? Stay far, far away from any film you've heard referred to as exploitation, and never, ever add The Drive-In Channel to your lineup.

I Wish I Made That Up Just Now

So, I finally grit my teeth, seized some integrity as a critic, and watched a little Defying Gravity.

You know how a lot of cartoons use that editing device of cutting sharply to one shocked or angry person, then to their nemesis, then back again, accompanied by the sound dum! Dum! Duuuuuuuuuuum!? Like on The Simpsons, whenever Maggie encounters the unibrow baby? I couldn't find a clip, but you know what I'm talking about. It's a common comedic device used to enhance ridiculous situations.

Episode 2 of Deying Gravity used that device to end a very serious, cliffhanger scene in earnest.

If I were you, I wouldn't believe me either. I guess I just have too much faith in humanity to think that someone would every use that for "serious" storytelling.

Also in this episode, the mission commander boasted to a girl that he ran a whole five kilometers that morning, as if this is piddling distance is supposed to be an accomplishment for a freakin' astronaut, i.e. one of the most physically fit people in existence. I can run five kilometers no problem, and I don't even work out.

Suffice it to say, my lack of faith in this program was not misplaced. It really is Grey's Anatomy in space.

Good Things Come To Those Who Wait: Merlin

A month ago, I found myself falling prey to a condition I castigate other for, because it often leads to the cancellation of a worthwhile production: judging a show based on its first handful of episodes. Sometimes, I forget that most shows need at least a season to find their legs.

In this case, the show in question is Merlin, an interesting take on the Camelot legend that has actually claimed the distinction of adding something new to the story. It's set before Uther Pendragon's death, with him on the throne and Arthur as crown prince, and young peasant Merlin as Arthur's servant and friend. An orphan, Merlin has been raised and educated by a now-elderly man named Gaius, who serves as court physician and is doing his best to tutor Merlin as the boy begins to manifest his magical powers. In an intriguing reversal of the "religion persecuting science" chestnut, Uther outlawed the use of magic early in his reign when the dangers of any random peasant possessing and using virtually unlimited power became clear. The practice of magic is a capital crime, but the series doesn't present Uther as a hotheaded villain who carelessly persecutes people "just born that way", for which I thank the writers - Merlin could so easily have been a cheap gay lobby allegory. Thankfully, it's more profound than that, giving Uther's decision a logic that's hard to accuse of being irrational or cruel.

By far the most interesting thing about this series is how it contrasts Uther and Arthur, and by doing so foreshadows the latter's doom. Where Uther is willing to make hard decisions for the greater good, Arthur makes his choices with all the passion, folly, and utter lack of regard for the future that one would expect from a teenage boy. Whether the series will have Arthur die young, never flinching from these decisions, or live to middle-age to witness the fullness of the destruction they'll cause, it'll be an interesting journey. Especially interesting is Arthur's definition of responsibility, as demonstrated in last week's episode when he berated Uther for not curtailing someone else's decision. One of the court knights, conducting his knightly duty, accepted a certain-death challenge thrown down to Uther, and Arthur regarded it as Uther's responsibility to overrule the knight's decision - and violate his dignity, and adherence to the Knight's code - and forbid him to fight. The rest of that episode made this scenario even more intriguing. Uther, with his years of experience, is a steady character who makes understandable decisions for the greater good; Arthur is an overemotional, textbook case of living in the moment.

Decision-making is at the heart of this series; an unexpected and engaging quality for a show whose main plot revolves around the persecution of people for possessing something they cannot choose to possess. Every episode to date deals with the choices people make when they convince themselves that they have no such freedom in order to justify actions that are typically dangerous or foolhardy. On top of that, the primary focus is on the choices parents make raising their children, and the choices their children make in response. If one were to make a drinking game for Merlin - and, as Canada's a year behind on airing this U.K. production, someone probably already has - the target phrase would be "I have/had no choice", uttered by Arthur and Merlin far more than by any other characters. Arthur in particular blurs the lines between compassionate choices and foolish ones with gusto, all the while provoking the audience to ask which sort of decision he's made, and what the consequences may be. The fact that the end of Arthur's story is common knowledge adds to the interest, as every week we see Arthur make and justify the choices that will ultimately lead to the fall of Camelot, and his death.

The big reason I've been so hard on this series, and had such a hard time being willing to sit through long enough to let it find its legs, is just that - I know how it will end. I expect much higher standards of storytelling and execution from productions whose endings are known; their journies needs to be very good in order to give me a reason to reach their foregone conclusions. Merlin certainly did not start out this way - the first six or seven episodes don't even get the "awesome crap" seal of approval, at least not where dialogue and drama are concerned. However, it's improved quickly and vastly. The talent in front of the camera played a large role (no pun intended) in keeping me watching. The core cast - Uther, Arthur, Merlin, and Gaius - is outstanding, with veteran TV actors Anthony Head and Richard Wilson anchoring the production as Uther and Gaius, respectively, and a pair of solid newcomers as Arthur and Merlin. Behind the camera, the production design is nice period work - even the castle's large luxury spaces, like Uther's throne room and Arthur's apartments, are quite small by other period's standards - and the writing has improved in leaps and bounds.

One thing Merlin is absolutely not, though, is standard Arthurian myth; if such a thing as an Arthurian purist exists, they will likely be offended by this show. For example, Guinevere is not nobility but a maidservant to Morgana (Morgan la Fay), here an orphan of noble blood who lives at Camelot as Uther's ward. Then there's Gaius, Merlin's mentor, a character new to the story. The origin of Excalibur is neither of the myth standards (but very interesting), and it would appear that unless Mordred is part fae, or conceived of magic, he is not Arthur and Morgan's bastard son. Though he could be, because speaking of strange conceptions, the circumstances of Arthur's birth are also not to standard. There's a surprisingly intriguing plotline involving the last living dragon. And, of course, there's the big kicker: that Arthur and Merlin are more or less the same age, growing up as boyhood friends instead of one being older mentor to the other. I think this is a great foundation to build the Camelot story on, because of the new dimension and direction it creates. And that is, at the end of the day, where Merlin finds its success. It holds the rare distinction of adding something new and good to and old story. The episode "Excalibur" actually managed to put a new take on the Black Knight story without evoking any ridiculous memories of Monty Python and the Holy Grail - now that, my friends, is impressive good TV.

I've you've missed the episodes up to now, CTV is airing them for Canada so you can probably stream them off their website. I support giving Merlin a chance. Here's to a second season.

When it comes to books, I don't read a lot of non-fiction. It's not that I'm not interested, but rather that the stuff worth reading tends to be non-conducive to being read in short spurts and easily interrupted - i.e., it's no good on the bus. Also, it tends to cost an arm and a leg. (But what book doesn't, these days? How I long for the good ol' days, when I could get mass-market paperbacks for $4.95...)

Anyways, I think I'm going to have to grit my teeth and settle in (eventually) to read Mike Sack's And Here's the Kicker: Conversations with 21 Top Humor Writers on Their Craft. Why? Because in an interview in today's National Post, when asked if there was a common thread between the writers Sacks interviewed, he replied that most of them suffer from Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder.

This information intrigues me. It puts a new perspective on American TV humour. OCD enslaves those who suffer from it, making them unable to do things like leave the house until a piece of furniture is placed exactly right - which could take hours. That's strange, isn't it? And when people do strange things, it's common to mock them for it, or at the very least let off an innocent laugh. I can carry on a conversation with someone if the levels of water in our glasses aren't equal, but what if I couldn't, and were stripped of my ability to choose not to? I'd be a prime target for inadvertent humiliation.

Consider how many sitcoms base their laughs on someone inadvertently humiliating themselves: Seinfeld, Friends, The King of Queens, and Two and a Half Men are good examples of that. On Seinfeld, it was a regular gag that one of the main characters did something a new acquaintance found unorthodox, and thus wound up looking like a fool - and it was usually little things, like ordering a drink with no ice, or wearing a certain colour. Another regular source of laughs was how Jerry couldn't handle messy spaces, or items in his house being out of place. Remember the Friends episode where Joey buys a "European carry-all"? And basically every episode of Two and a Half Men? For me, the best part of Futurama is the hapless Dr. Zoidberg. Speaking of Futurama, cast member Maurice Lamarche played The Brain on Pinky and the Brain, which depends on the fact that, every week, The Brain will be foiled and humiliated as he fails to take over the world. The first four seasons of M*A*S*H, with lead writer Larry Gelbart - who is featured in And Here's the Kicker - are primarily comedy, the main source of which is Hawkeye and Trapper playing a cruel and humiliating prank on Frank and/or Margaret, or Frank's frantic obsessions and guilt complexes. An unreliable source alledges that Gelbart's preferred pseudonym, when he used one, was Francis Burns. The plot thickens.

The crowning example of a comedy based on that kind of humour is probably Tony Shaloub's Monk, an excellent show which is hands-down the most tragic comedy on television. Det. Adrian Monk suffers from severe OCD, and his compulsions are usually what's played for laughs...or are they? Monk often seems like it's daring us to laugh, because it also exposes Adrian's torment in his actions against the inherent humour of a middle-aged man with wet feet shrieking, in full panic mode, "There's ocean in my shoes!!!". That scene, from "Mister Monk is Underwater", is one of the funniest things I've seen on television. It's also incredibly sad, and the fact that it's so funny makes me somewhat uncomfortable.

In other words, I'm really excited about reading And Here's the Kicker, and am at this time kicking myself for forgetting about it when spending a substantial Indigo gift card yesterday.

Mr. Genre Goes to Setting (And Gets Lucky)

It seems we have another "accessible" sci-fi show coming to TV this fall: Shonda Rimes' Defying Gravity. Rimes is the creator of Grey's Anatomy, and the basic premise of Defying Gravity is that a bunch of astronauts live on a space ship in a Big Brother-type setting, and that their primary concern is not so much as their mission, or life on a space ship, but, rather sex. Yep, a "sci-fi" show whose press presents it as not only being entirely about sex, but about the juvenile, damaging, hedonistic, dangerously fantastical approach to sex as seen on Grey's Anatomy.

Honestly, when I first saw this trailer on the telly, I thought it was a prank. Most reputable sci-fi has a good love story, happy or sad. We all smiled or cried over Captain Kirk and his exotic alien babes, Picard and Crusher's unrequited love, Han and Leia, Sheridan and Delenn, Kira and Odo, Jack O'Neil and Samantha, John and Riley (ok, maybe not that last one, as no one watched Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles)...but this is something disturbingly different.

Are Defying Gravity and Stargate: Universe indicative of what's meant by the SyFy channel's mandate of diversifying programming and making it more accessible (DG, for the record, is an ABC show)? I sure hope not, because anything associated with Grey's has a higher-than-average likelihood of being....um....bad.

Seriously, though. What happens when you take a genre - in this case, sci-fi - and relegate it to setting status, ignoring the philosophical qualities? Can it still be considered sci-fi if it adheres to the genre in letter (advanced technology; off-Earth setting) but not in spirit (no, "orgies in space" is not a standard sci-fi storytelling element)?

Hopefully, this is just the fad for a season or two. Every TV season has a fad, just like how every summer there are two or three movies with the same foundation, like Armageddon and Deep Impact in 1998. In the meantime, if I find myself concerned about how people handle interpersonal relationships in space, I'll pop in a little TNG, or if romance isn't the concern of the day, 2001: A Space Odyssey..and pretend that Deying Gravity will never make it to air.

By The Beard Of Ra!

Re: what exactly will the SyFy channel do about "diversifying" it's programming to attract non-sci-fi viewers?

I think we have our scary, scary answer.

Scary.