The Story of the 2000s: Film

As in the previous media I discussed, this has been a tumultuous decade for cinema. For one, film has lost its position as the preeminent visual medium in culture. Through a variety of forces, TV rose up to take the lead role in discussing societal issues and telling the most artistically ambitious and challenging stories of the decade. But, where did that leave cinema on an artistic, and commercial level? Read on to find out.

Look at the box office this weekend and you’ll see a prime example of the way that response to film has shifted over the course of the 2000s. New Moon opened to an absurdly high box office total, with people storming the multiplex to see the film and experience it on opening weekend. People weren’t going based on anything they knew about the film itself, and its quality, they were going because of the pent up demand that built up through the lengthy marketing schedule of trailer releases and actor appearances at events like San Diego Comicon.

The release of the movie is something of an anti-climax, that’s not the story, it’s the build up to the release that’s the real story. Next week, the box office numbers will plummet and the culture will move on to talk about something else. The film’s place in the news cycle ends with its release, and the obligatory news story about its massive box office take.

What this has done on a cultural level is make the quality of the film irrelevant. When people will turn out for sequels to films that were outright terrible, like Transformers, it’s clear that the real art behind those movies is the marketing, of saturating the culture to the point that you feel you need to see Transformers 2, if only to be part of the cultural dialogue. That’s made it a lot tougher for films to succeed on their actual merits, since even if a movie built an audience and grossed a respectable tally over many weeks, that’s not going to be what people are talking about.

Take as an example Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, a film that will likely be one of the most listed films on Best of the Decade recaps. Everyone you know has seen the film, right? Yet, it made less money in the theater than notorious bombs like Catwoman and Taxi. People did not go to the best movies in theaters, they went to the ones that were most promoted. That’s fine, that’s probably how it’s always been, the problem is that the rise of DVD meant that the window for theatrical releases radically shifted, and movies didn’t build into hits much anymore. That meant that it wasn’t a wise investment to make smaller or mid-level movies, you’ve got to swing for the fences, or go for cheap schlock you know will have an audience.

Let me talk a little bit about the impact of DVD because, even as it moves towards its own obsolescence, it really did reshape the way we view films over the course of the decade. In 2000, DVD was still far from a mass medium, and the jury was out on whether it would be the next VHS or the next laser disc. But, it quickly rose to popularity, and for the first time in cinema history, it was possible to view films in great quality, in the aspect ratio they were meant to be viewed, at home. It’s crazy to me that ‘pan and scan’ existed in the first place, but thankfully it’s a thing of the past now.

This was perhaps the biggest film story of the decade. We saw almost every important film of the past come out on DVD, and with services like Netflix, it became easy to watch anything you wanted any time you wanted it. That’s a massive shift, and it’s hard to imagine that as little as 25 years ago, you just couldn’t watch movies from the past, outside of revival screenings or TV broadcasts. Now, we have the entirety of film history available to us.

But, on a production level, DVD has changed the way that the theatrical business works. With windows shrinking, the importance of the theatrical experience was diminished. There were still massive films that became cultural events, but a lot of smaller films were hurt by the fact that people knew they could wait three months and watch them at home for much cheaper. That meant that smaller films, that weren’t in the cultural dialogue, generally didn’t get the theatrical business they would in the days when you could only see a movie in theaters. For me personally, I love to go to the theater, but at the same time, I’ve let movies slip because I can watch them in almost comparable quality at home.

All of this has enforced a conservatism in film production, with studios almost entirely abandoning movies based on original screenplays, and instead drawing on existing properties as a way of guaranteeing their investment and limiting risk. It’s sad to look at sequels to remakes coming out, but I can understand why they do it. Put out a movie called Transformers and all the work is done for you, people know what it is and there’s a built in fanbase. Put out a comparable original film and the movie itself has to do the work. Watching the failure of huge budget original films like Australia is harrowing because it makes it less likely that studios will back similar films in the future.

But, I can’t really worry about business stuff. Most movies are going to be bad, that’s a bottomline thing, but there’s also always going to be some great films coming out. That said, I think what defines a ‘great film’ has been irrevocably changed by the storytelling approaches of TV shows. Would a film like The Godfather have the same impact after The Sopranos has aired? Can Scorsese’s many years in the works Gangs of New York stack up to the rich world of Deadwood?

Movies struggled to address contemporary issues in post 9/11 America, leading to a lot of wishy washy movies about the Iraq War that made no real statement, while shows like The Wire and Battlestar Galactica made bold statements about what America was becoming. What movie is the definitive document of the Bush era? This man was the worst president in the history of the nation, what’s the movie future historians will look at to sum up attitudes about the era? In today’s instant media world, we can’t wait decades for movies to step up and document the world, it needs to happen now, and film didn’t do that.

Getting back to story, for me, the purpose movies changed. They couldn’t match the story and character scope of TV series, so my tastes moved more towards the avant garde and experimental, movies that used techniques and style that could not be sustained on a TV budget. This could mean the precise style and hyperpop aesthetic of Quentin Tarantino’s 00s work, which pushed genre to the limit in the service of creating movies that are just saturated with joy. Nobody was as consistent as his work this decade, and I think his 00s work is much stronger than his oft lauded 90s work.

Also notable was the stylistic experimentation of post MTV generation filmmakers like Gaspar Noe and mid 00s Tony Scott. Noe’s Irreversible is the single most technically dazzling film of the decade. As the decade progressed, CG effects were horribly overused in virtually every blockbuster film, Noe pointed to the way that seamlessly integrated CG effects can be used to change the possibilities of what the medium can do. His filmmaking was intense, making the movie something you experience, love it or hate it, Irreversible was unlike any other film ever made. He’s rereading the grammar of cinema. Scott didn’t go as avant garde as Noe, but he applied avant garde editing principles to mainstream entertainment on films like Domino and Man on Fire, films that push the boundaries of how fast and how crazy you can get on a mainstream movie. I love Domino, I think it’s a perfect example of pop action cinema, totally abandoning narrative in favor of creating a mindset and experience. It’s one of the most underrated films of the decade.

That’s something that TV shows can’t do. Similar in purpose, but totally different in approach, Wong Kar-Wai and Terence Malick created masterpieces of subjective cinema, that told stories in different ways. I guess that’s ultimately what I’m looking for, films that engage in ways that go deeper than just the typical three act structure, that pull you into a world and way of perceiving that changes your state of consciousness.

And, unfortunately, not that many films tried to do that. The obsession with replaying the same stories of the past is pushing us towards a strange terminal situation. In twenty years, what films will be made, remakes of remakes? Or maybe we’ll bottom out and return to original material.

Again though, it’s not so much the narrative subject matter that’s important. The New World and Miami Vice aren’t telling new stories, but they offer us new ways of seeing the same stories. Vice in particular is a blockbuster that on the surface seems to suffer from the lack of creative direction and inspiration that I’m complaining about, but because the film is so well executed, and so emotionally real, it feels new and fresh. But, of course, the film was seen as a failure.

So, the medium is at something of a turning point. In a digital age, with theatrical distribution become exclusively about the biggest movies. Will there be revenue streams for smaller movies, and will there even be an audience for those films? I guess we’ll see. But, I’m confident that good movies always will be made, it’s just a question of how many.

The Third Age: Episode Two - 'Static'

Thanks to everyone who checked out the first episode of the show last week. If you liked that one, press on with the exciting second episode! And, as always, I'd love to hear what you think. And, if you like the episode, please post on your blog/Facebook/Twitter/tell your friends. We're trying to build an audience and every little bit helps!

And, if you didn't see the last post, The Third Age is a weekly webseries that I created and showrun. It's a magical realist story, a modern reinterpretation of mythology that should appeal to people who like the kind of stuff I write about here. Give it a look!

The Third Age: Episode One Now Live

The webseries I've been working on for a while is finally live! Check out Episode One of The Third Age, embedded below.



The show has been called "An acid trip in web video form" by Tubefilter, so give it a look, and let me know what you think!

Doctor Who: 'The Waters of Mars'

Watching “The Waters of Mars,” it’s hard to believe that it’s been eighteen months since “The Stolen Earth” aired because this episode gets you right back to the mental space of being totally wrapped up in the show. It’s a hard episode, one that gets darker and more intense than most Who episodes to date, and one that does a fantastic job of setting up the themes and conflicts that will presumably play out in the two part special that will close out Tennant’s run as the Doctor.

The previous Who work that this episode was closest to is definitely the recent Torchwood: Children of Earth miniseries, which had a similar apocalyptic vibe, showing us characters struggling against their situation, and trying hard just to survive a seemingly inevitable doom. The most powerful thing about Children of Earth was the way that the sheer weight of events was made apparent on an individual level across the large, well developed supporting cast. Davies does a great job of figuring out the individual emotional hooks for a large scale conflict, so that scenes that could play as pure spectacle feel very grounded and real.

I think the reason for that is that he always uses genre material to address real emotional issues. A show like V is just doing genre riffs with no sense of any personal investment in the characters or scenario. It’s like they decided, you’ve seen all this before, you know what’s going to happen, so here it is. Compare that show to Children of Earth, which takes a similar scenario, but makes it feel fresh and exciting by emotionally investing in it.

As with all the best episodes of Who, the sense of apocalypse hits on an emotional level, not just an intellectual one, and the visuals and narrative combine to create an emotionally wrought second half of the episode, as the individual story of this episode becomes a stand-in for all the failings we’ve seen over the course of the entire series.

That really becomes clear in the fantastic sequence where the Doctor walks away from the Mars base, abandoning the surviving crew to their fate. He is in the role of observer, watching events, but unable to change them. The call back to the Pompeii episode reminds us of Donna begging him to alter the timeline there, and his insistence that it can’t. And, hanging over this episode again is the fate of Donna, who suffered worse than any companion the Doctor has taken.

At the time, I had some real issues with the way Donna’s story ended, but it’s cast such a long emotional shadow over these specials, I have to commend Davies. It’s still painful to think about, and that’s a testament to what a powerful twist it was. The Doctor’s helplessness at the end of that story drives him here, and is what’s running through his mind when he walks away from the base, fires burning all around him in this red, hellish landscape.

That’s a scene where the visuals contribute so much to the emotion of the scene, we can see the rage the Doctor is feeling made manifest all around him. And, the viewer has a conflict about it too, because we’ve already heard his justification for why they have to die, the sacrifice here sets in motion a series of events that will bring humanity to the stars. But, the Doctor is sick of sacrificing the present for the future, he doesn’t want to compromise and let people die. I’m reminded of Eccleston’s Doctor back in the first season’s “The Doctor Dances” exalting at finally saving everyone. I didn’t really get it then, but in retrospect it’s clear why he’s so happy, because normally people will die on his missions, and he’s powerless to do anything about it.

So, it’s a major, dangerous shift when, at the end of the episode, the Doctor decides to stop obeying the rules of time and sets out to rewrite the time continuum. It’s interesting to see him shift from the idea that he’s the survivor of the time war, to being the winner. Where even the Dalek refuses to mess with a human’s place in the time continuum, the Doctor decides that he has the authority to.

The final moments in the Mars base are staged in a dynamic way, with low shots emphasizing the Doctor’s power, even as flames burn all around him. This leads to the dramatic peak of the episode, the conversation between the Doctor and Adelaide, as he sets out his new mission, and she rebukes him, and decides that history has to complete as planned.

In that moment, we see the Doctor more unhinged than ever before, he’s spent most of these specials depressed at the core, still the guy we saw standing in the rain outside Donna’s house, facing the realization of how alone he is. He’s put on his manic energy, but it felt hollow earlier, and here it crosses the line towards craziness. The Doctor has never seemed so dangerous, and in his vision of an Ood standing in the street, he seems to plunging into insanity. I’m excited to see a Doctor coming to the end of his time, facing the consequences of everything he’s done and struggling to deal with it, struggling to maintain his mind.

When seeing big budget films, I’m often really taken out of the story by CGI, but I forgive it a lot more on this show, and TV in general. I think the reason is a film like 2012 is just about the CGI, it exists as pure spectacle, and in that sense, it’s hollow. But here, if the CGI is less strictly realistic, it’s used in service of the story, so it feels more real and impactful. You’re emotionally engaged and look at it less objectively. I think this episode looked outright great, and the effects were top notch throughout, but even if they weren’t, the story was strong enough to carry them.

Ultimately, I think this was a powerful, intense episode on its own terms, particularly in the second half centering around the dissolution of the base, but it was even more interesting in terms of setting up the Doctor for the final two episodes, and the farewell to David Tennant. Davies has his share of haters out there, but I’m not one. I think he’s done an absolutely amazing job with the series. More than anything else, I love the optimism at the core of it. Hearing the Doctor talk about exploring other worlds and the way that Adelaide will help inspire others to venture out into the stars, it’s powerful because no other show on TV dares to be so blindly optimistic. Yes, terrible things happen along the way, but it’s always in the service of reaching something better, and no other show articulates as well as this one.

TV Power Rankings: November 2009

With a few new shows having premiered, and one on the way out, it seems like an opportune time to do another TV power ranking.

1. Mad Men – By far the best show on TV, it’ll be a long wait until next season. I didn’t love the backhalf of the season as much as I liked the first half, but it closed on a great note, with a vast array of possibilities for next season.

2. Parks and Recreation - The best comedy on TV, the recent Halloween episode was a series high point, and last week’s library battle was another classic. This is better than the American Office has ever been, if it keeps up this level of quality, it could be an all time comedy classic, a Seinfeld or Arrested Development level series.

3. Bored to Death - I haven’t seen the season finale yet, Mad Men took precedence, but I just like this show more and more. It does have that weird HBO comedy feeling of not really being funny, but I love the atmosphere and the characters, and the past couple of episodes have been really top notch, particularly the mission to retrieve the sex tape. It’s great to see so many New York locations on screen, and I’m glad this is coming back for a second year.

4. 30 Rock - A lot of the buzz this year has been about how 30 Rock is going downhill. This season has had some issues, but the trip to “real America” last week was consistently hilarious, and I don’t think there’s been a full on clunker in this batch of episodes. I think the show might have been overpraised a bit, so it’s logical for things to even out. I think the bigger issue is that the characters have become so familiar that jokes that might have been funny earlier have become tired. But, Jack and Liz still work well together, and there’s enough material each week to keep it on the higher end of the Thursday comedy lineup.

5. How I Met Your Mother - This is another show that’s struggled with balancing the wacky and the emotional side of things. The Barney/Robin relationship has had some strong jokes, but I haven’t felt that emotionally engaged with them as a couple. Maybe I’m just expecting too much of the show. It’s still been pretty sharp and relatable, and perhaps the groundwork is being laid for some more substantial stuff down the line.

6. The Office - Another show I’ve had mixed feelings on. This most recent episode was one of my least favorite of the show’s run, not working on an emotional level, and balancing a maudlin, pointlessly cruel A story with a pointlessly dumb B story. Still, the previous week’s episode worked well, and the supporting cast gets better and better. I’d be happy if Jim and Pam disappeared and we got more time with Andy and Erin.

7. Community - The show has done a better job of balancing its goofier side with its emotional side, particularly in the standout Halloween episode, which featured some great surreal imagery and an ability to be absurd but still smart that is the hallmark of many great sitcoms. Some of the storylines still feel too rushed or sitcom cliché, but it’s getting better, and that’s one of the best things you can say about a freshman show.

8. Curb Your Enthusiasm - After a very strong start to the season, things have dipped into boring and predictable in this last batch of episodes. I think the problem may be that I’ve never loved the show, and this Seinfeld reunion hype got my hopes up about it becoming something that it’s not. The scenes with Jerry are great, but the rest is just Curb by the numbers, and when you’re expecting more, that’s not going to cut it.

9. Glee - The show hasn’t aired an episode in a while, but the last one was fairly strong, and even though there’s still a lot of things that bother me, I’ve got a better feeling about the show going forward. If it gets out of the rut of just hitting the exact same beats every episode and lets the characters grow and the situations evolve organically, not through terrible, imposed plots, it could become a very strong show.

10. Modern Family - This show is wearing on me a bit. The central issue is that it has the appearance of a slightly edgy, irreverent show, but is a traditional sitcom underneath, and the “awww” moments at the end of each episode are getting tiresome. It also feels like there’s no real evolution going on at all. I know it’s a sitcom and things aren’t going to change much, but I want a greater accumulation of feeling and events than I’m getting. It’s funny enough to be worth watching, but could slip off the radar if it doesn’t improve.

11. Dollhouse - Sometimes I feel like I’m watching a different show than people online because the one I’m watching is not very good. I’m sticking with it because of Joss, and it seems like there’s only a few more to go, but the show is so totally nonsensical and emotionally impenetrable, it’s hard to believe it came from the guy who managed to skillfully poke fun at the sort of absurdity that Dollhouse is mired in, and was able to find the emotional in for even the most absurd storylines on Buffy or Angel.

12. V - This was a pretty terrible pilot, with no defined characters and the most perfunctory telling of a potentially great premise. I’ll give it one more episode just because I’d really like to love the show, but the pacing on the pilot was horrendous, the whole thing felt like one long “Previously On…” section, skipping over a huge amount of potentially interesting story for no apparent reason. A real clunker so far.

Mad Men: 'Shut the Door, Have a Seat' (3x13)

Another Mad Men season is in the books, with a season finale that opens the door to a wildly changed status quo for the fourth season, with the two foundational elements of the show, Sterling Cooper and Don’s marriage both destroyed, and Don faced with the question of finding out who is Don Draper when the reason he was created is no longer around.

The episode reminded me a lot of last year’s Friday Night Lights season finale, which ended on a similar note of reinvention, closing out one chapter and opening another. I think that’s probably a smart thing to do at this point because the show had kind of backed itself into a corner with Don losing his freedom and getting backed into a corner by both Betty and Sterling Cooper.

That’s one of the reasons that I was a bit down on the backhalf of the season in comparison to the incredibly precise and evocative first half. The storyline I’ve found most consistently interesting on the show is Don’s quest for identity, which kind of culminated in his trip to California last year, but was echoed in his encounter with the hitchhikers earlier in this season. Midway through the season, that searching seemed to be cut off, as Don signed a contract to work at Sterling Cooper and seemed a bit more committed to Betty.

Even as he embarked on an affair with Suzanne Farrell, it felt like he was getting more and more locked down at home. His involvement with Hilton became an excuse to escape, but Farrell wasn’t the same as Midge or Bobbi Barrett, she had a very maternal presence, far from the independence of those other women. To some extent, it felt like Don was reverting to childhood, exploring the Dick Whitman persona in a different way by becoming his father and sleeping with his mother. That connection was reinforced by the dialogue where she speculates on what Don was like as a child.

It’s notable that his attempt to escape with Ms. Farrell was interrupted by Betty discovering the truth about Don’s past. The affair with Ms. Farrell was a secret life, the chance to engage with the Dick Whitman part of himself, and what Betty finds out is even worse than the affair, it’s not that he wants to be with other women, it’s that he wants to be another person entirely, and to her, that’s the ultimate betrayal.

It means that the life he built is a lie, a lie built to please her, but only a piece of himself. She wants all of him, and he’s not ready to give that up. The contract he signed, the relationship with Betty, it’s all locking him into a specific identity, and we’ve seen constantly how much he likes to play at being someone else, as in the trip to Baltimore in the first episode of the season.

The whole season has been about the increasing suffocation Don feels in his life, and his inability to maintain the freedom he cherished so much. Then, this episode flips everything and tears apart the things that imprisoned him. It becomes clear that Betty really does want to leave him. For Betty, it makes sense. She’s found a man who seems more enamored of her, and she proves to herself and Don that she doesn’t need him. She had to take him back last year because she was pregnant and had nowhere else to turn, but with Henry Francis so devoted to her, she gets a kind of affection that she hasn’t gotten from Don in a long time.

The question for her is, does Henry Francis really love her, or will he grow sick of her once he has her? Is it the chase he loves or the woman herself? Potential problems for Betty are set up when she says she doesn’t want Don’s money, without Don’s money, she becomes just as dependent on Henry Francis as she was on Don earlier.

For the show, this leaves Betty in a strange position. Will she carry her own stories, disconnected from Don, or will she and Don be drawn back together again. The obvious parallel is the end of the fourth season of The Sopranos, when Carmela and Tony split up. Then, we saw that Carmela was unable to make it on her own and got drawn back in. Will Betty go the same way? She seems strangely more astute than Carmela in her plan to break it off with Don, but the interest of the show would seem to lie in bringing them back together. Of course, the show does seem to be reinventing itself and seeing Betty in this new situation could be a good way to explore new issues next season.

I’m particularly interested in seeing how it affects Sally, who’s become my favorite character, other than Don and Peggy, this season. She’s portrayed as a mix of a child’s naivete and a shrewd insight into the adults’ behavior that makes them uncomfortable. The most memorable moment of the season for me is still Sally watching a monk immolate himself after being told off by her parents. She knows that Betty has pushed Don away, and hates Don for reneging on his promise.

She longs so much to have Don there, to love him, and now he’s being taken away from her again. I think the tough thing for Betty is that Betty is there for the kids, she’s the one who really raises them, but they’ll never love her as much as Don, and that makes her resent them a bit. The kids will likely serve as the bridge to keep Betty in the story and her and Don connected. We get hints of a custody battle here, but I couldn’t imagine Don wanting to raise the kids on his own. That would be a way to put the character in a different position, but I don’t see it happening long term.

Elsewhere, Don is relieved of another burden as he instigates a reboot of Sterling Cooper, and tries to reclaim his business destiny. Don clearly fears being just a ‘cog in a machine,’ he likes the human element of his job, and knows that the more corporations buy each other up, the less room for that is. In any purchase, he becomes just another asset, assigned a monetary value and paid for accordingly. In the sale of Sterling Cooper, he sees a chance to reclaim his destiny, to shake off the contract that he signed so reluctantly and start again.

In a sense, what Don and his crew do is analogous to what Don himself did when he abandoned the Dick Whitman identity and became Don Draper. Sneaking into the office at night, they steal the guts of Sterling Cooper and leave behind a shell. Rather than deal with a problem, he went outside the system and chose to reinvent himself and just run away and take on a new identity.

I liked most of the scenes of them creating this new business, but the only one that really hit on an emotional level was Don’s visit to Peggy’s apartment. Peggy hasn’t had that much to do in the back half of the season, which is frustrating for me because I think she’s the show’s most interesting character behind Don. I loved the moment last episode where Duck saw that Kennedy had been shot and decided to unplug the TV just so it didn’t interrupt him having sex.

But, here we get a strong emotional beat, as she struggles to build her own identity outside of Don’s shadow. We saw with Kinsey how people believe that she only does well because she’s Don’s favorite, while she feels that Don actually takes her for granted. Don is her father figure in this business, he indulges her at times, but can also be cruel and abusive. Ironically, to break away and go with Don is to take the safe route, to stay with her mentor and know that she’ll have a place, but never be fully appreciated. Could she have more success with Duck? Perhaps, it’d be riskier, she could be a star there, but she could also fail, and at this point, she’d rather stay with Don than risk that.

For Don, the new company is a chance to reinvent himself and reclaim the freedom that he had taken away from him as he became more entrenched at Sterling Cooper. As a partner, he can control his destiny, but at the same time, he’s been humbled by what happened with Hilton and knows that he can’t do everything himself. He needs Roger if he’s to succeed in his new business.

In the end, Don gets what he’s ostensibly wanted the whole series, the freedom to be his own boss, and freedom from the suburban life he built for himself. But, is that what he still wants at this point? Is he happy that Betty left him? I don’t think he is because it indicates a failure on his end, a failure to live up to the role he had taken on.

It also shifts an interesting burden on to him. He could toy with women before because he was married and always had that as an excuse to run away from them. But, what does he do now if he gets together with women like Ms. Farrell, does he seeks a real connection, or just continue to drift from person to person? I don’t think what stings him about Henry Francis is so much the fact that Betty cheated on him, it’s that she is one step ahead of him, she’s got her liferaft ready and is reinventing herself leaving him in the dust. He doesn’t know how to deal with that, he’s always been the one who walked out on people.

The season ends on a hopeful note, an era is over and a new one is beginning. The American Dream, as represented by a good stable job, a wife and 2.5 kids in the suburbs is dead. It died with Kennedy, and all the characters are pushing forward into a new, uncertain era. People we thought were relics of an older era, like Sterling and Cooper, are willing to change, and Don acknowledges that they need to be ahead of things, they need to think of new ideas and reinvent their business. Will all the people who seemed doomed to failure at the beginning of the series actually find a way to evolve and survive? It’s not quite clear yet, but Don seems to have taken the right first step.

The Story of the 2000s: TV

Previously, I discussed the way that the internet caused vast changes in the distribution and consumption habits of music. But, did it really change the way the artistic quality of music itself? A little bit, but not in the way that the internet, and a number of other factors, contributed to a radical shift in the artistic quality of television.

Ten years ago, it was common to praise a TV show for being “more like a movie than TV,” the implication being that TV was an inherently inferior medium, a sentiment reinforced by HBO’s classic tagline “It’s not TV. It’s HBO.” Today, I feel like you’d be more likely to see a film praised for having the depth and narrative scope of a good TV show. TV as a medium dominates the cultural dialogue in a way that movies haven’t, and the most memorable and socially important works of the decade were almost all on TV.

What did these works, like The Wire, The Sopranos or Mad Men, have in common? They were all intensely serialized, assuming that the viewer will have seen every episode and will be doing the work to make connections that aren’t easily spelled out. This kind of seralization wasn’t as common before the 00s, and I’d argue a big part of why it came about, particularly on network and genre shows, was the way the internet facilitated viewer discussion of individual episodes. Before the decade, it might have been easy to assume that viewers drift in and out and references to continuity would go over peoples’ heads. But, the internet made it clear that people do remember and do care about continuity and are willing to go in depth analyzing TV.

The nature of the internet, with its focus on up to the moment coverage and endless discussion, makes it ideal for writing about a TV show. The internet writes about movies before they come out for months, but there’s very little actual writing on films after they’re released. An article about Inglorious Basterds written now would feel ancient, the hype and discussion cycle burns itself out rapidly without new material to cover. But, a TV series always gives us something more, a new episode to analyze and chew over each week. In the print era, it was impossible to cover a show on a weekly basis, so it made more sense to write about movies. Now, I finish watching an episode and hop online to see what others are saying about it.

This change helped pave the way for more complex shows, but the biggest single catalyst for the artistic shift was the rise of the season long DVD box set. Some shows released select episodes on VHS, and big fans would have VHS collections of an entire series taped off TV, but it wasn’t until the release of the first season of The X-Files that the idea of putting out an entire season for commercial release was broached. I remember when it happened, how excited I was to be able to go back and watch a show from the beginning, in order, and catch up on the seasons I had missed. Until then, it just wasn’t possible.

The DVD box set quickly became a must for every series, and a huge revenue stream for the studios. As a viewer, it changed the way I perceive shows. I’ve always been a completist when it comes to watching things, and I don’t like to start something in the middle. So, rather than jumping on to an acclaimed show in the middle, I’d pick up the first season and catch up on the series to date before picking the show up in progress. That’s how I watched The Sopranos, The Wire, Angel, Veronica Mars, Battlestar Galactica and many other shows over the course of the decade. I’m more likely to watch a show from the start now, simply because I’m more involved in the critical community surrounding shows, but that’s a consequence of having been so voracious in consuming many series.

This shift in viewing patterns encouraged intensely serialized shows because it meant that your only revenue source wasn’t the initial airing. There was the sense of creating something historical and permanent with an episode, not a piece of disposable entertainment that was only there to sell a few commercials. TV has never been better than this decade, and anyone who doesn’t agree with that statement is delusional.

That’s not to say that you could just turn on the TV and find something great. Reality TV is generally terrible, but it’s not exactly a new terrible. Those shows are descendents of shows from the 50s. But, at this point, you don’t just need to turn on the TV and watch whatever’s on.

The DVD box set made it easy to always have a good show available, but we’ve also seen the rise of the DVR, which even more than the VCR changed the way that people view TV. Hulu was perhaps the final blow to the live broadcast. With so many commercials in each episode, it really makes no sense to watch any scripted show live. That’s hell for the network’s ad model, but great for the viewer.

TV has ascended to a cultural peak, becoming the dominant medium in the cultural dialogue. The Wire was a systematic examination of the issues facing the urban poor in America, and the vast flaws in our infrastructure. It was one of the few Bush era works of art that really examined what was happening in our world. The Wire was more powerful than a hundred rote “unbiased” Iraq dramas cranked out by the Hollywood system.

The Sopranos explored the lives of the middle class and wealthy today, struggling to maintain status in a society that seemed to be shifting rapidly downhill. The Sopranos may be best known for its mob action, but I found it to be an incisive look at the mentality of your average suburban family and the pressures and dreams people have today. The show depicted the world I lived in in a way that no film came close to.

But, where do we go from here? Hulu was a fantastic success, but it’s threatening to become a pay site, and even with some minor internet revenue streams, can shows like Lost ever happen again on the broadcast networks? The ad model is changing rapidly, and it’s unclear where money will come from in the future. The next decade will likely be as tumultuous as the previous.

My guess is that we’ll see a continued stratification, as the networks increasingly produce cheaper, unambitious shows to fill out the bottom line, while investing in a few signature shows. Cable channels will continue to make great shows as a way of justifying their place in the channel lineup, but in ten years, the very notion of cable TV could be a relic of the past as content increasingly moves online. Where does the money come from then? That’s the question.

I just hope that the longform TV series isn’t cut off in its artistic infancy. People have a desire to watch these shows, to experience these stories, and I just hope there’s a way to make it financially viable going forward so that we can continue to see shows like Mad Men push the boundaries of what a TV series can be.

The Third Age Launches on November 17th

A long time ago, I mentioned that I was working on a magical realist webseries project called The Third Age, and now, after two long years in production, it's finally being released. The debut date is November 17th, new episodes will be released weekly after that. So, if you're wondering, what will I think about now that Mad Men is ending, well you're in luck because T3A will be dropping upon you.



Here's an excerpt from the press docs on the series to give you an idea of what it's about: "The Third Age is a magical realist webseries, a psychedelic remix of classic mythology, telling the story of ordinary people caught up in an eternal war between gods waged on the streets of New York City. The first season consists of thirteen seven minute episodes, distributed by Blip.TV, and will be released weekly, starting November 17th.

The series blends fantasy elements with a reality based setting to tell a story that is personal in focus, but epic in scope. The story crosses a wide range of characters and scenarios, and will unfold in its entirety over the course of two thirteen episode seasons."

You can see more info on the official site or check out the trailers here to get a taste of the visual experience. To keep tabs on the progress, check out the news blog or join the Facebook group.


Also, if you write for a blog or other media outlet, let me know, I'd be happy to set you up with a review screener. Thanks!

TV Power Rankings

I’ve seen a couple of other people doing a ‘Power Ranking’ for TV shows, and I’m going to start doing that every couple of weeks, as the schedule allows. It’ll be a good chance for me to write up a bit about all the shows I’m watching without having to review every episode.

Right now, I’m watching a whole bunch of shows, mostly comedies. I think there’s a lot of good stuff on, but I would love to find a couple more great dramas out there. Hopefully next year’s return of Big Love and Lost will alleviate that, and I should be able to catch up on season two of Breaking Bad by then as well. I may sample Flash Forward, and try to catch up on that in the next couple of weeks, but it has the look of a show that I try and make it through a few episodes before losing interest in.

Anyway, here’s the shows I’m actually watched, ranked in order of enjoyment.

1. Mad Men - No question this is the top show on the air, and with each episode that airs, it strengthens its case to be one of the top shows of all time. This season has been the best yet, and each episode is a work of art. Last week’s wasn’t the series’ best episode, but did feature the wonderful role playing between Don and Betty in Rome, and all the glamour and atmosphere of a Fellini film.

2. Parks and Recreation - Unlike a lot of people, I really liked the abbreviated first season of the show that aired last Spring. I think the series built a really interesting world, and memorable characters in short order. The cast is really deep, with Aziz Ansari as a particular standout. And this season has just kept getting better. I think it has a grounding and emotional reality that the American office never had, and has managed to tell a wide variety of stories within what looks like a potentially narrow premise. The Dave/Leslie stuff this week was gold, as was Anne’s fake date persona. This show just keeps getting better and better.

3. Curb Your Enthusiasm - I’ve never loved Curb in the way that I loved Seinfeld. I think Curb is a lot more formulaic and predictable, but this season has been consistently solid. The second episode was the funniest, with the instantly classic “Fuck you Larry David, that’s some bullshit!” But, the third episode, with the Seinfeld cast reunited, was my favorite so far. Seeing Larry and Jerry interacting was amazing, and I’m eager to see how that arc develops over the course of the season.

4. How I Met Your Mother - I forgave the show a lot of its flaws when watching it in a binge viewing earlier this year. Watching the show week to week, the episodes can feel a bit slight. It’s always funny, but I don’t feel the emotional connection to the characters I had when watching it as a whole. This season has had some inconsistent character stuff with the Barney/Robin relationship, but has been generally sharp, and always leaves me wanting more. The only major misfire was the Ted dating the same girl storyline which felt like a retread of storylines from earlier seasons.

5. Bored to Death - This show may pander a bit to the hipster in me that loves all the local references and slacking Jason Schwartzman persona. In the same way that Entourage is, it’s a bit lax on drama and stakes, but the show is much more entertaining than Entourage and is building a nice little world. A lot of shows are just about people hanging out, so maybe that’s enough. I’m not sure how the show will develop long term, but for now, it’s got great mood and a strong cast carrying it.

6. The Office - This show is still frustrating for me because, even after six years, I still find the characters directly translated from the British Office annoying and problematic. The beauty of the British show was the relentless realism. That might be too much to sustain for six years, but the Michael Scott character all too often veers out of reality, sacrificing the emotional grounding of the series, and making the jokes less funny. You need this world to be believable to make most of the jokes work. Similarly, I find Pam and Jim annoyingly perfect, but the supporting cast is top notch. Ed Helms is great, and I’d love to see more screentime spent on him, Erin, Kelly and Ryan. The show’s still entertaining, but isn’t as sharp as the best comedies on TV.

7. Community - Another new comedy, this has been pretty sharp and funny, but still feels a bit like it’s finding its voice. Is it going to be a 30 Rock style absurdist comedy, or a more reality based romantic and sentimental show? Either could work, but the show needs to downplay the Britta/Jeff stuff a bit and just let the cast breathe and do their thing. The most recent episode was probably the best yet, and deepened the cast nicely, so I’ve got a good feeling about the show going forward.

8. Modern Family - I checked out the first two episodes of this show yesterday thanks to its great critical buzz. So far, I’d agree that it’s a solid show, definitely a bit of an Arrested Development meets The Office vibe, but not at the level of either of those series. The potential is definitely there, but I feel like comedies need to cut out talking heads for a while, it’s getting played out. And, this show, like a lot of comedies on now, would benefit from a slightly longer 40 minute running time, to give more room for the stories to breathe, and more opportunities for all the characters. But, it’s good so far, and seems like a solid mix of goofiness and solid character stuff.

9. Dollhouse - Clinging on here, Dollhouse had a slight uptick with its third episode, but remains frustratingly boring. I see a lot of people defending the show as the most intellectual on TV, to which I’d say Mad Men is still on people, and has much more to say about adopting and abandoning identity than this show ever has. Ultimately, it’s a decent hour, but any hope of it being truly great fades more and more with each episode.

10. Glee - I really liked the pilot for the show, but could feel the hand of Ryan Murphy in its cynicism and cartoonish characters. I hate his attitude towards the world, as evidenced by Nip/Tuck, and it seemed in particular contrast to the hopefulness in some elements of the show. The show since then has fluctuated wildly in quality, burning through plots without deepening the characters. I still think it’s a great premise, and like the musical numbers, but it feels like the real story, the growth and training of the glee club, is barely mentioned, and all the focus is on the same character beats. I’m giving this one a few more episodes, but it could easily slip off the radar.

The Story of the 2000s: Music

To wrap up the decade, I’m going to do the standard top ten lists, but I also want to go a bit more in depth into the trends and changes that have happened in all the major art forms over the past ten years. Perhaps more than any ten year period in recent history prior, the 2000s were a time of major shifts in the way we consume and experience virtually every major art form. I’m going to start things off with a discussion of music, both from a consumption point of view and an artistic one.

The biggest obvious shift in music in the past ten years has been the change from a CD sales based model to one based almost entirely around downloading, both legal and illegal. I still remember running Napster for the first time on my 56K connection and being amazed at my ability to access all kinds of different music. Getting DSL in 2001 changed things radically, and from there out, I downloaded a huge variety of different music, crossing Napster, Kazaa, Audiogalaxy, Bit Torrent and others.

I’m not proud of illegal downloading, but it’s something that was just sort of there, and I think most people now see music not as something to be paid for, but something that you have a right to have. Considering the cost of producing an album, I don’t agree it should be that way, but as artists like Nine Inch Nails and Radiohead have acknowledged, that’s the way it is and you can’t really fight it.

But, that’s all on the business side, what about the music itself? I think the biggest story of the 00s is the breakdown of the walls between genres and subcultures, and the embrace of a wider variety of songs and artists across the typical cultural rifts. To me, the 90s were the worst decade for music in the modern era, largely because the popular rock, grunge and alternative, was just so heavy and oppressive, with no sense of fun, while the pop music was generally soulless boy band stuff. Hip hop had some moments, and you can obviously point to great albums, but on the whole, the ‘sound’ of the decade was no good.

Luckily the 00s were a vast improvement, as the ‘death’ of rock in the late 90s/early 00s opened the door for an infusion of dance energy into rock music that led to a much more fun and poppy sound than had been heard in a long time. A band like Phoenix that sounded out of place at the beginning of the decade hit the zeitgeist perfectly this year, as every major rock band seems to incorporate dance and electronic elements that were present in virtually none of the successful bands of the 90s. Notably the only 90s juggernaut still going strong is Nine Inch Nails, who always had a pop sensibility shining through the heaviness.

This occurred in conjunction with the embrace of pop artists by the cultural establishment. Britney Spears’ “Toxic” is a key song in the decade’s narrative, it started out as a guilty pleasure favorite and eventually just became a critically respected favorite. Justin Timberlake is probably the best example of this, a guy who at this point has both artistic respect and popular acclaim, and backed it up with fantastic songs. The stigma of liking pop music generally disappeared, as indie rock bands started to sound more and more like the pop charts.

I’d argue a big piece of this is the increasing prominence of the producer within the pop world. Three people had more of an impact on music in the 00s than anyone else out there, and shaped the sound of the decade, those three people being Timbaland and Chad Hugo and Pharrell as The Neptunes. The auteur producer provided an easy way to justify liking pop songs by ‘lesser’ artists. When you listen to “Cry Me a River,” it’s not about Justin, it’s about Timbaland’s production.

But, eventually it becomes clear that the songs themselves are good, regardless of who’s behind them. And, I love the sound that these guys created. I love the fact that a song as strange and compelling as “My Love” can be a massive hit, and I think in the future, people will look back on Timbaland’s work with Justin in the same way that they view Quincy Jones and Michael Jackson.

So, the fact that it was acceptable culturally to like pop music, either through the lens of irony or simply straight up, made it easier for alternative and indie bands to bring more dance and pop elements into their songs and still maintain artistic credibility.

That’s not to say it was all dance stuff. There was obviously a lot of different music made, but I think this was the primary narrative of the decade, the elevation of dance and pop sensibilities over traditional rock stuff, reflected in the increasing denigration of ‘rockist’ critics and their old canon.

Of course, it’s ironic to speak of a pop sensibility when the very definition of a crossover song was changing. With the decline of the radio as hit making force, what are the songs that everyone knows? There are some songs that crossed borders, but will any songs from the 00s connect us all in the way that something like “Don’t Stop Believing” does today? When I go out place, it often seems like the entire DJ set is a spin through 80s and 90s classics, barely touching on today. And, the death of Michael Jackson only reinforced that notion that no one will ever cross over the way he did.

But, some songs did make it, even if only in certain circles. Throw “D.A.N.C.E” on at a party and people will go nuts, same for “Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger.” And, Kanye West made a continuous string of songs that crossed borders and united people. It’s not as easy to become ubiquitous, but it’s still possible.

So, ultimately the narrative of the 00s seemed to be the restoration of fun to music. What artist symbolizes the decade as a whole? For the 90s, it was Kurt Cobain, and his infinite troubles and inability to deal with fame. For the 00s, perhaps Daft Punk, a band that’s admired by everyone and avoids the pitfalls of fame by dressing up as robots and playing their concerts in a giant pyramid. Even as politics got worse, music grew more and more celebratory, so that even songs about stolen elections and crumbling societies could sound euphoric when filtered through the powerhouse voice of the Arcade Fire or the dance rhythms of !!!.

Dollhouse: 'Instinct' (2x02)

I was pretty forgiving of the weaknesses of the early episodes of Dollhouse, I made it through the Beyonce episode or the cult episode, trying to appreciate what worked, and sticking with it mainly because of the promise of something better. The behind the scenes narrative of the series was that the first five episodes were compromised by the needs of Fox, and starting with episode six, Joss would take control and the show would take off. The show did get better, but in some ways, that actually made it worse since it became clear that this is what the show was, and what it was was a not particularly good show.

I know it’s easy to blame Fox for creative interference on the show, and ascribe any bad choices to Fox and all the good stuff to Joss, but I think that’s a bit reductive, particularly after viewing the original pilot on the Blu-Ray set. I thought the actual first episode of the series was pretty weak, but it was probably better than the jumbled mess that was the original pilot. That episode was a mix of colossal amounts of exposition and a narrative that moved so quickly, it compressed the entire first season into one episode. If I was a network exec, I would never have picked up the show, that pilot felt like the first draft of a script, not something that should have been submitted to a studio, let alone go before the cameras. That’s not to say the aired pilot was much better, but at least it had something of a structure.

But, the narrative surrounding the show at the end of last year was that it was getting better, a sentiment that culminated with the release of “Epitaph One,” the allegedly brilliant unaired postapocalyptic episode. I’d agree that the episode was better than most of what happened on the actual show, but that’s not hard to do. The episode played as a mix of postapocalyptic clichés, while riffing on some interesting conceptual stuff surrounding the show’s premise. It would have been a good capper to the series, but like almost the entire series, it suffers from the fact that it’s conceptually interesting, but does nothing to engage on an emotional level.

The great problem with the show, one inherent in its premise, is that it’s all ideas, no heart. There’s no memorable characters on the series, and the only personality who really jumps out is the annoying enthusiasm of Topher. I have no problem with a show primarily about ideas. The idea is the building block of every Grant Morrison story, but he typically manages to wed those ideas to real emotion. Or, he’ll just throw out so many ideas, that it creates a mad pop swirl of craziness. It felt like that’s what “Epitaph One” was going for, that Final Crisis style overload of concepts and action, but it was too leisurely paced to become pure concept speed, and didn’t have the emotional engagement to anchor a deeper connection with the narrative.

The second season premiere had some really solid moments, notably the scene where Saunders tried to seduce Topher in a weird parent/child entanglement. But, the main story with Echo was pretty generic, and the backstory with Paul was pointlessly convoluted. I thought he agreed to become Echo’s handler at the end of last season, but here we see him hiring her out to forward his FBI investigation, except he’s not actually with the FBI, he’s just doing this for some reason. Then, he becomes her handler, despite the fact that he spent the whole first season trying to bring down the dollhouse. So, he becomes basically the same character as Boyd, Echo’s handler who has some moral qualms about the Dollhouse, but works for them anyway. And, Alexis Denisof becomes the new Ballard, off in his own subplot, trying to take down the Dollhouse.

Last night’s episode was perhaps a series low, simply because at this point, it’s become clear that this is what the show is. Watching something like Babylon 5 or Buffy’s first season, I put up with weak episodes because it had the reputation of greatness and I knew the show would get better. Since this show’s still airing, it’s hard to say where it will go, but there’s only so much leeway I can give a series. The show has been on a while now, and they should be able to figure out what they want to do. And, if this is it, the show is just not particularly good. There’s virtually none of what makes Joss’s previous work so special here, and there’s little connection to any of sort of relatable emotional reality. It’s just interesting ideas thrown out there with no story or characters to support them.

I’m probably going to stick out to the end of the show, since it looks like that’s in sight. But, I think this show’s going to go down as a footnote in Joss’s career, and not a cancelled too soon, or flawed masterpiece, but if anything, a show that had too long a leash and should probably be put out of its misery.

Mad Men: 'Seven Twenty Three' (3x07)

I’m watching a bunch of shows in the new TV season, almost all of them half hour comedies for whatever reason. There’s some good stuff, I’m liking Bored to Death and Community, but nothing else on TV currently comes even close to what Mad Men is doing with its third season, easily the show’s best to date. The show is going deeper and deeper every episode, imbuing everyday events with deep existential meanings, in a long term exploration of the nature of self and identity.

The central metaphor of this week’s episode is the eclipse, a cosmic event that you can’t look straight at without damaging your eyes. What does the eclipse represent? Perhaps it’s the truth about self that all these characters so meticulously avoid. Don chooses not to look into the eclipse, preferring instead to converse in the dark with Sally’s teacher, Miss Farrell.

The scene with the eclipse itself was a great example of the kind of casual surrealism the show frequently engages in. Don and Miss Farrell are at once alone in the dark, and in a crowd in the day. Don is wearing the same exact clothes as all the other dads, and with their faces obscured by the camera obscura boxes, they become indistinguishable mannequins in front of indistinguishable children. As Don speaks the other dads, his chance for an affair with Miss Farrell based on happenstance, on just happening to run into her at the track become more real. This has been in development since her very first appearance, as an incarnation of the Earth Mother, dancing around the may pole, a symbol of masculine fertility reborn in the spring.

She is an exact incarnation of Don’s “type,” strong, smart beautiful brunettes who have their own jobs and lives, Don’s equals, not his dependents. One of my favorite things from the Bobbi Barrett arc in season two was the realization that she was using Don as her own beautiful boy toy, and that Don had acquired something of a reputation as a manwhore. Farrell views him through this lens, she doesn’t do the dance that society would demand of their relationship, she goes right up to him and says that all the father are drunks and philanderers. The question then is, why would she call him earlier, and flirt with him now? Does she know that and still want him for her own reasons?

In the episode, we see Don’s fear of attachment and commitment. The contract ties him down to Sterling Cooper for three years, but Cooper makes it clear that it’s ‘Don Draper’ signing the contact, not necessarily Dick Whitman. Don could still walk off and abandon the company, but to do so would mean abandoning his identity as well. He flirted with doing that last year, but realized that he could only run so far before being pulled back.

The hinted at relationship with Farrell is a way to potentially avoid the shackles of commitment at home, but at the same time, it locks him deeper into the Don Draper persona. He’s done this before, he falls into cycles of behavior, and one could argue that’s all that identity is. What ultimately makes us who we are? It’s the things we can’t stop doing. The pieces of ourselves that are far from the core are easy to change, but there are base things, deep down, that are impossible to alter, and Don is beginning to realize that it may not be so easy to alter his personality as he thought.

That’s where the incident with the hitchhikers comes in. Tripping on whatever drug they gave him, he sees a fractured reflection of the kind of identity he could have once had. These kids likely came out of the same world that Dick Whitman did, and his father’s joking is a stark contrast to the kids’ view of Don as an old man. Don views Sterling as one of the old guard, but that’s how these kids see him, a square with a house and family and all the things tying him down that they don’t have. They can run away and hitchhike and leave without any consequence, but Don is tied down by his car and his possessions. Just having those things makes him a target for someone with nothing.

So, the question of the episode becomes what can you leave behind in pursuit of a new identity? That’s paralleled with Peggy, who is growing increasingly frustrated with her lack of continued mobility at Sterling Cooper. We previously saw her talking about how she was in a really good place right now while smoking pot with Kinsey. Since then, she’s been scheming to move up as best she can within the company. She does seem much more competent than most of the employees there, but she may also be pushing her luck by expecting the pace of her rise from secretary to copy writer to continue.

But, that ascension has become part of her identity. She defines herself as a career girl, and has rejected both the love of her family and the world they came from, as well as the immediate hope for a husband or family in favor of her work. That’s what defines her, so stagnation at the office, to just put her nose down and work feels like giving up on making herself better.

Because her sense of self worth is so wrapped up in her job, Duck’s pass at her becomes a total validation. Not only is he interested in her as an employee, he also desires her on a personal level. There’s also clearly a revenge element involved, with her using Duck both as a way to get back at Don, and as a vicarious way to act out her desire for Don, who functions as both a father figure and someone she wants to be an equal. She was Don’s secretary, she knows he sleeps around, and I’d assume that on some level, she is attracted to him, perhaps best evidenced from her comment to him when he had the baby gifts, that he has everything.

So, it’s a messy situation, but ultimately I think she’s still looking out for her career. She knows this gives her leverage over Duck, and as long as she holds out on committing to him, she can get a better and better contract. Will sleeping her way to the top work out in the end? I’m not sure, but I think it’s a clear example of her sublimating her hope for deep personal commitments into her attempt to get ahead at her job.

Elsewhere, Betty continues her flirtation with Henry Francis. I’d argue that is Betty’s attempt to prove that she is both still desirable to men, and has her own identity and skills, qualities that would seem to be of diminishing importance after having her third child. Involvement with the Junior League ties her down to the life in Ossining that even she admits she didn’t initially find appealing. The quest to save scenic land feels so unimportant on some level, but it provides the excuse Betty needs to flirt with Francis, and prove her power over men. It’s the same thing she did to the horseback riding guy last season.

Because she has so little control over Don, it gives her pleasure to control other men. His speech to her about not wanting to be tied down by a contract, because the contract strips you of all power, also refers to her marriage to Don. The men who can’t have her give her affection and raw desire that she doesn’t get from Don anymore, and sticking a Victorian fainting couch in the middle of her living room is a way to show that there’s still a part of her that exists beyond the confines of the wife/mother role.

So, it was a wealth of material to delve into this week. As you might notice by the things I choose to write about, the actual goings on at the ad agency aren’t typically of as much interest to me as the personal stuff. I don’t think the show’s ever had a bad episode, but I found this week’s much more affecting than the much buzzed upon lawnmower blowup last week.

I think the show at its best explores the construction of identity within a society where the notion of what is and isn’t socially acceptable is undergoing a vast shift. We’re being reminded more and more of the impending Vietnam conflict, which promises to destroy the lives of the young and underprivileged, but is a potential goldmine for people like Pete and the old order military-industrial complex. It’s a relevant message for the 60s, but is perhaps even more so now. Wars are now sold by people like Don, framed with slogans and pitches designed to make them palatable to the masses. And, we remain haunted by the image of a mythical American dream, a time when people were happier and everything was easy, one which was created by men like Don. We change this mythologized man, and use it as an excuse to commit atrocities in the present.

As I said, the show has been absolutely on its game this season. I don’t have that total need to see the next episode that I had when something like The Sopranos or The Wire was on, but perhaps that’s because each episode here is so satisfying, a full meal unto itself that I like having a week to think about and process. I want to see what happens next, but I’m more interested in enjoying the moment.

My So Called Life

I’d argue, and have multiple times, that the biggest story in cinema this decade is the change in production standards and quality on TV. The buzz word is always “it’s more like a movie than a TV show,” which raises the question, what is a TV show anyway? Well, if you go back and watch shows from before shows like The Sopranos and 24 redefined what a TV show looked and felt like, you can find out what that criticism refers to. And, that can make it hard to appreciate shows that are as little as ten or fifteen years old.

My So Called Life is one of those shows I’ve always heard was great, and recently I decided it was time to check it out. Watching it, the first thing that strikes you is the fact that the early 90s were a nadir for fashion. Strange looking baggy flannel clothes cover everyone, and if it’s not those ugly looking muted colors, it’s popping neon day-glo, the holdover influence of the 80s merging with the low key aesthetic of the grunge years. But, the production style also feels like TV used to, recalling early episodes of Buffy, a show that depicted high school life at a similar time, though obviously with a different tone.

That’s not to say that there aren’t things that are timeless about the show. I think part of the reason that shows set at high school are so compelling, even to people who graduated a long time ago, is that high school is one of the few universal experiences. Colleges vary widely, jobs vary widely, but every high school has commonalities, and because the archetypal roles that people play are so culturally prominent, I think people use those archetypes to define themselves. So, you perceive yourself in the context of being either the ‘popular’ kid or the ‘geek’ or whatever other role. They’re identities that you can draw from in figuring out who you are.

Angela is set up in the same kind of identity crisis we see Lindsay Weir going through at the beginning of Freaks and Geeks, torn between her old friends, who were good, smart girls, and her edgier new friends. It’s a good place to start a show, but I think it can be hard to appreciate MSCL now, after seeing a show like Freaks and Geeks, which very much expands on the basic themes we see here.

My biggest issue with the show is the fact that the really compelling part of the show is Angela, and the relationships between her and her friends. But, partially due to the challenge of working with underage actors, huge amounts of screentime each episode are spent with Angela’s parents. Graham is an interesting character, but ultimately they’re just not as interesting as the kids, and it feels like a chore to sit through story after story where they go through the same conflicts and resolve them in the same manner. I don’t think it would have been better to have false drama, as in the teased at affair subplot in the first couple of episodes, but for the amount of screentime devoted to those characters, they don’t bring that much to the show.

And, because we spend so much time with them, it sometimes feels like Angela isn’t really that developed. I love the voiceovers she has, how they’re so dramatic, but true at the same time, casting her small-scale personal struggles as Earth shaking drama. But, because we didn’t spend as much time with her as I think we should have, she didn’t have the depth that the best TV characters do, and I felt some distance from her, when the whole point of the show seemed to be to draw you into her world. It feels almost disingenuous to have her voiceover guide the show, and then spend so much time away from her.

I think Claire Danes was amazing in the role, probably part of the reason that it’s been tough for her to transition to being an adult actress, but I do feel like Angela remained something of an absent center. Take Brian Krakow’s crush on her, I feel like I knew more about him and his motivations than I did about Angela. I totally understand why he had feelings for her, but at the same time, he thought she was pretty and somewhat accessible to him being his neighbor. But, shouldn’t we understand her on a deeper level than that? Maybe the idea was that her identity was in question and she doesn’t know who she is, so we don’t either, but I wanted more time with the character throughout.

I think the great success of Freaks and Geeks was the way it built a fully realized world within the school, and cast its net wide over a deep ensemble cast. The characters here are developed to some extent, but generally feel defined by one characteristic. They evolve in some ways, but don’t feel as deep or developed as the best TV characters. But, I think that part of that is attributable to the climate in which the show was produced, TV just didn’t go as deep back then, and it took shows like The Sopranos and Freaks and Geeks to break ground.

That’s not to say the show wasn’t successful. The things that linger are well realized moments that capture very real emotion. The stereotypical mindset of the teenager is to turn small scale personal events into earth shaking crises, and that’s what a TV show has to do as well. It can be done through metaphor, like Buffy did, or simply by building up your affection for certain characters. Angela’s crush on Jordan becomes her primary focus in life, so having him make a pass at her in his car, spinning her dream into harsh reality is essentially a collapse of this entire fantasy life she’s built up in her head. It’s a devastating collision of imagination and reality that works really well in the moment.

“Life of Brian” features a similarly effective conundrum, where we see Angela subconsciously sabotage Brian’s potential relationship with Delia, because she always wants to have Brian there as a backup potential relationship. If Brian gets together with someone, shortly after Sharon did, both people she considers below her on the social food chain, what does it say about her? So, she exploits the hold she has over Brian to make him do something stupid, even as he realizes that he’s doing Angela’s bidding and making a mistake. The episode ends with the two of them talking about how dances are always stupid, connected only by their negativity while Delia and Ricky have a great time.

Ultimately, I enjoyed the show. I had some issues with it, but on the whole, it felt real and emotionally relatable. I think it’s the kind of show that had more of an impact at the time because it aired at a time when TV just wasn’t doing stuff like this. Now, it’s more common, so it’s still a good show, but more recognizable as groundbreaking than as perhaps a truly standout series.

My Emmy Nominations 2009

Actor (Comedy):
Alec Baldwin – Jack on “30 Rock”
Stephen Colbert – Stephen Colbert on “The Colbert Report”
Rhys Darby – Murray on “Flight of the Conchords”
Neil Patrick Harris – Barney on “How I Met Your Mother”
Tracy Morgan – Tracy on “30 Rock”


Neil Patrick Harris did a great job of pushing Barney into more emotional situations without compromising the inherent appeal of the character. He and the writers managed the near impossible task of giving him real emotional pathos without neutering the character. He’s the standout on the show, and was the standout comedy performance of the year.

Actress (Comedy):
Tina Fey – Liz on “30 Rock”
Rashida Jones – Anne on “Parks and Recreation”
Jane Krakowski – Jenna on “30 Rock”
Amy Ryan – Holly on “The Office”
Cobie Smulders – Robin on “How I Met Your Mother”


Tina Fey continues to be the likable, hilarious center of one of the strangest, funniest shows on TV. The short way to say it would be that she’s like Jerry Seinfeld if Seinfeld could actually act.

Supporting Actor Drama:
Nelsan Ellis – Lafayette on “True Blood”
Michael Emerson – Ben on “Lost”
Josh Holloway – Sawyer on “Lost”
John Slattery – Roger on “Mad Men”
Dean Stockwell – Cavill on “Battlestar Galactica”

I didn’t think too much of the character during the first few years of the show, but sometime around the fourth season, Sawyer and Holloway’s work with the character became one of the standout elements of Lost. As the other original characters grew exhausted, Sawyer continued to show new depths, and the relationship with Juliet was the perfect showcase for this. This year was the show’s best, and Sawyer owned its emotional component.

Supporting Actress Drama:
Ginnifer Goodwin – Margene on “Big Love”
Christine Hendricks – Joan on “Mad Men”
Elizabeth Mitchell – Juliet on “Lost”
Adrienne Palicki – Tyra on “Friday Night Lights”
Katee Sackhoff – Kara on “Battlestar Galactica”


There’s only been one successfully realized female character in the whole run of Lost, and that’s Mitchell’s Juliet. Rising above the plot machinations of an endless love quadrangle, she’s always found the emotional anchor to even the wackiest stories. This year, she matched wits with Josh Holloway’s Sawyer and killed it every episode. Hopefully she’ll be back in a meaningful way next year, she’s too good a character to lose.

Actor Drama:
Kyle Chandler – Eric Taylor on “Friday Night Lights”
Jon Hamm – Don on “Mad Men”
Edward James Olmos – Adama on “Battlestar Galactica”
Bill Paxton – Bill on “Big Love”
David Tennant – The Doctor on “Doctor Who”


The second season saw Hamm deepen Don’s internal turmoil and grow the character in new and fascinating ways. The relationship with Bobbi Barrett put Don in a new light, and he was able to skillfully show the stages of Don’s transformation into the man he is now. He’s already crafted one of the iconic TV performances of all time.

Actress Drama:
Connie Britton – Tami on “Friday Night Lights”
January Jones – Betty on “Mad Men”
Mary McDonnell – Laura Roslin on “Battlestar Galactica”
Elisabeth Moss – Peggy on “Mad Men”
Chloe Sevigny – Nikki on “Big Love”


There’s a lot of great performances on this list, but Sevigny surprised me the most, taking a character who was rather one not during the series’ first two seasons and giving her an unprecedented depth and longing. Her story captivated me this year, and helped make it the show’s best to date.

Best Writing:
Big Love - “On Trial” by Mark V. Olsen and Will Scheffer
Lost - “The Incident” by Carlton Cuse and Damon Lindelof
Lost “La Fleur” by Elizabeth Sarnoff and Kyle Pennington
Mad Men - “Jet Set” by Matthew Weiner
Mad Men - “The Mountain King” by Matthew Weiner and Robin Veith

I first watched Jet Set while home from work sick, turning an already crazy episode into a full on trip. Shot in the style of a 60s European art film, the episode draws you into a strange world and strands you there, gradually letting the world of the series to date drift away. It’s the series’ riskiest hour yet, and to date, its masterpiece.

Best Directing:
Battlestar Galactica “Sometimes a Great Notion” by Michael Nankin
Friday Night Lights - “Hello, Goodbye” by Michael Waxman
Lost “The Incident” by Jack Bender
Mad Men - “Jet Set” by Phil Abraham
Mad Men “The Mountain King” by Alan Taylor

The best written episode of the year was matched with the best direction, as Abraham builds a surreal landscape for Don to get lost in during Jet Set. Lacing ordinary moments with significance, the episode takes on the feel of a dream, and still lingers in my head, nearly a year after its initial broadcast.

Series Comedy:
30 Rock
Flight of the Conchords
How I Met Your Mother
The Office
Parks and Recreation

30 Rock had some ups and downs this year, but after the guest star heavy first part of the season was over, it was back to being as reliably hilarious as ever. The high school reunion episode was a classic, as was Generalissimo. It’s crazy and funny, the best comedy for several years running.

Series Drama:
Battlestar Galactica
Big Love
Friday Night Lights
Lost
Mad Men

One of the most artistically ambitious and stylish TV shows ever to air, Mad Men functions simultaneously as an exploration of a nation in turmoil and individual identities in crisis. The second season was more ambitious and more successful than the first, particularly during the California arc at the end of the year. The true successor to The Sopranos, Mad Men is already one of the greatest TV shows of all time, and was definitely the best of the ’08-’09 season.

Batman and Robin #4: "Revenge of the Red Hood: Part One: Red Right Hand"

The new issue of Batman and Robin features the predicted drop off in art quality, as Philip Tan’s murky, sketchy pencils replace the pop dynamism of Quitely. The story generally works though, the series remains very straight ahead and accessible, without the convoluted psychological insanity of Batman RIP, which most people seem to like, but I’m finding a bit frustrating on some levels.

I’m guessing, and hoping, that this new Batman series will follow a similar arc as the first part of his run, starting with just straight forward fun stories showing Batman on the top of his game, then gradually layer in new problems and issues until it becomes a complex psychological web. I think Morrison’s first couple of arcs on Batman are among the most generic comics he’s ever written. I love Damien, so he spices things up whenever he appears, but apart from that it’s pretty light ninja manbat adventures. It’s not until the JH Williams arc, and particularly the “Space Medicine” arc that the series takes off, and pretty much everything after that is among the best work Morrison’s ever done.

The new series has gone back to the original mode, focusing more on fun and light stories, with occasional moments of character introspection and thematic development. I found the psychological stuff a lot more interesting. I know that Batman RIP got some negative response, but I think it was an ambitious, hallucinatory experience. Reading those issues was like spinning down the insane rabbit hole that was Bruce’s collapsing psyche. It’s also some of the most avant garde content in any of Morrison’s big superhero titles, going further than anything he did in JLA or New X-Men.

But, I respect the direction he’s taking the reinvention and am able to enjoy the journey. It’s just a bit frustrating that it seems like the majority of these issues is action scenes that don’t really go anywhere, and the more intense character stuff is minimized to smaller interludes, very effective interludes, but if every page of this issue was as strong as the scene with Sasha talking about taking off her face or Dick and Damien on the roof, it’d be a much more emotionally engaging experience.

The Red Hood and Scarlet function on one level as another riff on the intrusion of grim and gritty supeheroics in the day-glo world of Silver Age comics. They represent the worst excesses of early 90s heroes, like The Punisher, killing villains that Batman and Robin would bring to justice, and doing so in a very modern way, publicizing their exploits on Twitter.

The Red Hood is very media conscious and sees Sasha’s mask as just another element of their image. In the same way that we wonder who’s under his hood, he claims that people will “imagine the beauty beneath that creepy mask.” That scene is the highlight of the issue, as Sasha’s inner humanity is contrasted with the Hood’s assurance that she’s doing the right thing. These two characters are clearly meant to be a mirror of Batman and Robin, and Sasha’s murders in response to her father’s death echo both Bruce and Dick’s origin. This is what Dick could have become if he was trained by the wrong man, and it’s what Dick is fighting to keep Damien from becoming.

One of the things I like about this issue is the way that Grant continues to expand the Batman universe and bring in new characters and concepts. In addition to the Red Hood and Scarlet, we get the introduction of a mysterious English author, another masked man. The Black Glove mystery in RIP was a lot of fun, and these two characters bring back the detective element to the comic, while also giving Batman some new villains.

The end of the issue builds to a flourish with Batman and Robin brought into contact with their counterparts and raising the question of who is the Red Hood. Jason Todd would definitely make sense, but I feel like Morrison wouldn’t go with such an obvious choice. Perhaps either the Hood or this English author is going to the Joker, he’s still out there, and I’m sure will return before the end of the run.

I’ve got to comment on Tan’s art, which is not a good match for the pop fun the book’s supposed to be going for. Cameron Stewart and Frazer Irving will both be a great match for the tone, but Tan stuff is murky and ugly. I think even the much maligned Tony Daniel was a better fit for the book. I actually liked Daniel, this, not so much.

As a side note, some of my waxing nostalgic for RIP was prompted by reading through Batman: The Black Casebook this week, the TPB collection of the 50s stories that inspired the early parts of Morrison’s Batman run. Why that book wasn’t out when RIP was running I have no idea, but it’s still worth a look. The thing that’s most striking about all those stories is how it’s not actually that far a leap from the strange psychological short stories in this book to what Morrison did in RIP. Many of the stories are about Batman being forced to question elements of himself and his identity, spinning into nightmarish scenarios of identity displacement and loneliness before everything is restored to the status quo on the last page.

My favorite story to date is a surreal one in which Batman wakes up in jail and is told that he’s a crazy man impersonating Batman. He goes to Wayne Manor and talks to Robin, revealing himself as Bruce Wayne. But then another Bruce comes down the stairs and our Bruce runs away. Eventually it’s revealed that Alfred was posing as Bruce, and he and Dick had set up this scheme to stop the real Bruce was dying due to a poison gas he’d been exposed to. It’s totally surreal and like a raw piece of psychological terror. He doesn’t face villains, he faces his own psychological demons. It’s a lot like the Superman stories of the era, just raw drug trip deconstructions of self in comic book form.

I’m sure there were a lot of less successful or ambitious stories from the era as well, but this book is a great compilation of ones that are fun to read and illuminate more of what Morrison was doing with RIP. Morrison has always embraced the absurdity of comics, and managed to find a way to make a story like RIP totally surreal, but still emotionally relevant in a way that more ‘realistic’ superhero comics aren’t.

And, I hope he gets back to that mode on Batman and Robin eventually. Doctor Hurt was teased to return at the end of issue one, and I can’t wait to see him back in action. After this Red Hood arc, at least we’ll have the awesome prospect of Cameron Stewart drawing a story with the Squire, one of Grant’s most entertaining pet characters in the DCU.

Our Sentence is Up Pre-Order

I haven’t had too much time to post here in a while, things have been a bit crazy on many fronts. But, I should mention that my book about The Invisibles, Our Sentence is Up, is going to be coming out in November and is available for pre-order now through Diamond. Check out the Sequart site for more info on how to order.



If you already read all the blog posts I did here, there’s still plenty worth checking out. The text is revised and expanded, with the most in depth look at the series that I think has ever been conducted. It’s also got a 50+page interview with Morrison himself, that covers all aspects of the series, and its place in both the world of the time and our contemporary world. If you’re wondering how Morrison’s world has changed, and how he feels about The Invisibles in the context of his present life and work, this is the interview for you.

I did an interview with Tim Callahan about the book on Comic Book Resources, which I would highly recommend checking out. It covers the background of the book, but also features a lot of interesting discussion about the series itself.

So, if you liked The Invisibles, check out this book, and please pre-order it from your retailers to support it and get it on shelves. And, if any media people out there are interested in doing an interview, just let me know, I’d be glad to talk to you and answer whatever questions you’ve got.

Mad Men - "My Old Kentucky Home" (3x03)

I didn’t have a chance to write about the first two episodes of Mad Men’s third season, but I’ve been watching and enjoying so far. I don’t think the show has matched any of the sublime stuff from the end of season two, but this week’s episode takes a big step forward, decentralizing the narrative and lending huge gravity to small moments and actions that transpire between the characters. Little explicit narrative progress is made, but so much happens.

Mad Men’s entire narrative structure draws heavily on the work that Weiner was doing with David Chase on the last few seasons of The Sopranos, with its intense exploration of personal angst and the characters’ struggle to maintain and carve out their identities in an ever shifting world. Mad Men has always teased our knowledge of impending social change, right from Don’s confrontation with Midge’s beatnik group in the first season. We know that they will ascend in the culture, while Don’s colleagues will fall, but this season intensifies that impending shift, bringing in more elements of the 60s counterculture, and showing people like Roger for the dinosaurs that they are.

That’s made most explicit in this episode’s black face musical number, where Roger looks like someone out of the 1800s, and most of his guests look on admiringly. They’re performing the same ritual their parents performed, and the disdain shown for anyone outside of their social circle disturbs Don, who spends the entire party drifting through pointless social ritual, except for his conversation with Connie.

The scene with Connie is interesting, it begins with Don seeking an “old fashioned,” the perfect drink for these people. I got the impression he thought Connie was the bartender, so he’s performing the expected ritual, talking to a servant like Roger would. But, he soon finds out that Connie is playing a role as much as him, both of them have risen in society, but neither feels like they really belong inside the party. Don’s story about his days as a valet is one of the rare times we’ve seen him open up about his past, because this is one of the rare times he’s encountered someone in the same kind of situation as him. Roger, Pete and Betty are naturals in this environment, but the others are all performing an adopted persona and hoping that nothing will give away their past.

Peggy has consistently been equated with Don, never more so than this year where we see her asserting her power to get what she wants, without regard to the social expectation for how women are supposed to behave. The highlight of last week’s episode was her acting out the role of the 14 year old in a 25 year old’s body that the guys so loved in Ann Margaret’s “Bye Bye Birdie” performance. Everyone has a certain role they’re supposed to play in the social contract. So, Sal plays the role of the heterosexual man, desiring Ann Margaret because that what he’s supposed to do. Men must assert their power and dominance over women by having exclusive control of the glance, something that the staging of the Bye Bye Birdie scene emphasizes. There’s nothing else to look at there, just her, so we’re forced to gaze at her. At this point, the office is constructed with the women in the role of visual object for the men to enjoy while doing their work.

Peggy sees this, but she also sees that there’s power in female sexuality. Joan can control the men through her flirty demeanor better than Peggy can in her de-sexualized persona. So, she uses Joan’s jokes and goes out to the bar to play the role of the helpless secretary, looking for a man who wants her. She jokes about hating her boss, drawing on aspects of her own life to build the “character.” She’s essentially playing a cross of Joan and herself. But, she can’t help but slip in her accomplishments, she’s proud of working in Manhattan and shows up the guy by talking about working while he’s still a student. When they do go back to his apartment, she uses him for what she wants, then walks out, just like Don would.

This week, she finds herself again at the forefront of things. Paul and Smitty decide to get high to “help their work,” but of course, wind up just sitting around eating and talking about pointless stuff. Peggy actually is inspired, and winds up reaching the same kind of zen higher state that Don reached during his time in California.

I think that drug scenes, like this one, are really interesting in a reality based context, where there are actual consequences to what they do. Anything that puts your characters in a different state of mind, and reveals new facets of them is interesting as a writer, and in this case, we see Peggy first pass through the classic pot stage of sitting there doing nothing, then ascend to a state where everyone around her seems to be a representation of her psychological demons. Paul and Smitty are the co-workers who have no respect for her, and look down on her from their ivory tower, the key moment being the juxtaposition of their attempts to impress her with their college degrees, while she considers it even more impressive to have the same job despite graduating from a secretarial school.

She tells them, in the episode’s most sublimely chilling moment that she’s in a really good place right now, then walks out to confront Olive, a secretary stand in for the family that’s trying to hold her back. Olive doesn’t want her doing anything crazy, anything un lady like, but Peggy tells her that she’s in control, she’s living the life she wants and is going down the exact path she wants. Having confronted the two major forces trying to hold her down, she gets lost in her thoughts and, like Don, sets out to channel a perfect ad campaign down onto her Dictaphone.

And, elsewhere we get a great spotlight storyline for one of the show’s most interesting characters, Sally Draper. Don’s daughter, who was likely the victim of some in utero drug and alcohol abuse, already has a lot of issues, and clearly fears being abandoned by her father. Last season, we saw how Don sculpted her into a submissive echo of Bobby Barrett, and this year she’s becoming a “little lesbian,” breaking Don’s luggage to stop him from leaving home.

In this episode, she steals her grandfather’s five dollars, for no apparent reason, then spends the rest of the episode in absolute fear of being discovered for her crime. It’s a really intense set of scenes because Gene is such a wild card. His dementia means that he could do anything, and left alone with Don and Betty, he’s very dangerous. Sally pulls a scam to give the money back, and in the end, it seems clear that Gene knows what happened, but decides to forgive her and let it go.

But, what is it that drives Sally to the theft? Perhaps she has already been so damaged that she wants to test her boundaries even more. She couldn’t get away with this theft, but maybe the next thing she tries will go unnoticed. She’s a really complex character, and it’s one of the most surprising things the writers have pulled off, giving her all these layers.

So, this episode was great, and brings together a lot of the disparate elements from the season so far. Though the show is ostensibly about an ad agency, it’s the internal politics of the agency that interest me least. But, seeing Don or Peggy in these unfamiliar situations is extremely interesting. And, as always, the cinematography was gorgeous, be it the way Betty is framed in the shadows at the end to suggest that she may actually be embracing her crush, or the epic shot of Peggy walking down the empty Sterling Cooper office, passing in and out of harsh overhead lights.