Best of the Decade: TV

Here’s the ten best TV shows of the decade. This was by far the best decade for TV in the medium’s history, and this list is pretty close to my best series all time list. There's a lot of great shows that didn't make it, these are the elite.

10. Angel
Best Season: Five
Best Episode: ‘A Hole in the World’
The most uneven show on the list, Angel veered from the boring standalones of season one and the endless, at times nonsensical season four arc to the morally ambiguous challenging heights of the Darla arc in season two, Wesley’s arc in season three and in particular the entire final season were fantastic enough for it to merit a spot on the list. What makes the show shine above its inconsistencies were the fantastic character development work done on Angel, Cordelia and Wesley. All three of those characters were fantastic, and anchored the show in a very real way. It’s a shame the show was cancelled at the height of its powers, but at least we got one of the all time best series finales.



9. Freaks and Geeks
Best Season: One
Best Episode: ‘Discos and Dragons’
Like its ‘cancelled too soon’ brethren Arrested Development and Firefly, Freaks and Geeks has become a legend of TV, and the massive success of virtually all its actors and creative team only enhanced the legend. But, despite the team’s massive success, nobody involved has topped their work here. The performances were fantastic, and the show did a great job of world building as it went on, and letting you watch the people grow and change in subtle ways. It’s the best depiction of high school life ever captured on film, and, as with Angel, even though it was cancelled too soon, it went out on a fantastic high note.



8. Doctor Who
Best Season: Four
Best Episode: ‘Parting of the Ways’
Far from the most consistent show, Who had probably more weak episodes than any other show on the list, but at its best, it hit me emotionally like nothing else out there. The thing I love so much about Who is the core of optimism about humanity’s potential and our place in the world. The Doctor sees excitement and joy everywhere he goes, and even when the show got dark, as it often did to great effect, it’s about him struggling to make things better and having to deal with the fact that he can’t. I particularly like the show’s reinterpretation of the hero’s journey, as we see that just being chosen and taken to a world of adventure doesn’t make all your problems go away. The show is spectacle on a scale never before attempted on TV, and when it succeeds, it blows your mind and breaks your heart at the same time. I’m excited to see the story resolve itself in the two part finale over the course of the next week.



7. Mad Men
Best Season: Two
Best Episode: ‘The Jet Set’
Mad Men is probably the best example of the new kind of shows that became possible thanks to shifts in the perception and consumption of the TV medium. The Sopranos pushed the boundaries of art in TV, but even as it plunged into subjective artiness and de-dramatized character stories in its later years, it still was based around action stories and had violence as the dramatic hook for viewers. Mad Men has no violence or action, but it’s still riveting in its precise exploration of a set of characters trying to survive or thrive in the 1960s. Visually, the show is unparalleled in its gorgeous production design and costuming, capturing all the glamour and narrative ambiguity of 60s European art cinema. It’s great to watch something on TV that feels like Fellini or Bergman, that uses our familiarity with the characters to explore complex issues and new storytelling methods. I’d be shocked if this show isn’t here when I do the best of the decade list ten years from now.



6. The Office (UK)
Best Season: Two
Best Episode: Season 2, Episode 6
The Office is the only comedy on the list, largely because it’s so much more than just funny, it’s got a core of sadness that is shockingly overturned by the show’s joyous Christmas finale. It’s also the most influential comedy on the list, pioneering the comedy of awkwardness that was widely adopted later in the decade, and influencing the documentary aesthetic of shows like Arrested Development, as well as obvious descendents like the American Office and Parks and Recreation. But, thanks to its short running time, the series makes no compromises, and is true to its characters and world. Thanks to the overall sense of hopelessness, the final scene between Tim and Dawn is one of the most romantic and beautiful in all of film. And, on top of all that, it’s the funniest show of all time.



5. John From Cincinnati
Best Season: One
Best Episode: ‘His Visit, Day Five’
I’ve seen John mentioned in a lot of decade writeups, usually in the context of the erroneous idea that Milch allowed Deadwood to be cancelled in favor of doing this show. One, that’s not at all true. Two, JFC was in many ways the continuation of Deadwood that they wanted, but for me, it refined all the things that worked about Deadwood and brought the dormant themes to the fore for a fascinating exploration of the way that communities form and what spirituality and the extraordinary mean in a contemporary context. The series blend of mysticism and verite was hard for people to take, but I loved it, few series had the religious awe this one carried, and moments like John’s sermon in the parking lot or the descent from the clouds that opened the final episode are among the most profound ever captured on film. I don’t consider this a qualified success, it’s outright one of the best series of all time.



4. The Wire
Best Season: Three
Best Episode: ‘Final Grades’
One of the most important and ambitious series of all time, The Wire has been praised extensively, and virtually no compliment about the series is hyperbole. It really is as good as people claim, both in terms of social relevance and in simple story construction. The show built an elaborate world and by the end of the series had nearly 50 regular characters floating through at any given time. And, it’s the characters who linger for me, particularly moments like the apocalyptic fourth season finale, or the operatic Avon and Stringer stuff at the end of season three. People will watch and analyze this series for years to come, it’s one of the most important documents of the aspects of our society that no one else is talking about. You need look no further than the fact that Crash won a best picture Oscar the same year as The Wire aired on TV to see where the real cultural dialogue was taking place this decade.



3. Six Feet Under
Best Season: Five
Best Episode: ‘I’m Sorry, I’m Lost’
Six Feet Under is a show that on the surface lacks the ambition of something like The Sopranos or The Wire, but it’s so brilliant in its character work, and its exploration of the search for meaning in everyday middle class life in the 2000s. All the characters were looking for definition, for a way to give their lives purpose and to find love and fulfillment in a world that often makes it hard to believe in anything. In a decade of irony and distance, this show forced its characters to confront their true selves, and the performances and writing crafted some of the most well rounded characters in literary history, Nate and Brenda in particular. By the end of the series, the accumulated experiences of all the characters led to a devastating series of events, and ultimately transcendence in the final montage that took us outside time to show that everything ends, but we all have to live first.



2. Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Best Season: Six
Best Episode: ‘Restless’
The 00s featured the series’ best episodes, the two season arc that spanned seasons five and six, as well as my personal favorite season of any show all time, season six. But, it also featured some shakier stuff in season four and season seven. Still, take everything I said about Six Feet Under above and add it an epic hero’s journey and you’ve got what makes Buffy so special. The character work was phenomenal, and I’ve never been as completely addicted to a series as I was watching the later seasons of the show. New characters like Tara and Anya, as well as Spike’s rise to prominence kept the series fresh, and Whedon’s auteurial experiments pushed the show to new heights of visual greatness, particularly in ‘Restless’ and the dazzling ‘Once More With Feeling,’ which managed to simultaneously be a great original musical, and forward the overall season plot. I still love the show so much.



1. The Sopranos
Best Season: Five
Best Episode: ‘Long Term Parking’
The show that redefined what a TV series can be, The Sopranos is the greatest sustained examination of a single character in cinema history, and is also a fascinating look at the priorities and concerns of everyday people in a post WWII, post 9/11 world. While the show drew attention for its mob storylines, what jumped out to me was how much the characters’ world reminded me of my life, and how the relatability of what was happening. It was an intellectually riveting series, full of internal patterns and long reaching character arcs and symbol tracks, but it was also intensely addictive. Watching the last couple of seasons, I was desperate to see the next episodes, and upon rewatch, the series reveals more and more layers. If The Wire functions as a portrait of the poor and downtrodden in society, The Sopranos explores the troubles of people struggling to maintain their hold on the middle class, to continue living their lives in a world where the country slips into financial ruin and loses its status in the world. Tony Soprano is America, and his dream is ours. The instantly iconic finale only adds to the series status as fascinating, endlessly debatable entertainment.

San Diego Trip

After roughly ten days out on the West Coast, I’m back in New York, and have successfully made it through my first comicon experience. San Diego was pretty much what everyone said it would be, jam packed with people, a grueling trip and also a lot of fun. We were out there shooting stuff for the Grant Morrison project, and wound up doing twenty six interviews over four days, which is a lot tougher than it sounds when just walking people up to the interview site can be a fifteen minute round trip.

But, I think we got a lot of great stuff, and were able to talk to the vast majority of people that we wanted to talk. Some of the people we talked to were Geoff Johns, Mark Waid, Cameron Stewart, Chris Weston, Jill Thompson, Frazer Irving, Matt Fraction, Jason Aaron and many more. I’ll be posting clips of these interviews over the course of the next few weeks, primarily stuff that won’t end up in the film, but is interesting on its own merits.

Because we spent so much time doing these interviews, there wasn’t that much time to spend on the show floor. I wound up buying only two comics the entire show. Wednesday was the day I spent the most time on the floor, and that was insane with people trying to snap up free stuff. I got a free copy of the first JH Williams/Rucka Batwoman issue, and Flash: Rebirth, both of which I wanted to check out anyway, so that was good.

The floor, and show in general, reminded me of basically a double sized New York Comicon. The major difference was the much more significant film presence here. At New York, there were a lot more comics sellers, and the floor felt a bit more manageable. Here, there were basically two cons. On the left side of the floor was film stuff and video games, while the right was more typical comics sellers and random vendors.

Because of the huge crowds, I wound up not making it into any panels at all. Work meant there was no time to line up that early, so I missed getting into Avatar by about five hours, and Lost by probably about a half hour. I’d have loved to see both, but ultimately it was probably not worth the wait.

The weird thing about being at the con is that you don’t get any of the buzz or news that’s covered in the mainstream media. I didn’t hear about the Marvelman announcement until I called someone who was still on the East Coast, I got very little buzz about any of the films, and am just now catching up on which films “won” the comicon buzz war. And, I think that there’s very much two cons. Comics haven’t disappeared from the con, they’re just one piece of a larger spectrum. It would still probably be the largest specifically comics focused convention, it’s just even that huge comicon is dwarfed by the Hollywood presence, or the random anime fans or whatever else is going on.

But on the ground level, it’s the comics stuff that sticks with me, and because it’s a more limited social scene than New York, everyone clusters in one place and by the end of the weekend, you’ve got a very singular scene of comics people hanging out, and that was a lot of fun. It’s tough to go out until two every night, then be up at 8 or 9 to get back to the con, but it’s definitely worth it.

So, where does comicon stand today? It’s still getting bigger and more crowded, but I had a really fantastic time.

I topped it all off yesterday with a trip to Imperial Beach, the town where John From Cincinnati was filmed, and took place. It was pretty amazing to go along and recognize locations from the series, and feel the vibe that the show had. The beach was great, there were a ton of people surfing, and it definitely felt off the beaten path, not the kind of touristy area that much of California is. If you’re in the area and a fan of the show, definitely make the trip. It’s the closest you’ll get to a second season.

My Emmy Nominations 2008

So, the Emmy nominations were announced today. I wasn't hugely thrilled with them, it was great to see Mad Men get a lot of respect, but almost all my other favorite shows were pretty much shut out. How would I have done it? Read on...

Actor (Comedy):
Alec Baldwin – Jack on “30 Rock”
Jemaine Clement – Jemaine on “Flight of the Conchords”
Ricky Gervais – Andy on “Extras”
Stephen Merchant – Darren on “Extras”
Tracy Morgan – Tracy on “30 Rock”

I combined supporting and lead actors for comedy, since I don’t watch enough comedy shows to fill both categories. So, we’ve got a dense bunch of talent here. Gervais’s work in the last episode of Extras wasn’t the funniest performance, but it was the best. Unlike other people in the “awkward” comedy movement, he always remembers the humanity underneath, and that makes it both funnier, and more emotional.

Actress (Comedy):
Tina Fey - Liz Lemon on “30 Rock”
Jenna Fischer – Pam on “The Office”
Melora Hardin – Jan on “The Office”
Ashley Jensen – Maggie on “Extras”
Angela Kinsey – Angela on “The Office”

People may point the American Office’s Pam as the soul of the show, but she’s just an echo of what Gervais can do with his characters, and Ashley Jensen was brilliant on her tragic path through the last episode of the series. I think some elements of the episode were overplayed, but she was great.

Supporting Actor (Drama):
James Callis – Baltar on “Battlestar Galactica”
Austin Nichols – John on “John From Cincinnati”
Ed O’Neil - Bill on “John From Cincinnati”
Andre Royo – Bubbles on “The Wire”
Michael K. Williams – Omar on “The Wire”

Perhaps the richest category this year, there’s another five or ten people you could easily fit here from John From Cincinnati or The Wire alone. However, my favorite supporting performance was Ed O’Neil as Bill. Shifting between a prickly surface persona and the emotionally wounded person underneath, he was consistently the more entertaining character on screen, be it delivering lengthy soliloquies to his bird, or shouting “Jesus Christ! Jesus Christ!” No One was more fun to watch this year.

Supporting Actress (Drama):
Ginnifer Goodwin – Margene on “Big Love”
Christine Hendricks – Joan on “Mad Men”
Keala Kennelly – Kai on “John From Cincinnati”
Emily Rose – Cass on “John From Cincinnati”
Katee Sackhoff – Kara on “Battlestar Galactica”

Katee Sackhoff was brilliant this season, fusing the religious destiny Starbuck with the hardass military Starbuck into a really compelling new evolution of the character. It’s a testament to her performance that I find it hard to imagine her in another role. She just is Starbuck.

Lead Actor:
Kyle Chandler – Eric Taylor on “Friday Night Lights”
Jon Hamm – Don Draper on “Mad Men”
Edward James Olmos - Adama on “Battlestar Galactica”
David Tennant – The Doctor on “Doctor Who”
Brian Van Holt – Butchie on “John From Cincinnati”

Jon Hamm looks like he stepped right out of a 50s movie, and it’s his very guarded performance that makes the series work. With another actor, the mystery surrounding Don’s backstory could have felt contrived or teasing, here it just plays out. Don never gives anything away, and it’s not until the final scene of the season that we get a real open, emotional moment with him. But, the genius of Hamm is that we know what he’s feeling the whole time, even when the character himself won’t face it.

Lead Actress:
Connie Britton – Tami on “Friday Night Lights”
January Jones – Betty on “Mad Men”
Mary McDonnell – Laura Roslin on “Battlestar Galactica”
Catherine Tate – Donna on “Doctor Who”
Jeanne Tripplehorn – Barb on “Big Love”

In her first appearance on the show, she was rather annoying, and not someone I wanted to spend a whole season with. However, over the course of Doctor Who’s fourth season, Catherine Tate’s Donna became the best companion on the show to date, matching Tennant’s swerves between ecstasy and tragedy. I have some issues with how it happened, but her acting in the final episode, as we watched the person she’d become get torn away made the moment one of the most excruciating character fates I’ve ever seen.

Guest Actor
Julian Bleach – Davros on “Doctor Who” (Journey’s End)
Bernard Cribbins – Wilf on “Doctor Who” (Journey’s End)
Callum Keith Rennie – Leoben on “Battlestar Galactica” (The Road Less Traveled)
David Schwimmer – Greenzo on “30 Rock” (Greenzo)
Paul Schulze – Hobo on “Mad Men” (The Hobo Code)

I was talking about the show with someone, and she said that Bernard Cribbins’ Wilf was exactly like her grandfather. I felt the same way, I feel like Wilf tapped into this archetypal grandfather role, such that you were instantly emotionally attached to him. In “Journey’s End,” it’s him telling the Doctor “But she was better with you” that breaks open the emotional floodgates, and his final speech to the Doctor is a beautiful capper for the season.

Guest Actress
Ellen Burstyn – Nancy Dutton on “Big Love” (Take Me as I Am)
Camille Choudri – Jackie Tyler on “Doctor Who” (Journey’s End)
Edie Falco – CC on “30 Rock” (Goodbye Toby)
Alex Kingston – River Song on “Doctor Who” (Forest of the Dead)
Lucy Lawless – D’Anna on “Battlestar Galactica (Revelations)

Lucy Lawless walked onto the show in its second to last episode and immediately took control of everything. Her glee at knowing something that no one else does was wonderfully played, and she had a lot of fun with the role. It was great to have her back on the show, and hopefully she’ll be there for the whole season next time.

Best Writing:
“The Wheel”: Mad Men by Matthew Weiner and Robin Veitch
“His Visit, Day 5”: John From Cincinnati by Alix Lambert
“Forest of the Dead”: Doctor Who by Steven Moffat
“Late Editions”: The Wire by George Pelecanos
“Series Finale”: Extras by Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant

These are all absolutely brilliant episodes, each emotionally devastating in its own way, but I’ve got to give the respect to “Forest of the Dead.” The others are more about paying off year long arcs, “Forest” builds several worlds in the hour and brings them all to a smashing close in an emotionally wrenching, mind blowing hour. It’s one of the best episodes of new Who, and definitely the most well written. It’s basically everything I want from a piece of fiction.

Best Direction:
“The Wheel”: Mad Men by Matthew Weiner
“His Visit, Day 9”: John From Cincinnati by Daniel Minahan
“The Stolen Earth”: Doctor Who by Graeme Harper
“Late Editions”: The Wire by Joe Chapelle
“The Hub”: BSG by Paul Edwards

The other episodes are all downers, that push their characters through awful, awful things. But, can’t there be some joy in the world? “His Visit: Day 9,” the series finale of John From Cincinnati is pure joy from the opening frame on. The opening sequence of this episode is one of my favorite film moments ever, the soaring descent from the heavens to John and Shaun surfing to shore. It’s an unparalleled rush, the payoff of the entire series. The rest of the episode keeps the strong energy, particularly during the manic party sequence that closes the episode. The show went out on a high note.

Best Series (Comedy):
30 Rock
Extras
Flight of the Conchords
Pushing Daisies
The Office

Extras closed out its run with an emotional odyssey of a TV movie that was at once bitingly funny and really emotional. Gervais approaches comedy differently from anyone else. He stresses character and narrative arcs as much as laughs, and that means that we’re much more engaged with the material. It’s a great story on its own, the laughs are a bonus. I do think some of the musings on fame got a bit self indulgent, but there were enough great moments to keep it strong on the whole.


Best Series (Drama):
Battlestar Galactica
Doctor Who
John From Cincinnati
Mad Men
The Wire

These are all exceptional series. Doctor Who and Battlestar each had their strongest seasons yet, Mad Men had one of the greatest debut seasons of all time, and The Wire was up to the brilliant standard of its previous years. But, one show captivated me like no other, the much maligned, but brilliant John From Cincinnati. JFC was interesting on a narrative level, and featured some of the most fun characters on any series, but what made it so great was the spiritual nature of the series. It wasn’t like a normal show, it was a religious experience in the guise of an ensemble drama, and a window into one man’s view of the world. At its best, it worked like our minds do, dealing in symbols and dreams and archetypes as a way of understanding the world. It will be remembered as one of the most underappreciated series of all time, it’s just taking the world a while to catch up.

Total Nominations/Wins

The Wire - 5
John From Cincinnati – 8 (3)
Big Love - 3
Battlestar Galactica – 8 (2)
Mad Men – 7 (1)
Doctor Who – 9 (3)
Friday Night Lights - 2

Pushing Daisies - 1
Flight of the Conchords - 2
30 Rock - 6
The Office - 4
Extras – 5 (3)

John From Cincinnati: The Rewatch Concludes

I finished rewatching John From Cincinnati last night. Seeing the show again reminded me just how amazing it is. Particularly in that last episode, there are moments as incredible as anything in cinema, most notably the epic pan through clouds to John and Shaun on the water that opens the episode. That is as perfect and exhilarating a moment as can be captured on film. It’s such a rush to descend from the clouds and see them again.

Most TV shows are decidedly fiction. They may exist in a realistic world, or comment on real world issues, but they don’t feel ‘real’ in the way that John From Cincinnati does. Even The Wire feels more artificial in some ways, that show depicts a world I’m not that familiar with and brings it to the attention of the viewer. John is on the surface a less realistic show, filled with its strange characters and inexplicable floating. But, I’d argue the show is more realistic because it takes place on a subconscious mental plane. It just feels so important, in the same way that The Invisibles did.

I think The Invisibles really is one of the only comparable works to JFC. Both are about conveying their creator’s philosophy within the context of a narrative. The DVD features a video of David Milch talking about the big ‘speech’ in episode six, where John lays out the series’ philosophy. The essential message of the series is that art, the representation of reality in writing or film, can be used to alter actual reality. “Cass’s Camera” is synonymous with the power of art, and it’s through her camera that the world will learn about John and what he means to reality. And, on a meta level, it’s “Cass’s Camera” that brings the whole story to us.

I said it before when the show was airing, but what really strikes me about the series is just how positive it is. It’s about people overcoming their innante prejudices, and personal hang-ups to come together and help make the world better. In the end, Mitch says that “We’re them,” which makes him worried, but in actuality is the essence of the series. It’s about erasing the borders that divide us and embracing our oneness as a single human organism. It may worry Mitch that he’s a part of Stinkweed, but it also means that Stinkweed is a part of him, and by merging with the enemy rather than fighting it, you can control it.

By the last episode, everyone is doing what they want to do, functioning in harmony as a single entity. I love a lot of the little flourishes, Cass telling off Palaka in her New York tough guy voice, she’s totally out of regular reality, channeling the power of John’s father into the world. And, the montage of the parade sequence is another burst of fun and energy, I wish it wouldn’t end. The series isn’t always consistent, but at its best, it’s a transcendent spiritual experience, never more so than when John and Shaun fall out of the sky, back to the water.

I think it’s hard for people to reconcile the spiritual elements of the series with the cursing and hard edged atmosphere. But, that’s the world we live in. Even if Butchie flips off a beach cleaner, he’s still keeping the faith. This is one of the greatest TV series of all time, filled with wonderful characters and performances, I’m hoping the world will catch up soon and realize just how good it is. In Cass's Camera, season two is starting.

John From Cincinnati Revisited

Yesterday, John From Cincinnati finally came out on DVD. The much maligned series has become something of a punchline since it aired. I’ve got a Google News Alert for the series, and will frequently get sent an article in which some new show is panned, with the only caveat being “at least it’s not as bad as John From Cincinnati.” So, I figure now is as good a time as any to tell people who haven’t seen the show that it’s one of the greatest TV series of all time, an intricately constructed world that builds and evolves over the course of ten episodes. It’s one of the most joyous series of all time, a unqiue mix of strange supernatural content and very real, gritty human emotion.

I watched the first episode tonight, and it holds up really well. The opening credits sequence is probably my favorite of any show. The building guitar line over those first shots of water leads us up above the waves in a mix of contemporary and classic imagery. And the big bang happens in there as well. Just hearing the song and seeing those images brought me back to the summer, to watching the show on Sunday nights, eagerly awaiting each episode.

My experience of watching the show paralleled what happened on it. I started out watching it alone, and got some other people hooked on it as it aired. So, a community built up around the show, and every Sunday, we’d be there to watch it. There are some works that define an era for me. Summer 2001 for me was playing wiffleball in the evening, then coming home to watch X-Files season three and read Sandman: The Kindly Ones. It couldn’t have been more than a couple of nights that this happened, but it’s come to represent the entire era in my mind.

Summer 2007 is wrapped up in JFC, and watching the show brings back a lot of good memories. I think the show is really about social gatherings, people coming together and building something, and that’s part of what makes me love it so much. Watching the first episode, it’s not quite what it will become. It’s weird to see people who aren’t cast regulars on the show, but at this point there are only about ten main characters, it’ll take a bit for the cast to double. But, the roots of most of what’s to come are in place, and there’s a lot of seeming non-sequiters that make a lot more sense once it’s clear where Milch is going.

Hopefully the DVD release will salvage the show’s reputation. Are we so close minded that this sort of magical realism, this spiritual storytelling has no place on TV? Realism’s great, but in a lot of ways this show feels more real to me than a lot of so called ‘realistic’ stuff. Everyone in the world actually lives in their own mind, they perceive things through a cloud of dreams and memories, and that’s why the supernatural flourishes in the show work for me. They externalize the mental trauma these people are carrying around. I’m reminded of something Grant Morrison said, that the reason he can relate to superhero comics is his problems feel huge, he feels like more like Superman battling a renegade sun than some guy dealing with some personal problems. Our problems feel huge to us, they feel of cosmic importance, and the ultimate message of the show seems to be that saving one person can save the world, even if that person is yourself.

As the show goes on, it takes on a trance like quality, mental and physical reality collapse on each other until they’re virtually indistinguishable. The best example of this is the legendary John speech in episode six, I remember the first time I saw it, I didn’t really get what was said, but I knew I’d witnessed something profound. And that’s what this show is, it’s a spiritual experience on film, and I’m so happy Milch had a chance to make it.

What is the Greatest TV Show of All Time?

With The Wire about to end, for the second time in a year, we’ve got people mourning the “greatest TV series of all time.” But, does The Wire truly match its HBO brother The Sopranos, how do you measure the ‘greatness’ of a long form work like a TV series? The gang over at The House Next Door have a podcast about Milch vs. Chase vs. Simon, and the question of the greatest TV drama ever. For me, it’s a bit more complicated than just the three shows they’re mentioning because the question of greatest and favorite blur into a kind of messy uncertainty.

It’s always tough to objectively assess art. If I had to talk about the TV show that gripped me the most, the one that had me thinking about it nonstop for the months I was watching it, and cast a shadow over everything else I watched for a long time, it’d have to be Buffy. I’ve never connected to the characters in a show the way I did to those people, I never had so much wrapped up in the character arcs, or such a need to see the next episode. There’s a specific kind of engagement that comes with a long form narrative like that series, and I’ve never been so involved in a series as I was with Buffy while watching its fifth and sixth seasons.

But, as much as I love the series, I’ll admit that it’s nowhere near the level of filmic art that either of the HBO ‘holy trinity.’ The show, with a couple of exceptions, is shot in a fairly straight ahead TV style, with traditional TV score and production values. The acting is beyond traditional TV expectations as is the writing, but in general, the filmmaking isn’t anything special. Whedon may talk about not wanting to do “radio with faces,” but only occasionally is the show not that.

The Sopranos is the most well made show in TV history. The cinematography is gorgeous, and the filmmaking is working in service of the story. It truly is a filmic experience, everything is contributing to the overall thematic push of the work. Chase did a phenomenal job of selecting directors that fit within the show’s style, but still managed to stand out as quality filmmaking. He raised the game for what’s possible with television.

For me, Deadwood isn’t close to The Sopranos or The Wire. I liked the show, but it never really grabbed me in the way the best shows do. There were pieces that I was engaged with, and I liked it all, but it just didn’t do it for me. The Milch show I really loved was John From Cincinnati, which picks up on what Twin Peaks was doing, another legitimate contender for greatest series of all time. What I love about John From Cincinnati is the way it built a universe over the course of the series. That was what Deadwood was about, but I responded more to the modern day angst and lack of purpose, broken by the appearance of this prophet from another place.

Part of what makes The Wire and The Sopranos such vital pieces of art is what they have to say about the world we live in. The Wire shows the state of the under class, which is struggling to survive in a world that’s increasingly devoid of legitimate ways to make a living. The Sopranos focuses on people who’ve “made it,” and explores what happens once you find out living the American dream isn’t enough for happiness.

For me, The Sopranos is more relatable. The mob elements were the hook, but the show is really about the contemporary middle to upper class, and the existential issues they face. I saw my world reflected on screen in Meadow’s struggle to get into college, AJ working at Blockbuster, the struggle to find purpose in a commoditized world. These characters were me or people I knew. Every genre work is about taking real world issues and spinning them into something more extraordinary through the genre’s lens. So, struggling to keep your job and lifestyle stable becomes struggling to keep your crew afloat in a mob war.

The Wire offers a different kind of life, one where people really are trying to survive, not pay off their vacation home. When I was first watching the show, I thought of The Wire’s gang story as kind of a prequel to The Sopranos, Avon and Stringer are like Tony’s father, the people who built “this thing of ours,” the people who the next generation can never live up to. In the later years, things change a bit. The gang life becomes less about accumulating luxury and ascending socially and more about surviving. Marlo has no interest in going legit, he wants to rule the streets, that’s it, no more.

But, which show is better? Which is TV’s greatest artistic achievement? John From Cincinnati, much as I love it, doesn’t quite match the emotional scope of The Wire or The Sopranos. But, I would place it in my all time top ten. Another HBO show that deserves consideration is Six Feet Under. The show is a bit overtly soapier than other HBO shows, but there’s moments in that show that touched me more than anything in The Wire or The Sopranos. Perhaps the saddest image I’ve ever seen in a TV show is Brenda sitting in the Quaker church while Nate is off with Maggie. It probably seems a bit petty to say that’s the saddest thing when you’ve got something like Dukie on the street walking to the Araber in the most recent Wire episode, but everyone’s life matter, and just because she won’t be shooting dope on the street doesn’t mean that being betrayed by Nate like that isn’t as absolutely devastating for Brenda.

I have a lot of affection for Six Feet Under, but I will admit that from a thematic and cinematic scope, it doesn’t quite match up to the other two. Still, much like Buffy, I have so much affection for the characters, I have to give the show high marks. I think there is a legitimate difference between calling something your favorite show versus calling something the greatest show. Buffy and Six Feet Under fall more in the favorite column, things I love more because of my emotional attachment to the characters than because of their inherent artistic quality. That’s not to knock them at all, creating characters so emotionally engaging is a major achievement in its own right.

So, the question remains, which is the greatest TV show of all time, The Wire or The Sopranos? For me, the emotional pull when watching the shows is totally different. In The Wire, the institutions work as a giant force, boxing the characters into awful situations. As the season goes on, we’re faced with increasingly awful scenarios, where characters we love come into irrevocable conflicts and suffer. I’m thinking most of season four’s final two episodes, where a season’s worth of random acts lead the total destruction of many lives. “Final Grades” is just a devastating episode, a legitimate contender for best TV episode of all time. The characters are pushed to the edge, to the point where they have to lash out, giving us those heartbreaking moments like Carver in the car, McNulty hearing about Bodie’s death, the death itself, and the sad fate of the kids.

The Wire is a show about people who lack control over their own lives, who try to do good things, but invariably wind up knocked down and destroyed by a system bent on preserving itself. I think it’s a hugely important show, and extremely relevant for many, many people in our world. But, I personally find The Sopranos more relatable. The Sopranos is about people who do have control over their lives, but invariably wind a way to mess things up, hurt others and do bad things all to help themselves.

The emotional pull with The Sopranos is between our attachment to the characters, our desire for them do the right thing and get out of the life versus the inevitable failure to actually save themselves. The quintessential episode for me is “Long Term Parking,” in which Christopher is offered the chance to run away and restart his life with Adrianna, however, upon seeing a white trash family at a gas station, he decides it’s not worth it. It’s a totally selfish bastard moment from him, one of the critical turning points of the series.

Now, it may be the fact that I’m from a world closer to The Sopranos than The Wire, but I find The Sopranos a more personally relatable show. Both shows have fantastic characters, but I think The Sopranos’ gang, Tony and Chris in particular, are a bit deeper and more complex than anyone in The Wire. Simon frequently talks about how story is paramount, which it might be for him, but its characters who hook me on a show. Ultimately, that’s what makes me give Sopranos the edge.

The Sopranos kept its quality remarkably consistent across the run. I know a lot of people say season one is the best, but for me, it’s either season five, or the final run of episodes that’s the high point. As the show went on, it became increasingly less reliant on story and became an extended look at the psychological troubles of all the characters. I loved that, even the much maligned season six part one plays brilliantly on DVD. “Kaisha,” which I called a disappointing finale when it first aired, was riveting on rewatch. Yes, season four is a bit off, but on the whole, I can think of only a handful of stories that didn’t work over the run of the series.

If The Wire was only seasons three and four, I’d give it the nod over The Sopranos. Those two seasons are about as perfect as any season in TV history, the other three seasons are more of a mixed bag. Season one is pretty great, but a bit simpler than The Sopranos or what follows on The Wire. I have a bunch of issues with season two, it’s still great, but the inevitable tragedy of Frank Sobotka just felt too one note next to the moral complexity of season one. Season five feels a bit hurried, and has the good, not great newspaper storyline hanging over much of it. It’s still absolutely amazing on the whole, but when you’re talking about the greatest show of all time, absolutely amazing with some flawed bits might not be enough.

And, from an artistic point of view, I think The Sopranos did more interesting things with film as a medium. The Wire is a wonderfully shot and acted show, it does exactly what it set out to do. But, I love the psychological craziness of an episode like “Fun House” or “Join the Club” and The Wire doesn’t have any equivalent. It wouldn’t fit in the universe they created because The Wire is all about showing the whole. It’s about showing the complex interactions of the city, but in many ways, a single human brain is more complex than this organism we call civilization. It’s an endless mystery, and I don’t think any show did a better job of exploring it than The Sopranos.

But, that’s not to diminish what The Wire does at all. The two shows are the definitive cinematic statements of the early twenty first century, a chronicle of a post 9/11 world. When people think about this era in film history, they won’t think about the movies, they’ll think about these two shows.

Best of 2007: Top 10 TV Series

10. 30 Rock
Best Episode – Greenzo
The second season was a bit uneven, but this show was still anarchic and hilarious in a way not seen since Arrested Development. It’s comedy was occasionally stupid, but always in a smart way, and the cast is consistently stellar. And, David Schwimmer’s guest appearance in “Greenzo” was better than the entire run of Friends.

9. The Office
Best Episode – The Deposition
Another show where the year started out uneven. The goofy race episode nearly killed it for me, but the abbreviated season ended very strong with the devastating “The Deposition.” This episode is the closest the American version has gotten to the original’s blend of dark, dark darkness and uncomfortably funny humor. For me, the darker the show gets, the funnier it is and the more emotionally affecting it is. So, go darker like that episode, not goofy.

8. Flight of the Conchords
Best Episode – The Third Conchord
The best new comedy of the year, Conchords never failed to entertain thanks to the fantastic songs in each episode. The songs were both goofy and funny, and genuinely good songs, surveying a variety of genres over the course of the series. Some felt awkwardly shoved into the episode, like “Frodo, Don’t Wear the Ring” and “Bowie’s in Space,” but generally they fit well. And, on top of that, the non-singing parts of the show were fun, if a bit repetitive. I’m not sure how well it will hold up in year two, but this year was a lot of fun.

7. Gilmore Girls
Best Episodes – Lorelai? Lorelai?
The show was far from what it was under the Palladinos, but Lauren Graham is such a strong presence, she, and the actors surrounding her, keep the show entertaining. Lorelai is the series, and even though I’m not a fan of the season on the whole, it was nice to see her get a happy ending. This wasn’t an X-Files level collapse, even slightly off Gilmore Girls is still strong.

6. Big Love
Best Episode – Take Me as I Am
The first season of Big Love had its moments, but didn’t ever really click for me. The second takes a big leap, going deeper into the characters’ lives and exploring the darker side of what it means to polygamist. The stuff at the compound is still hit or miss, but Barb’s arc, Rhonda’s arc and Ben’s arc all more than made up for it. The show grew a lot, and I’m eager to see where they go in season three.

5. Battlestar Galactica
Best Episode – Crossroads: Part II
This calendar year was not a particularly strong one for BSG. We got a bunch of weak filler episodes after the stellar opening run of year three. However, the two part season finale was amazing, primarily because of the final ten minutes, as bizarre and invigorating as anything I’ve seen on TV. The spiraling camera shots and surreal battle to “All Along the Watchtower” made up for what had come before, and even as I pondered the nonsensicalness of the cylon revelation, I was awed by its execution. But still, they’re going to have to do better next year. A great season opener and closer does not make up for phoning it in the rest of the year.

4. Friday Night Lights
Best Episode – Mud Bowl
If the show had not been picked up for a second season, it might be ranked even higher. The end of year one was fantastic, particularly the emotionally devastating “Mud Bowl” episode, as powerful as anything I’ve seen on television. However, the second year fumbled a lot of that opportunity with some really poor writing. The Landry murder plot is the most obvious target, but there was a lot of other lazy plotting along the way. The cinematography is still some of the best in TV history, and the acting’s stellar, but the writing is going to have to get better. Still, there are moments in the show that are almost unspeakably beautiful, the aforementioned mud bowl, the team’s trip to Dallas stadium in the season finale, and Lyla’s baptism in the season premiere. That baptism was at a Malick level of beauty. Why not tone back on the meth dealers, murders and underage relationships and get back to telling simple stories about a football team and the town it inspires.

3. Mad Men
Best Episode – The Wheel
The loss of The Sopranos left a big hole in the TV landscape, where would we find the adventures of a morally conflicted hero who cheats on his, gets drunk with his male coworkers and has many unresolved psychological issues? If HBO was smart, they would have put this show on after The Sopranos’ finale, not John From Cincinnati. The show picks up on much of what made The Sopranos great, the barely there stories which exist primarily to bring character tension to the surface, and the marvelously subtle characterization. There are so many fantastic performances here, Jon Hamm as the inscrutable Donald Draper, Christina Hendricks as the gorgeous manipulator Joan and my favorite, January Jones as the psychologically disturbed housewife Betty. The show really grew on me as the season went on, each episode adding more layers to the world and characters. The evocation of period look, and sensibility, is unlike anything attempted on television, and I’m eager to see the show move forward through the 60s and the change it will bring to our characters. There are certain shows you enjoy in spite of the fact that you know on some level it’s not good, this is not one of those, it’s challenging art all the way through.

2. John From Cincinnati
Best Episode – His Visit: Day 6
It’s been tough to watch this show pop up on countless worst TV of 2007 lists. While it might not be for everyone, JFC was a challenging work that showed how much wonder and joy can be found in everyday life. Milch continued the work he began on Deadwood, showing how social networks and community can be built, but added in the spiritual component, which took everything to a new level of philosophical interest. In future years, people will be analyzing JFC in universities, writing books about it and generally hailing it as a lost masterpiece. If you take the time to understand the series’ cosmology, it’s not that hard to understand, and along with this philosophical stuff, there’s some fantastic character development. Butchie’s transition from selfish junkie to caring man is inspiring, and the supporting cast went deep with great performances. I loved this show, I loved its message and I loved its execution. Give it a look when it comes out on DVD, it’s Milch’s masterwork.

1. The Sopranos
Best Episode – Walk Like a Man
It’s indisputably one of the best, and most influential TV shows of all time and this final nine episode run was probably its strongest season. Say what you will about the finale, the four episode run leading to it was the show’s strongest run. There was a crushing sense of doom hanging over the entire season, which delved deeper into Tony’s psyche than ever before. In the twin tales of his two ‘sons,’ Christopher and AJ, we recognize simultaneously how warped Tony is and how ordinary he is. The beauty of that last scene for me is that it takes Tony out of the mob world and puts him into the everyday world. Those people at the diner aren’t all potential killers, they’re people like you and me, he is part of everyday American life, and the blood it takes to uphold that dream is quickly forgotten if it’s spilled in the service of ‘family.’ My favorite arc of the year was Christopher’s dissolution, captured most wonderfully in “Walk Like a Man,” which sends him on such a spiral that his death in the next episode is a mercy killing. The season is a masterwork, and a perfect conclusion to one of the greatest TV shows of all time.

Deadwood and its Secret Fourth Season

I finished watching Deadwood yesterday, a show I constantly enjoyed, but didn’t love in the way that a lot of others did. The third season in particular was brilliant, with the looming menace of Hearst throwing the entire camp into chaos. While I would love to see the promised, but unlikely to happen TV movies, I don’t think it’s quite true that the series had no conclusion. The last episode resolved the Hearst arc, and featured the pull between civilization and the wild that’s been the key motif of the entire series. Yes, it’s more of an Angel go out in battle ending than a definitive conclusion, but I don’t know that any conclusion would have been truly definitive.

Still, conclusion comes in the most unlikely of ways, and, as Milch himself has said, you’re always telling the same story. John From Cincinnati functions as a kind of Earth 2 Deadwood, taking the same character archetypes and central narrative focus, but flinging it a century forward to the present day. The last season of Deadwood put our heroes in conflict with the standardizing force of corporate America, the beginning of a process that continues to this day. It’s notable that as the series begins, the entire JFC crew has been devastated by their encounter with a large corporation that mined their talent and discarded them when it was used up. The Deadwood camp formed around the gold deposits in the town, the community in JFC grows up around the Yosts’ talent.

So, let’s imagine that Hearst had mined all the gold in the camp, then he’d leave and there’d be nothing left but the sort of messy ruins that we see on JFC. How do you rebuild from that? That’s the question that haunts all the characters in JFC, tormented by trouble in their past they have slipped into isolation. On Deadwood, we saw characters pulled out of their lonely isolation and form a community. The third season is all about the crystallization of the bonds in response to an outside threat. JFC has the same central theme, but it treats it in a different way.

In Deadwood, it is the need to survive that forces the characters to unite. Alone in the wild, they are all in peril, like Sophia in the first episode. Brought into a community, they each find their place and gradually form a functioning civilization. By the time of JFC, it’s pretty easy to survive, there is no longer the necessity to band together to survive, but isolation has thrown the characters into depression. That’s why John appears. John is a literal incarnation of the force underlying all of Milch’s work, the force of community that draws people together and allows individuals to become something more through collective effort. Whatever John’s origin, that’s what he does, he brings people together.

John From Cincinnati even offers a solution to the Hearst conflict, with Stinkweed standing in for Hearst. Rather than trying to beat Linc at his own game, as I assumed they would at the start of the season, Butchie and his crew turn Linc to their side and wind up in control of the corporation. The force that threatened to destroy Deadwood is now under the control of the people. Corporations have a huge amount of power, and harnessed for good, they could remake the world. That’s the scenario Milch offers at the end of John From Cincinnati, the destructive forces turned to positive ones.

Ultimately, that’s what I loved about John From Cincinnati. Amidst all the grittiness, there was a real light and hope. This was a show full of joy and happiness, about characters overcoming their problems and coming together. But, because he made it hard, he made it real, it felt genuine. The essential appeal of Milch’s work is this notion that everyone has a place and can be accepted. The characters in Deadwood certainly suffer, but they all have a group of people to support them.

What of the characters? The most obvious parallels are where the same actors reoccur. Milch doesn’t cast them against type, Freddie the drug dealer is what Charlie Utter probably would have been in today’s world, associated with the same vagrant underclass. Same for Trixie and Jerri, she wouldn’t be a whore in the present day, but she has the same power. Obviously, these parallels aren’t the same thing as actually seeing the character arcs resolved, but if you want to understand where the series was going, just consider John a 130 year jump into the future.

It’s frustrating that a lot of people who loved Deadwood seemed reluctant to engage with JFC, when it was as close to a fourth season as we’re going to get. Milch’s new cop series for HBO probably won’t have the same sprawling ensemble cast, he’ll probably reign himself in a bit after two cancellations.

As for Deadwood itself, those final moments were full of tension and in some respects, certainty. The community has asserted itself, and Hearst leaves on their terms. I do think it’s a bit of an anticlimax, that he all of a sudden decides to leave, but I love when a show goes out on crazy tension, and this was like that. I would love to see the movies, but the show feels more about day to day life in a singular moment, and hopping through time to get ‘resolution’ for the characters might deprive us of the show’s real central character, the camp itself. I suppose my dream fanboy Milch project would be some kind of crossover between JFC and Deadwood, where characters hop through time and see the effects of 130 years ago on the present. But, I’ve probably been reading too much Crisis on Infinite Earths.

Top 20 TV Shows: Updated for 2007

In the midst of a golden age of television, it's time to update the list of my top 20 TV shows, made a year ago. There's been some changes, here's the new list:

1. Buffy the Vampire Slayer (Up 1)
2. Twin Peaks
3. Six Feet Under
4. The Sopranos
5. Cowboy Bebop
6. John From Cincinnati (New)
7. The Office (UK)
8. Angel
9. The X-Files
10. Freaks and Geeks
11. Arrested Development
12. Gilmore Girls
13. Battlestar Galactica
14. Babylon 5 (Up 2)
15. Friday Night Lights (New)
16. Seinfeld
17. Samurai Champloo
18. Deadwood (New)
19. 24
20. The Prisoner

Now, let me tell you why things have changed.

Bufy over Twin Peaks

I rewatched the whole of Twin Peaks after the second season DVD box set came out. It's still a brilliant show, with moments that are better than anything else to ever air on television. However, there were also some weak moments, and my overall impression of the series didn't match the feelings I had for Buffy. Buffy was the perfect blend of challenging intellectual content and just plain addictive storytelling. The best TV shows are like an addiction, you just need more, and never did I need more more than when I was watching Buffy seasons five and six. So, it ascends to position of best TV show of all time.

John From Cincinnati

Is it too soon to call it the sixth greatest show of all time? Perhaps, but right now, that's the way I feel. The show challenged me to think in new ways like no other show ever did before, and it also had wonderful character arcs. Great moments from the show, like John and Shaun's return from heaven in the last episode, were among the best TV moments of all time. I loved each episode so much, and watching it unfold was a joy.

Other New Shows

Friday Night Lights easily earned a spot, with a debut season that ranks among the best all time. It could easily go up another couple spots if the second seasons matches the first's quality. Already, I was debating putting it over B5, however, for now, B5 gets the edge. One of the tricky things about a list like this is choosing the criteria. Should I base the ranking on the show at its best, or an average of its whole run. Right now, I decided to go with my feeling about the show, which can be hurt by late season screwups. An average episode of Friday Night Lights is much better than an average B5, however, B5 has the scope of a five season story that FNL can't match just yet. The other new show is Deadwood, which is great, but not quite up there with the all time best shows.

So, that's the update for this year. Next year, I'll return and see what new shows are worthy of the list, and whether there's some shift among the old ones.

Why Comics Matter

Something I’ve been thinking about for a while is the odd coincidence that the two most forward thinking, outside the box writers in any medium, Grant Morrison and Alan Moore, both work in comics. I’m not saying they’re the best writers around today, though you could certainly make the case. It’s more that they are writing in a different way, engaging with bigger issues about the nature of humanity and the role of the artist in the world than other writers. I don’t think it’s so much that other writers aren’t capable of it, it’s that other media aren’t suited to deal with the kind of stories that Moore and Morrison like to tell, as film adaptations of Moore’s stuff clearly shows. Comics is a medium uniquely suited to conveying crazy ideas, for a number of reasons, both intrinsic to the medium and stemming from its culturally ostracized position.

Right now, few media have as little respect as comics. Sure, some alternative comics get respect, but the adjective comic book is generally used to refer to works that lack substance and are solely about action or thrills of the mindless variety. Now, a lot of comic books do lack substance and are worthy of the adjective, but they’re not any dumber than the vast majority of Hollywood films, just as formulaic and tethered to old concepts on an endless cycle of ‘reinvention.’ Plus, readers of comics, inherently referred to as ‘fans’ are considered socially inept and obsessively interested in pointless, bad stories. Again, this isn’t a wholly inaccurate characterization, but no one’s criticizing sports fans for being so interested in games that ultimately have no impact on their lives. Certain types of fandom are socially acceptable, others aren’t, that’s just the way things are.

Back in the French New Wave, a new generation of film directors sought to liberate film from its bourgeoisie concerns, this idea that a ‘quality cinema’ is one based around literary masterpieces and historical happenings. They put cinema on the streets, in the now and that led to a wonderful vitality and inventiveness wholly lacking in what was previously hailed as the pinnacle of cinematic achievement. The vast majority of works that are lauded in our culture are ones that stick to that same old bourgeois set of interests, socially relevant movies done in a classical style. Crash is a classic example of this, as are previous recent best picture winners like A Beautiful Mind or Million Dollar Baby. What do these movies really have to say? What do they contribute to our lives, to our dreams? Not much, they may entertain and emotionally engage, but they don’t really do anything more than tell a good story. That’s what most people want from their entertainment, and it’s a valid pursuit, but it’s far removed from what the best works of Morrison and Moore do.

The thing that the best comics, and even the bad ones, do is engage with ideas and craziness in a world that’s run more by imagination than the limits of reality. I’ve been reading the Kirby Fourth World Omnibus and loving it because even though there’s some clunky dialogue, every page has some crazy concept and each issue a series of mind blowing set pieces that just put a smile on your face for their sheer insanity. What Kirby has done in that book is immerse himself in a very different reality from our own, and by writing the crazy stuff as normal, he forces us, reading from our regular reality, to stretch our minds and move into this new world.

That’s one of the things I’ve always liked about stories, experiencing a world that’s different from our own. It’s a large part of what makes Star Wars so enduring, there’s no tires to our reality, we’re just dumped in a different world and figure it out as we go. So much fantasy and sci-fi stuff spends the entire movie explaining the rules of the universe, Star Wars just let you catch up as you go along. What makes superhero comics special is that Marvel and DC stuff all becomes a part of a pre-existing larger universe. We understand who Superman is and what he can do, and we also accept that this is a world where scientists can clone a whole bunch of tiny Jimmy Olsens and set them loose on Superman. The story’s own kinetic vitality allows us to make that jump and just enjoy it.

Movies are usually best remembered for their stories, book for their characters, I’d argue that comics is the medium of ideas. The combination of words and pictures is generally considered the ideal way to convey information to people. More than any other medium, comics are able to break down complex ideas into an easy to understand model. That’s why Moore chose Promethea as the medium to explain his version of the Kaballah, and why Morrison chose to process his abduction experience through The Invisibles, and in the process create a work that function as a whole new cosmology.

A large part of this is the control of time that the reader has in comics. In movies, the time we spend in any given moment is controlled by the filmmaker, in books, we pretty much read straight through at the same pace, but comics invite a variety of readings. You can zip through, reading the captions and glancing at the pictures, or spend a lot of time absorbing the detail of the art and thinking about things. In The Invisibles, I would frequently spend a half hour reading an issue, taking the time to process everything along the way. That’s longer than it would take me to read 22 pages of prose.

This gets to the core idea of what the best comics do, present compressed ideas that can expand in your mind after the read. Comics are at a major disadvantage next to other media. You’re paying $3 for roughly 15 minutes of entertainment, not a very good deal. Compare that to a 45 minute TV episode you get for free. Comics can’t be as good as TV, they have to be much, much better. I always find it odd that people would consider it praise to call a book like Gotham Central as good as Law and Order when it would take three months and $10 to get from Gotham Central what we could get for free from Law and Order. Comics can’t be as good as TV or movies, they have to be so much better that they overcome the cost of the material.

Reading a Morrison comic, the actual read is a small part of the process. With Seven Soldiers, I would read an issue, then write it up, ponder its significance to the overall meta narrative of the project, consider the themes it explored in relation to Morrison’s other work, and frequently flip through again after reading some online commentary. That comic made me think so much, it was clearly worth whatever I paid for it. It was more than just an adventure story, it was a concentrated assault of ideas that possessed my brain and forced me to think in new and different ways.

As much as I love the medium, no film or TV show has done what Morrison’s work or Moore’s work has done, and that’s completely alter my perception of the world. Both The Invisibles and Promethea focus heavily on the notion that fiction is just as powerful as reality. I had previously had a strict distinction between stories and reality, viewing movies as great entertainment, and even great art, but ultimately nothing more. After reading The Invisibles, I recognized the ability of fiction to dramatically change one’s perception of reality, of the characters to take on their own lives and reality. That view of fiction is something you rarely see in TV or movies. There’s stuff like Adaptation, which plays meta games, but nobody just throws meta stuff out there and then moves beyond it like Morrison and Moore do it in those two works.

Beyond that, comics just generally have a lot more freedom to indulge in craziness. There are surrealists in film, David Lynch comes to mind, but generally, he’s more interested in playing with mental perception and internal craziness. Comics in general don’t play structural games like he does, they just pile on weird stuff. As someone who’s been reading comics for a long time, it becomes easy to forget just how odd some of this stuff is. Claremont’s X-Men, the top selling book at the time, was full of just totally insane concepts ranging from the Phoenix itself to Storm being reincarnated in a space whale to the myriad alternate universes and odd characters.

This summer, John From Cincinnati was constantly maligned for its inexplicable odd characters and strange concepts. If you’d been reading comics for a long time, you’d just accept that John is weird, has some supernatural powers and can suddenly appear in their lives without notice. That’s a large part of why I loved the series so much, that it just kept piling on crazy ideas, that it really made you think. Like Morrison’s stuff, it’s a work that starts on the page, but really lives in your head. The works I really love are the ones that inspire a million different story ideas of my own. These kind of works are open ended, full of possibilities, and they can catch things in your life that inspire new ideas.

Ultimately, that’s why comics are important, because it’s the one medium where crazy ideas can flow and people just go along with it. Morrison is one of the best selling writers, but take this stuff out of comics and it’d all be avant grade. There’s something about these images on a page that frees people to deal with crazier stuff. Kirby’s stuff may be awkward at times, but it’s also a lot more exciting to read, and inspirational than a more ‘competent’ work like The Queen, or whatever work is a ‘quality’ film now. People who haven’t read comics aren’t as prepared to deal with odd ideas, and don’t have the same endless imagination that many comics readers do have. Sure, a lot of people end up just wanting to do the same superhero stories they read as a kid, but for others, like Morrison, like Darren Aronofsky, comics produce new ideas and exciting concepts that shape their creative output and open up new doors of perception.

In all the rush to do more realistic superhero takes, like Heroes, we’re losing some of the inherent craziness of the form. That’s what I hated about Batman Begins, the goal seemed to be to make becoming Batman a sensible decision when, in fact, dressing up as a bat and fighting crime is deranged and crazy. The best stories engaged with this nuttiness, and the attempt to make superhero movies and comics respectable leads to a loss of some of their best qualities. Morrison wrote Flex Mentallo as a manifesto, calling back the insanity to superhero comics, but now backed by the emotions of adulthood. That’s why his stories are the best out there, because they are simultaneously filled with the crazy adolescent inventiveness of the medium in its early days and very real emotional lives for the characters. Look at Flex or Zatanna and you’ll see exactly how comics, how stories, can be manically inventive and heartbreaking and joyous at the same time. Now, the other mediums just need to catch up and change what normal is in fiction.

The best comics force people to briefly visit a universe with different rules and different possibilities. If we can look at a fictional universe that way, it's not such a jump to think that our own reality can change and be filled with the same wonder of these stories.

Info Roundup

2 Days in Paris

I saw Julie Delpy's debut film a few days ago, a clear descendant of the Before duology. I have a lot of respect for Delpy as a writer and actress, but I think it was a mistake to make something that's so close to her career defining role. It's a pretty good movie, well shot and funny, but it never quite becomes anything more than just entertaining. There's a lot of indie movies like this, that are just sort of there, they have their moments, but don't become anything more. I prefer this to the contrived obviousness of a lot of mainstream Hollywood cinema, but indie really has become just as much a genre as action or sci-fi. I really enjoyed the movie, but it didn't stick with me in any meaningful way.

The New Yorker Festival

The New Yorker Festival lineup leaked a couple of days ago and it's quite well stocked. There's a panel on TV with David Milch and Ronald D. Moore among others, as well as a panel on superheroes with Grant Morrison. I went to Grant's signing last summer and it was an incredible experience, so I'm eager to hear him speak and hopefully get a chance to talk with him again. I'm also looking forward to seeing Milch speak, he's a phenomenal interview and will hopefully get the chance to go in depth on some John From Cincinnati stuff. I want to give the show some support, since I'd guess the vast majority of fan feedback he hears is asking for Deadwood to return. It's always frustrating when a challenging work like John From Cincinnati or Miami Vice fails to connect with an audience. It makes me fear that the artist isn't going to keep experimenting and will instead retreat back to something safer.

Upcoming Comics

I've got a whole bunch of comics in the queue to read. I'm almost through the first volume of Chris Claremont's X-Men: The End, a book I'll write more about once I finish the trade. It's a crazy mess, but has moments of genius. I'm just hoping the sheer amount of characters doesn't overwhelm the narrative. After that, I've got the first volume of Jack Kirby's Fourth World omnibus. Grant's introduction has me really psyched to check it out. I read the first trade of New Gods a while back, and liked it, though it is tough to adjust to the 70s writing style. Grant says Kirby was emitting ideas like gamma radiation at that time, a great metaphor for what the book is. The joy of it is the sheer assault of crazy concepts, something Morrison clearly picked up on. I'm hoping that reading the book will help me raise my game and get the creative juices even more flowing. One of the reasons I love comics as a medium is the unhinged nature of the reality. Fans are much more accepting of insanity than people in other mediums are, so the work ends up more creative and exciting. Nobody makes me think like Morrison and Moore do, nobody's throwing out as many ideas as Kirby is.

My New Project

Right now I'm working on developing an internet TV series based around some ideas similar to those crazy ones I was just mentioning. I've become so hooked on serialized storytelling and the way TV as a medium is able to develop ideas in a way that film just can't, so I wanted to do a project to take advantage of that, and it's easier to tackle a large scale story in small chunks. That's still a couple of months away from launch, but be on the lookout, I'll definitely post links here.

Saving John From Cincinnati

I don't think it's too likely to happen, but I just wanted to throw a link over to the DumpOut Weekend, an effort to save the series from cancellation, or at least promote it to people who haven't seen it. As you've probably gathered from the blogging here, I love the show, and I'd definitely recommend giving it a look to anyone who hasn't seen it. And, as this letter from Jim Beaver makes clear, Milch did not abandon Deadwood to make the show, he wanted to do both, but Deadwood was cancelled and could not be saved despite his best efforts. So, don't blame the show for Deadwood's death, just be happy that both shows had the chance to exist. I'm still working my way through Deadwood's second season and while I really like the show, it's nowhere near JFC for me. But, I'd still love to see those movies, and hope they turn up eventually.

Anyway, here's the info:

There are so many great ideas out there about what to do to show HBO that we want another season of JFC. So no matter what you choose to do, or where, let's all do SOMETHING between Friday August 31- Tuesday Sept 4.

Postcards, teddy bears, 1's and 0's (paper, house numbers, etc.), petitions, letters, phone calls, protests, sit-ins, monad posters, fliers, billboards... whatever, all during the same period of time.

And advertise what you are doing... Call your local papers and news stations and let them know about your Dumping-Out BBQ in the parking lot; your best John Monad impersonator contest, your Monad teddy bears for needy children... you get the idea...

BE CREATIVE!

And please, let's be visible but kind. Some things I know... Save John From Cincinnati

From: TheSnugHarborMotel.com Postcard Campaign
http://www.trishah.com/savejfc

John From Cincinnati: The End is Here

I was expecting it to happen, but it was still sad to see that John From Cincinnati has not been asked back for a second season. This may actually be the first HBO drama to not get a second year, and considering how fast this choice follows the finale, it doesn’t seem like HBO was laboring over the decision. I felt like the show was gone after the initial critical salvage, and the weak ratings for the premiere. HBO relies on a critical chorus to make their shows into something that people have to watch. In the absence of that, people didn’t have any reason to check the show out.

There’s a wide variety of reasons for the show’s failure to get a larger following, but ultimately, it all goes back to The Sopranos’ final moments. At 9:58 on June 10, Tony looked up, a screen went to black, and that show was over. People were furious, claiming that somehow they were “owed” an explanation, a “real” conclusion to the story. They apparently didn’t look at the rest of the episode, which resolved all the narrative issues of the season, as well as the lingering tension between Tony and Junior. No, life goes on wasn’t enough, they needed to hear exactly what happened.

I was wiped after the last Sopranos, and didn’t actually watch the John debut then, and I don’t think I’d have reacted well had I watched it immediately after the enigmatic final moments of The Sopranos. But, after a break, I saw episode one and enjoyed it. I never felt the show was anywhere near as impenetrable as people claimed it to be. There was weird stuff, but there were character and narrative hooks to keep you going through that. Not everything should be explained in the first episode of a show, and not everyone’s purpose need be immediately clear.

But, throughout the show’s life, I’ve read countless posts where people ask for answers, and wonder if everything will eventually be revealed. Considering the way Milch works, there’s not likely a master narrative plan in place, rather it’s a series of ideas that are developed through the characters. If you understand the central ideas he’s exploring, it’s not that tough to contextualize the “random” events of the show. Even when there’s not a clear narrative drive, the formation of community formed the backbone of the series and gave a thematic lens through which we could understand everything that happened.

Who is John, where did he come from and why is he here? Milch is only really interested in one question, the why. What does knowing exactly where John comes from tell you that you don’t already know about the show. He’s from some higher plane with a mission for us. That’s what matters, and I think that’s plenty to understand the show by.

But, I’ll admit that it’s a show that takes work. If you’re not willing to think about what you’re seeing and bring parts of yourself to the show, it’s not going to work. I love works that leave room for the viewer’s input. Hollywood filmmaking is all about tying up loose ends and leaving you with a perfect little box. This show is a mess at times, but it’s a mess you can get lost in, become a part of. Much like Grant Morrison’s work, the show needs you to fully realize it. It’s a starting point for the viewer to work from. We are like Dwayne and Jerri in the final episode, watching these events on a monitor, but also involved in them in some way. That’s the beauty of television, the way a world can emerge over time.

I’m probably going to go back and do a larger thematic wrapup, but for now, here’s a bunch of links that provide interesting reading on the series. Probably the most important is this interview with David Milch, conducted yesterday. He talks a lot about the show, the themes underlying it and the process he used to make it. It helped me fill in some gaps, and certainly gives a context for what we see on screen. But, this isn’t a case of us needing the explanation to understand the show, it’s all there if you look for it.

He says something really important here: “Whether we choose to or not is up to us, and so why surfers? Surfers are because my show - "Deadwood" was canceled, inexplicably to me. The suggestion was made to me, why don't you do a show about surfers? Young, masculine, that's the demographic. Can you do that and have it engage your own spirit? "John From Cincinnati."”

So many people were mad at the show for “replacing” Deadwood. Once and for all, this makes it clear that Deadwood was cancelled, it was stopped without his consent, and his choice was either make JFC or make nothing. The thing that baffles me is why HBO continually blurs the line here. I suspect their goal was to make the cancellation of Deadwood easier, by focusing on how Milch was moving onto other projects, but this backfired by alienating much of the Deadwood fanbase. Their recent comment that the Deadwood movies and a second season of JFC was an either or proposition was another huge PR mistake. If they really wanted to help the show, they should have said, great ratings for JFC would be the best way to get the Deadwood movies made, even if it was a lie. I get the feeling HBO’s current management had little love for JFC, and just wanted it to go away.

So, to everyone who keeps bitching about Deadwood’s cancellation and blaming JFC for it, that’s not the case. And, I’d argue that JFC is a far better show. It’s much more unconventional and intellectually challenging. I dug Deadwood, but JFC was working on a different level from practically everything else to ever air on TV.

Another great link to check out is the Inside the Episode features over at HBO.com. They give a lot of insight into Milch’s process, and provide transcripts of crucial scenes, like John’s speech.

To me, the show was a huge success, and I would have loved to see more, but I think it ended in a good place. I see this as the end of John’s initial mission, to save the Yosts. In the process, he created an army around him, people who will spread his message. That group that grew over the course of the series will go on to influence others and his change will gradually infect everyone’s mind. One could argue that the show has done the same thing, got these ideas out there where they can influence people, and now it’s up to us to keep pushing them. First step, does anyone know where I can get one of those Stinkweed shirts?

More to Come! A more analytical look at the series is in the works and will be up later this week, and thanks so much for all the positive blog comments, it's great to know there's other people out there who like the show and are engaging with it in the same way I am.

John From Cincinnati: 'His Visit: Day Nine' (1x10)

The season, and likely the show is over, and if this is the way we go out, I’m pretty satisfied. It’s a finale that resolves some central questions, but leaves us with a lot to talk about in the years to come. If the end of The Sopranos tells us anything, it’s that questions draw more attention than conclusions, and considering so much of the joy of the series is in its mystery, I’m glad we’re left with some things to ponder. I thought I had figured the whole show out last week, but this week left me with some open questions. Still, if you follow the basic thematic template of the season, most of what happened does make sense, and is a perfect thematic wrap up to what we’ve seen over the course of the season.

But, themes and complex ideas aside, the opening of this episode is pure filmic adrenaline, the real climax of the series and an absolutely exhilarating moment. We open in the clouds, music building, then slowly descend onto the water to reveal John and Shaun flying across the water. I really can’t say enough about how incredible that moment was, the entire opening sequence was complete joy and put a huge smile on my face.

From a narrative point of view, last episode was the darkness before this wonderful dawn. It was a test of faith and the three foremost believers: Kai, Butchie and Cass, all passed the test, waiting for John and Shaun to return and being rewarded by the vindication of their faith. This obviously has some Jesus parallels, but unlike Jesus, there seems to be no limit on Shaun and John’s return, their absence was not about suffering themselves, it was more about helping those around them to fully come together and work as a family and community.

Everything is restored and for the first time in a while, the whole family is reunited. Shaun says that it’s time to move out of his grandparents’ house, to be with Butchie and John. At the beginning of the series, Mitch and Cissy were constantly insulting Butchie for his failure to be there for Shaun. This came out most heavily after he didn’t show for the surfing contest where Shaun was injured. Cissy and Mitch take it as a criticism that Shaun would want to leave, but I think it’s more a reflection of Butchie’s growth.

It’s also significant if you view Shaun as part of the healing trinity, with John and Zippy. Butchie claimed that it was only the presence of Shaun that kept Mitch and Cissy from spiraling off the deep end. He was there to heal them, and now that work is done. The rift with his mother is healed and he can move along. Throughout, Shaun has been a healing and unifying force. We see this in his behavior with his mother, always being affectionate and opening the door for her to take a larger role in his life. The character frequently seems passive, but he is instigating a lot with Tina, and that has helped to heal her.

As I mentioned last week, one of the series’ essential themes, and the key to understanding this episode, is the notion that John is there to heal all the characters. They’re all carrying around past sins that have crippled them, and he is the catalyst for events that will allow them to move past the pain and reinvent their lives. In this episode, Cissy finally accepts Tina, and secures her a place in Shaun’s life. This helps her move beyond the guilt she felt for leaving Shaun so many years ago. It was the healing of Shaun that set this possibility in motion back in the second episode.

Concurrent with this, we’ve got the lengthy sequence where Linc interrogates John, and John tries his best to convey his father’s message. This is where things started to get a bit confusing for me, there are elements that I can’t reconcile, and may not be reconcilable with the material we’ve seen. After all, the show has not been cancelled, and Milch has to leave something open for a second season. But, a lot of what he says here does clear things up. The first line of his speech, repeated here, “If my words are yours, can you hear my father?” clicked for me when he said it. It builds on what Butchie and Kai were talking about last week, that he repeats what we say to represent concepts he doesn’t have words for. He uses our words to tell us about his father. That’s a central piece of knowledge to help understand what he’s doing throughout the series.

Much of this dialogue consisted of a revisiting of the speech, explaining some of what he said there. But, things are a bit more ambiguous when you consider what he says may actually mean other things. I’m particularly wondering about what Cass’s camera means. It could obviously refer to her camera, but is there a larger significance? The way I’m seeing it now is that Cass’s camera is a metatextual reference to the filming of the show. So much of the episode was shown from the perspective of her camera, and it was piped into the internet café in a way that was technically impossible.

In the café, Dwayne and Jerri are made into viewers of the exact same action we’re watching on TV. It would make sense to use Dwayne as an audience surrogate, for the viewers who are on the internet trying to figure out what’s going on. If Cass’s camera is the world of the show, then is Dwayne the fanbase surrounding it? Is the internet big because that’s where the show lives on and develops? One could easily interpret ‘his visit’ as a visit to us. Every week, we check in with John and these characters, existing on the fringe of their world, seeing it only through a camera, like Cass does here. She seems to have lost her own self and taken on another persona, something that would be possible once she’s aware that she is creating the world around her through her camera. Notably, all of the things that John said would happen in Cass’s camera in his speech, did happen on the show, in one way or another, supporting the notion that it’s a metatextual reference.

If we read things that way, does it explain who John’s father is? I don’t think Milch is breaking the fourth wall to say that he is the ‘Father’ who gives John words. That would reduce John’s mission to something that’s only relevant in their fictional world. I think the ‘Father’ is God, or at least some pure essence of goodness from which all things flow. John is his messenger, speaking for him without knowing exactly what words to use. The idea of his father having a father is a question you could ask about God, and is not something that’s easy to answer. If you read the scene as John being a messenger from God, then his inability to answer questions makes sense. That’s not something that our words are capable of doing, it’s an idea that’s bigger than any of us.

The greatest ambiguity of the episode for me is the nature of the car dealer. He speaks in the same way as John, using a lot of the same language. The implication is certainly made that this man could be John’s father, which would explain why John took them there to buy the car. The other explanation, and the one that I’d argue makes more sense is the notion that John’s message is spreading. Last week we heard other characters making reference to “big” and “huge” events. This could be symptomatic of a larger change, even people not directly connected to the family are speaking the way John does. During the parade sequence, the groundwork is certainly laid for an expansion of John’s message, and that seems like the most fertile ground for a potential second season.

One of the things I like about the episode is the way that it brings everyone together. Earlier, I assumed that Linc and Tina would pose a threat to Shaun, but it turns out that they, and Jake Ferris, are working in his best interest, just in a different way than the others. Linc’s exploitation of Butchie was the catalyst for all the Yosts’ problems at the start of the show. This is something he makes explicit in his speech. I was wondering why that speech was going on so long, and it wasn’t until after that I realized why. He had not faced up to being the source of so many problems, here he does, and he also hands over the company to John and the Yosts, letting them take control of their own destinies. We finally get that happy family tableau that was first glimpsed during the speech, things aren’t perfect, but they’re ok.

Tracking back a bit, the entire parade sequence was a bit out of nowhere, but fits with the oddness of the show. The best part is Bill’s outrage after he’s arrested while trying to coordinate traffic. The parade serves as a celebration of John’s message, and something of a coming out party for his agenda and the family in general. The critical thing here is the fact that Stinkweed has been turned into an engine for spreading John’s message. His symbol, the line and circle man, seems to be part of something larger. It is his sigil, and through it, he can spread his agenda.

Now, this may be projection, but I feel like the next step in John’s agenda if forming a kind of army to help spread his message. That’s the reason he comes back in fatigues, and also why there are the constant terrorism references when discussing his mission. Cissy continually refers to him as like a terrorist. It would make sense that God would send his own warrior to counter those who kill in his name, only instead of fighting with violence, he fights with love.

I think the show is largely centered around an examination of what it would be like if Jesus came to Earth today, and using that framework, it would make sense John would use a major corporation to spread his message. He converts his disciples, and by putting his logo on everything, he will help to spread the message. Last episode, we saw one stick man becoming two becoming many. That is what Stinkweed will do for John, rather than selling the bad boy image, they will sell the ultimate good.

The one misstep of this episode was the Freddie and Palaka storyline. While I’ve loved the constant character additions, at this point, we really didn’t need a lengthy scene with two people we hadn’t seen before. The storyline took up too much time, and didn’t feel as urgent or exuberant as the rest of the show. But, I do like the resolution, in which Freddie gets out of crime, inspired by the events he’s witnessed over the course of the series. That fits in perfectly with the themes of the series and the journey the character has gone on over the past few episodes.

The final scene of the episode has Bill finally confronting his demons and going upstairs for the first time since his wife’s death. It’s a wonderful scene, no one can do monologues like Ed O’Neil on this show, and it also marks the resolution of his character arc. This great pain he’s carrying around is finally on the way to being healed. His journey is similar to Barry’s, they must confront a space that horrifies them, and when they finally go in there, they realize it’s not so bad, and are free to move on with their lives. The return of Zippy is a wonderful moment, Bill had to prove he could do things without Zippy, and now that he’s succeeded, Zippy can return.

But, there’s still some major things to ponder. In the brief, 16mm style sequence, we get another voiceover from John that’s just baffling. I think the point is to give us a final blast of weird information to keep us pondering. The most odd thing is first, that Dr. Smith goes to Cincinnati and comes back twenty years younger. This raises a question about what Cincinnati is. When he returns from the water, John says that he came back from Cincinnati, and Shaun says that he only remembers what they wanted him to say. The opening sequence, and the logic of the show, suggests that Cincinnati is heaven, where John’s father resides. So, it’s possible that somehow Dr. Smith wound up there and came back younger. Smith was the first person to be dazzled by what happened to Shaun, and it would make sense that he would receive a special reward from John’s father.

The rest of the speech is as follows: “Cissy gets knocked up. She's bigger than Leona Helmsley. Earth puts Dickstein on retainer; Daphne keeps his head straight. Jerri meets a slew of new hairlips. My father forewalls (four walls?)Barry's bar. Dr. Smith trains Dwayne and Ramon. My father freelances in Cass' camera."

I’m not sure what the significance of Cissy gets knocked up is, but Leona Helmsley was renowned for being mean, so it would make sense to associate the character. Perhaps he’s saying that she has moved on and is now “bigger” than Leona, in the sense that she has more important priorities. I couldn’t tell you.

Earth puts Dickstein on retainer would seem to relate to his mindblowing, and just blowing, experience earlier in the episode. Something happened there, which ties back to a comment John made in the pilot about the significance of the lawyer getting a blowjob. So, he has been given a new path, the universe has spoken to him and put him to work. I’m not sure what forewalls, or four walls, means in this context. It’s a place where John’s father seems to have a major influence, but I couldn’t tell you what exactly is going on. Dr. Smith training Dwayne and Ramon would mean that both of them will work to help heal people.

The idea of his father freelancing in Cass’s camera is an interesting one. If we continue the metatextual reading, it’s arguable that his father could be appearing in various guises throughout the series. That would reinforce the idea of the car salesman as John’s father. What is definitely clear is the fact that God is present in various moments of the characters’ lives. That what Dr. Smith and Barry referred to last week, his ‘freelancing’ is what helped them to get the clinic and bar going, the “hallelujah chorus” that Smith referred to.

And what of Mitch’s levitation. I read online that it’s meant to be a metaphor for his distance from his family. It certainly works on that level, John made him to levitate to show how he’s losing touch, and at first, he wants them to leave, not pull him down. But, eventually Butchie and Shaun do, and the family is healed. I love the moment where they’re all united cracking on the guy who yelled at Tina a few episodes ago. I also love the fact that he returned, further tying the community together.

One more lingering enigma is the Chemist. He seems to be in touch with what’s going on, and when he stares out at the stadium thing, he knows that’s where the message is coming from. He’s the only one with the perspective to recognize what’s right in front of them all.

And at last, we come to the initially baffling final moment, a shot of Cass and John’s narration: “Mother of God CassKai.” Now, this is a tough one. John has equated Cass and Kai previously, as has Cass herself. I would argue that the reason he calls them the mother of God is that they are the first two women to follow his teaching. So, they will birth his God out into the world. We previously saw them equated during the end of last week’s episode, where they’re both watching Butchie out in the water, waiting for Shaun. They each have had contact with John and each have “seen God.” They are the people John confides in, and are best able to understand him. Each grow frustrated by him at some point, but ultimately are in awe of his abilities.

This episode shows John taking the first step in spreading his mission to a larger world. He has saved the Yosts, and they shall be his representatives, but the ones who had faith in him from the beginning were Butchie, Shaun, Cass and Kai. They are the core, and that is the reason that CassKai is the mother of God. That said, why is this the end of the show? We’ve spent so much time talking about John’s father, it would be logical to address the mother. Both have seen God, via John, so they shall carry him out into the world. He showed no one else that vision, they are special. And, it is through Cass’s camera that his word is spread out to us, the audience of viewers parallel to their universe.

From here, John will spread his message, and if there is another season, I’d imagine that will be the focus. After all, we are all one larger organism, and more people need to realize that. When they saw God, it was other people, so why not save the entire universe?

Will there be another season? I don’t know, I’d love to see it, but all we can do is hope. If this is the end, it went out on a fantastic note, and I feel satisfied with the ending. All the major plot and character threads are resolved, but the door is open for more. This series has been a masterpiece, leaving me in awe every week, and now that it has wrapped the season, I can confidently say this one of the best pieces of art to ever air on television, and I want to thank everyone involved in making it for bringing something so uniquely powerful to our world.