Category Archives: Television

A Most Disappointing Continuation

 

This contains spoilers for The Umbrella Academy season 2.

 

Last week I posted about how I dislike cliffhangers prompted by the season one cliffhanger from The Umbrella Academy, a series that I had very much enjoyed and found a non-ending frustrating.

I watched the season two opener and my reaction transformed from frustration to irritation. Season 1 centered on two major plot threads, an end of the world apocalypse in seven days and the secret behind Vanya’s lack of superpowers. They resolve when her powers induced the end of the world with the moon’s destruction but all of our central characters, including Vanya, escape into the past to continue their quest to save the world from the apocalypse they failed to prevent. Okay, the story’s not over and we continue this fight, right?

Wrong.

The characters are scattered from 1960 through 1963 Dallas, with 1963 being the time of an all-out Soviet invasion and nuclear war. Five, the character who brought scattered them through time, is informed that they had to stop this nuclear war and they have just ten days to do it and he’s plopped down in Dallas with that ten-day countdown. Oh, and Vanya’s forgotten who she is and what she can do.

So, the story has not resolved in any manner the central plot from season one but has recycled the plot into a ‘new’ apocalypse with another very limited window to prevent it and no actionable information and it has reset Vanya back to her starting position.

What the fuck kind of story telling is this?

I ant complete stories, not cheats and handwaving like a bad roleplay game adventure that suddenly changed gamemasters. Finish one story before starting another and when you do start another crib something other than the plot you failed to complete.

 

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I Dislike Cliffhangers

I Dislike Cliffhangers

 

Recently, that is over the last few weeks, a friend and I started watching the Netflix Original Series, The Umbrella Academy,a series about a set of people all born on the same day, collected/adopted by a wealthy mysterious eccentric mand and turned into a crime fighting superpowered group before internal dissention ripped them apart. Now, as adults the enhanced individuals must reunite, overcome their personal and interpersonal issues, solve the enigmatic death of the adopted father and oh save the world from an apocalypse coming in just seven days.

*Some spoilers ahead*

Overall, I have really enjoyed the show. The production values at top shelf, the performances perfectly walk that line between realistic believable characters and comic book excess, and the plotting moves along at a snappy pace while still taking time to explore who each of these characters really is. All in all, well worth the time to watch.

But.

Season one ends on a cliffhanger and I truly despise that.

Modern television seems to have become infected with the season cliffhanger from the cultural event that was ‘Who Shot JR?’ on Dallas back in the 80s and the disease has spread wide and far particularly into genre shows and with the advent of long-form storytelling it metastasized.

I have no issues with dangling out plot threads to be picked up and following seasons. That’s pure addictive junk food and should be encouraged but promising a resolution to a central story and at the last moment yanking it back like Lucy with the football is simply cruel, capricious, and crappy. If I have invested ten hours of my time, or my life, watching your art then at the end I want you freakin’ art to be complete.

Again, this is not a rant against the concept of series or a plea to return to the artificiality of solely episodic story telling. Pratchett’s Discworld novels are one of my beloved reads and each book builds upon the previous in its storyline, but each book is also whole and complete. When I finish one, I have been told a tale that has a beginning middle and an end.

An End.

Aye, there’s the rub. I have a strong opinion that the ending of a story is where the purpose and reason for the story exists. It is why we experienced the story to have that moment of catharsis or epiphany or loss that gives the tale its meaning and its power a cliffhanger robs the audience/reader of that promise and that release.

 

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Nordic Noir: The Bridge After Season One

 

My sweetie and I have completed watching Season One of The Bridge a Swedish/Danish co-production television series about a mastermind criminal operating in both countries.

I first posted about this series a month ago before we completed watching the season and I can now give a more complete opinion on the show.

The bottom line is I liked it.

What started out as a lot of unconnected threads all wove together into a single plot that was an impressive example of large-scale writing. The nuanced nature of the plotting would have been impossible in a feature film making this story only suitable for a novel or television.

The acting is all very good. Most of the actors were unknown to me except for Kim Bodina as the Danish detective Martin Rohde who played a major character in the fantastic series Killing Eve but for the most part Sofia Helin as Swedish sleuth Saga Noren carries the series.

While the words Autism or ‘On the Spectrum’ are never mentioned in season one it is quite clear that the writers, producers, directors, and actor Sofia Helin deliberately portrayed Saga as a person on the autism spectrum. Importantly that never made the characters divergent neurological nature a center of focus or some sort of superpower that allowed her to see things that others did not, which is so often the case for characters of the type in mystery fiction, but rather allowed her difference to simply exist as part of the constellation of character traits that defined her. Her co-workers and her partner Martin are very aware that Saga is different, but it is never used as an overly dramatic point of conflict or praise it is simply who she is. She is neither childlike nor a savant but allowed to be a complete adult female character.

Anytime you are dealing with a mastermind criminal character you are departing from a reality that matches our world. Moriarty doesn’t exist and if you go into The Bridge suspending disbelief for that sort of fiction it is an entertaining, dramatic, and emotional ride with a very satisfying conclusion.

Sadly The Bridge still is not available to stream in the US we are able to watch it because I have a region free Blu-ray player and my sweetie-wife bought the UK Blu-rays.

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WandaVision’s Warts

 

The Disney +’s initial excursion into Marvel Cinematic Universe based television has completed its first foray with the series finale of WandaVision the complicated and comedic continuation of the storylines for Wanda Maximoff and Vision beyond Infinity War and Endgame.

The series has garnered praise, fandom, and even a hit song and you can count me amongst its fans but the piece is also not without its flaws and missteps. So, with no restraint on spoilers let me illuminate some of the show not quite on target aspects.

Spoiler Region Ahead

To begin, the entire first episode is superfluous. A person could tune into episode two and not have missed anything at all critical to understand the arc of the series. While some have praised the comedic writing of that first episode it did not work for me so it has three strikes against it, 1) it is unnecessary 2) it is not funny, and 3) it has no stakes. Taking place in effectively a dream the problems presented in that initial episode have no weight. Before someone pops up and says that at that point, we didn’t know thew nature of the Hex or even its existence we didknow that Vision was dead and that Wanda is not a character from a 50s sit-com so the audience is already aware of the unreality of the events they are only unaware of the cause. It is dream storyline and those are very difficult to create with any sense of stakes, danger, or loss.

The progression of the sit-coms through the decades is unmotivated.

With each episode of WandaVision the sit-com dreamworld advances to mirror the stylistic nature of the next decade of television. While many of the homages to classic periods of tv were spot on in tone and look that changes themselves were unmotivated. The character’s watching from outside the Hex commented and questioned this aspect establishing it as a plot mystery that is never explained or resolved. While Wanda as a child adored American sit-coms of many decades it is never detailed why her own never fixed into a particular mode.

Wanda’s abuse of the people of Westview is dismissed far too lightly.

In the resolution of plot, it is revealed that unlike her assumptions that the residents of Westview have happy contented lives in her fantasy world they are actually in perpetual pain and their dreams are infused with Wanda’s nightmares. Wanda’s idyllic world had been a literal hell for everyone around her. It is true that Wanda never intended for that, Wanda never intended for any of it the creation of the Hex and its television inspired reality was a product of her unchained chaotic magic and overwhelming grief but when Wanda does release the spell, restoring the town while once again killing her love Vision the story’s emphasis is on Wanda’s loss and ‘sacrifice’ without and hint that Wanda feels any actual guilt over the agony she has forced others to endure for weeks. This was dismissed too glibly, and it undercuts the grief that series so well explored.

Much of these issues that I had could have been resolved at the script stage. I think an interesting possible approach would to have had each decade of sit-com fail Wanda’s escapism in some manner, double points if it fails in a manner that inherent to the nature of the programing and values of the time it was reflecting so that the decades changes as Wanda keeps, without being aware of it, running from her pain. Doing this in episode one would have set up the underpinnings of the entire series and kept that pilot from being essentially pointless.

Now, with all that said, I am still a fan of the series and have enjoyed watching it multiple times.

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Television Thoughts: Resident Alien

 

Confession: We do not have cable television in our home and have not had it for close to eight years. Everything my sweetie-wife and I watch is either streamed or on disc so when a new show premiers on a cable channel we either have to wait for its arrival on a streaming service or if it’s something we have high expectation of enjoying buying an entire season to stream. Which is what we did for SyFy Channel’s original series Resident Alien.

Resident Alien adapted from a comic book series by Peter Hogan and Steve Parkhouse stars Alan Tudyk as an alien who has come to Earth on a deadly mission but due to a mishap and crash has assumed the identity of Doctor Harry Vanderspeigle in the small, isolated community Patience Colorado and finds himself embroiled in murder investigations, family dramas, romantic entanglements, and the mission of a young boy to expose the truth of alien presence. The show is a mixture of comedy and drama with the balance clearly tilted towards the comedic as Patience is populated with an assortment of quirky, broadly sketched, farcical characters that live with one foot in realistic human emotions and the other firmly planted in broad comedy.

Tudyk is one of our best working comedic actors with a career that stretched from A Knights Tales, thru firefly/Serenity up to and past Rouge One: A Star Wars Story. He brings a real charm and sense of timing that carries the comedy off quite well and his choices in his performance particularly when we can compare it against his performance as the human version of the character are unique.

Mixing drama and comedy doesn’t work for everyone but in my opinion, it’s flying high here in Resident Alien.

Resident Alien airs on Syfy on Wednesday nights and is available to purchase from a number of platforms.

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Pedestals Are for Things Not People

 

With the flood of new support for Charisma Carpenter and Ray Fisher as they recount abusive and toxic environments on sets under the control of Joss Whedon it is important to remember that any artistic creator no matter how beloved their work are fallible flawed messy human beings not statuary icons of platonic virtue.

One can adore an artist’s work such as Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Harry Potter, or Chinatown and still recognized and condemn the creator for their actions or unjust philosophies.

It is equally justifiable to refuse to engage with their art if the offense is beyond a pale you can accept. That is a line that each person must determine for themselves.

Wherever you draw your personal line of embargo it is important long before that moment before the horrible revelations come to light that you do not place these people on the pedestals of adoration, that is where the art belongs, but always remind yourself that no matter the touching nature of their creations they people and that  good art can come from bad people.

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5 Quick Thoughts

 

1) My current Work in Progress novel is rapidly reaching the completion for the first draft. I am currently at 97 thousand words and the story is likely to land between 101 and 106 thousand, then onto the revisions.

2) Resident Alien the SciFi show on Syfy has been pretty entertaining. Quirky characters, fun premise, and a fantastic performance from Alan Tudyk as the extraterrestrial marooned on Earth and masquerading as a doctor is amazing.

3) A deep concern for all my friends and everyone in the massive state of Texas.

4) I get my second dose of the Pfizer vaccine on Monday and I urge everyone to get vaccinated as soon as they are able.

5) Ted Cruz once again displays that not only does have zero concern for the well-being of anyone not in a position to help him but that his intellectual capabilities are hamstrung by his selfish desires and wants. A competent villain would have used the crisis the forge a facade of ability and caring to propel them to greater political power but Cruz is incompetent as he is cruel and spineless.

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The Unused Gun

The Unused Gun

I am on twitter but not gifted with prose that is pithy or witty my tweets die lonely deaths in the vastness of the internet. That’s fine. I read and share a number of great tweets and threads so I get value from it.

Yesterday in response to C.C. Finlay’s tweet about Game of Thrones and how the ending was so botched it made him indifferent to re-watching the series I answered with a couple of tweets one of which actually got engagement- shocking.

In writing there is the concept of Chekov’s Gun, it had nothing to do with the fiery is miseducated officer of the Enterprise but rather the Russian playwright who advised that if there is a gun on the mantle in first act it must be fired by the third.

In Game of Thrones a great deal of narrative time and energy was consumed having young Arya Stark but one of the faceless men, assassins able to take on the appearance of others in order to complete their missions. The audience followed Arya through trials, tribulations, and near death as she acquired these skills. This is the gun on the mantel.

And yet at the end of the series this mystical ability played no part in the resolving of any major plot element. yes, it allowed Arya to get revenge on people and Houses that had wronged and betrayed her family but in the central plotlines of ‘Who will Rule Westeros?’ or ‘How will the Threat from the North Be overcome?’ the years training and leaning this talent proved worthless.

In their mad rush to complete the series the show runners trampled one of the most quoted and most valued pieces of writing advice and the gun stayed on the mantel.

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Streaming Review: The Dig

 

The Dig is a dramatization of the discovery of a 6th century burial ship on an English estate by a self-trained archaeologist, Basil Brown (Ralph Fiennes) and the estates owner the widow Edith Pretty (Carey Mulligan.) The movie details their struggles with acceptance, resistance from the accredited community, and deteriorating health all as England the world plunge into the cataclysmic horror of the Second World War.

This is a quiet, sedate, drama without anyone pulling a weapon or even raising their voice and it still crackled with tension as the characters faces trials and tribulations. It is a perfect example of that uniquely British style of drama that is motivated by class and manners, where the stakes are defines by expectations and the cost of defying them. In years past The Dig would have played to great success on the silver screen but not only due to the pandemic but also changing audience patterns niche channels and streaming services are now the home for this sort of dramatic fare. The truth of the matter is that fewer and fewer people are willing to pay more than twenty dollars a piece for non-spectacle cinema. That is not a slight on spectacle films but rather an acceptance that audiences have changed.

The performances in The Dig are superb. Fiennes adopts a Suffolk accent that is simply charming, Mulligan radiates sympathy a widowed wife facing not only the challenge of raising a son alone with also while dealing with a terrible condition all without ever devolving into maudlin pits of self-pity. The supporting cast is equally talented including Lilly James as a young archaeologist faced with sexism from academia and the horror that she has married the wrong man.

Cinematographer Mike Eley captures haunting and lovely images of the English country giving the fog a ghostly and timeless luminosity that feels as though it has passed through the centuries with the buried burial site.

Screenwriter Moira Buffini’s script shows a deft competence and subtilty that trusts the audience to understand the situation and the characters’ inner lives and motivations without needlessly wordy exposition.

Under the helm of Director Simon Stone all of these elements come together for a moving portrait of people and an age that has now passed.

The Dig is streaming on Netflix.

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WandaVision’s Critical Questions

 

We are now five episodes and on the eve of the sixth into Marvel Studios’ television project WandaVision and in my mind there a few essential mysterious questions propelling the plot. Naturally to even pose the questions is a bit of a spoiler so consider this lede your warning.

In No particular Order.

1) Who is Agnes? Other recurring and important residents of Westview NJ have been identified but on the big board Agnes still has no real-world identification. This coupled with her knowledge and acceptance of Wanda’s powers along with her ‘coincidental’ arrival at key plot points indicates she is a principally important piece of the puzzle.

2) Who or What are Wanda’s Children” It’s been established Wanda or the ‘Hex’ doesn’t created matter but rearranges it and the twins are real but like Agnes without real counterparts. Connecting question; Why are they immune to Wanda’s abilities?

3) What is the purpose of the broadcast’s commercials? In the four commercials all present elements key to Wanda’s backstory before the series. Stark Industries whose weapons killed her parents, Strucker who led the experiment that enhanced her and her twin brother, Hydra the organization that Struker served, and Lagos the site of her mishap that resulted in the death of Wakandans and helped initiate the Sokovian Accords regulating super powered individuals.

4) When ‘Norm’ temporarily freed of the Hex’s influence begs Vision to stop ‘her’ who is ‘her?’ A casual interpretation would be Wanda but the using only a pronoun is a classic way to mask the actual identity.

5) What was SWORD doing with Vision’s corpse? In episode five security records show Wanda stealing Vision’s corpse from a SWORD facility but it was clear that the corpse was not merely in storage but being subjecting to study and or tests. In the comics SWORD stands for Sentient World Observation Response Division but in the Cinematic Universe World has been replaced with Weapon and I can think of only three such ‘items’ in the MCU, AIDA from season 4 of Agents of Shield, Ultron from Avengers: Age of Ultron, and Vision. Of that list all have been destroyed but one has been in some matter returned to functionality, Vision.

6) Why is SWORD Director Hayward so intent of presenting Wanda as a terrorist and willing to move to lethal force so quickly?

So, these are the questions I think are essential elements to the final resolution of the series and the answers will determine if the story works or fails.

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