Fall TV 2014: My Picks

Ah, it's that time of year again. The temperatures are (finally) cooling off, kids are headed back to school, and a young-ish girl's mind turns to thoughts of the new Fall television season.

What? It's hormonal and all a perfectly normal part of development.

As usual there are a lot of new shows airing this Fall on the networks and I'm here to hopefully provide a little guidance as to what is looking good. Now, please bear in mind, I'm not one of those fancy paid tv critics who has access to advance pilots and press packets. Oh, no. Instead, my opinions are based solely on the descriptions I have read of the shows, who is starring in them, the "buzz" on the internet, and my gut. So basically, I am completely uninformed. Which in America makes me an expert!

And just so you know that I take this shit very seriously, here are my notes and viewing grid that I have compiled over the past few days:

The most impressive thing is actually that I have nice handwriting. 

So, here the 5 shows I am most looking forward to in the new Fall season (in no particular order):

Constantine: Friday nights at 10:00PM on NBC, premiere on 10/24 (oooh, right before Halloween!). 

From the NBC website: "Based on the wildly popular comic book series "Hellblazer" from DC Comics, seasoned demon hunter and master of the occult John Constantine (Matt Ryan, "Criminal Minds") is armed with a ferocious knowledge of the dark arts and a wickedly naughty wit. He fights the good fight - or at least he did. With his soul already damned to hell, he's decided to abandon his campaign against evil until a series of events thrusts him back into the fray, and he'll do whatever it takes to protect the innocent."

There has already been some controversy with the show, notably that the character isn't bisexual and doesn't smoke (since he is and does both in the comics), and some casting shake-ups, but the pilot has tested well with critics and the folks at Comic Con. Also, I really liked the movie (the one with the amazing Tilda Swinton and, oh yeah Keanu Reeves was in there too). This one just pushes all my fangirl buttons and I admit--I'm looking forward to it!

Sure, he's smoking hot...but he is supposed to be SMOKING.

Gotham: Monday nights at 8:00PM on FOX, premiere on 9/22. 

I'm not the only TV Slut excited about Gotham; Clovis has already laid claim to the recapping privileges. This shouldn't be a big surprise, he is a bit of a comic book nerd. That's right--this one is another comic book adaption, though it takes even more liberties than Constantine and The Flash (discussed below).

FOX says, "The good. The evil. The beginning. Everyone knows the name Commissioner Gordon. He is one of the crime world's greatest foes, a man whose reputation is synonymous with law and order. But what is known of Gordon's story and his rise from rookie detective to Police Commissioner? What did it take to navigate the multiple layers of corruption that secretly ruled Gotham City, the spawning ground of the world's most iconic villains? And what circumstances created them – the larger-than-life personas who would become Catwoman, The Penguin, The Riddler, Two-Face and The Joker? GOTHAM is an origin story of the great DC Comics Super-Villains and vigilantes, revealing an entirely new chapter that has never been told."

I am intrigued by the premise, and hey, it's got Jada Pinkett Smith as a mob boss. Baller. 

The Flash: Tuesday nights at 8:00PM on The CW.

Yes, it's ANOTHER comic book adaption! It really pays to have a successful comic book series these days. Literally. Anyhoodle, The Flash is a spin-off from Arrow (which has become one of my favorite action dramas) so I have high hopes. It also stars the adorable Grant Gustin (who guest starred on Arrow last year and was also delightful as an evil gay rival glee-clubber on Glee). Rumor has it we can also expect lots of crossovers with Arrow including Felicity--who was set-up as a love interest for Barry last season. 

CW's official description: "Barry Allen is a brilliant, driven and endearingly geeky CSI investigator, whose determination to uncover the truth about his mother’s strange death leads him to follow up on every unexplained urban legend and scientific advancement that comes along. Barry’s latest obsession is a cutting edge particle accelerator, created by visionary physicist Harrison Wells and his S.T.A.R. Labs team. However, something goes horribly wrong during the public unveiling, and when the devastating explosion causes a freak storm, many lives are lost and Barry is struck by lightning. After nine months in a coma, Barry awakens to find his life has changed once again – the accident has given him the power of super speed, granting him the ability to move through Central City like an unseen guardian angel. Barry has always had the heart of a hero and now he has the legs to match, but he quickly learns that being a superhero is not as easy as it seems -- and he can’t do it alone."

Jane the Virgin: Monday nights at 9:00PM on The CW, premiere on 10/13.

I know, I know, it's a terrible title. But this adaption of a Venezuelan telenovela has been getting a lot of positive buzz for months and the previews I've seen make it seem very Ugly Betty-esque. The description below doesn't really due the show any favors (it also sounds kind of terrible), but trust me on this one. It should be funny, entertaining, and seems like it has a good heart. 

The CW says: "When Jane Villanueva was a young girl, her grandmother, Alba, convinced her of two things: telenovelas are the highest form of entertainment, and women must protect their virginity at all costs. Now age 23, Jane is a driven young woman studying to become a teacher, nursing a dream to be a writer, and supporting herself with a job at a hot new Miami hotel. All of Jane’s meticulous life plans are turned upside down, however, when she sees her doctor for a routine check-up and is accidentally artificially inseminated with a specimen meant for the patient in the next room. Unbeknownst to her, the specimen belongs to Rafael, a reformed playboy and cancer survivor, who is not only the new owner of the hotel where Jane works but also a former summer crush of hers. A few weeks later, the unsuspecting Jane is faced with the most important decisions of her life. Will she continue with the pregnancy? How can she explain the situation to her fiancé and family? And what should she do about the wishes of the biological father, Rafael, and his scheming wife Petra?"

Oh, you cannot imagine how hard I would sue that doctor.

And....finally.....Z Nation: Friday nights at 10:00PM on SyFy, premiere on 9/12 (THIS FRIDAY!).

It's like The Walking Dead, except, you know, if things actually happened and people did more than just randomly walk around in the zombie-ridden world and then inexplicably decide to stand still for long periods of time without formulating any long term plans for their basic survival. Did I say that out loud? OH YES I DID. Basically, it will be The Walking Dead but not boring. At least, that's the hope!

From the SyFy website: "Z Nation starts three years after the zombie virus has gutted the country, a team of everyday heroes must transport the only known survivor of the plague from New York to California, where the last functioning viral lab waits for his blood. Although the antibodies he carries are the world’s last, best hope for a vaccine, he hides a dark secret that threatens them all. With humankind’s survival at stake, the ragtag band embarks on a journey of survival across three thousand miles of rusted-out post-apocalyptic America."

Z Nation also wins the "best tagline" contest this year.

Honorable mention for Gracepoint over on FOX, a remake of the astounding BBC series, Broadchurch.

Some random/interesting stats I pulled from my personalized tv viewing grid for the Fall:

--FOX and ABC are tied for the network I will watch most--I plan on viewing 8 shows on each network (including new and returning programs). 

--My busiest time slot is Tuesday between 9:00 and 10:00PM, there are 4 shows I want to watch! Agents of SHIELD, Supernatural, and New Girl/The Mindy Project. I think I am going to have to record SHIELD and the FOX comedies and then catch Supernatural on On Demand. Sorry, Jensen, but you know I still love you--though your show has been a bit long in the tooth for a while.

--There are 15 new shows I plan to give a try! But please bear in mind: even though I picked 15 new shows to watch, most of them won't make my cut after the first episode. And I will probably only choose about 3 to stick with through the entire season. 

And now it's your turn! Anything you are looking forward to seeing this Fall? If you need a good resource to plan your viewing schedule, check out TV Guide's website where they have a day-by-day viewing grid and a premiere calendar. 

Happy viewing!

But What Does It All Mean? AHS Season Two Wrap Up

American Horror Story: Asylum was certainly more ambitious than the show’s first season, now retroactively re-titled American Horror Story: Murder House. The scope of the story was bigger, the production values higher and the characters murkier. And while I personally felt like it wasn’t nearly as scary as the inaugural outing (more on that in a minute), I do think that the show made all the right strides toward developing not only as a series, but also in terms of being taken more seriously than just a gimmick-y horror show that changes stories whenever it gets bored.

Um.. think you've got a little something in your eye there, Sister... nope, still there...

Certainly a major theme of the season was misogyny is all its ugly forms. The repeated number of rapes in this season would have been laughable if it wasn’t disturbing. Lana bore the brunt of most of the anger against women, but Sister Jude saw her fair share as well. And poor Shelly could not have been a clearer message if she was wearing a neon sign instead of the drab jumper and mutation make-up she spent most of her time in. It’s tempting to chalk most of that up to “the times they lived in” and try to remember that this was a period show for the majority of this season, but it felt like more than that was going on. Just like it could be tempting to unravel all these threads into some kind of statement about religion or the Catholic church’s oppression of minorities, women, homosexuals and anyone it didn’t agree with, but then the corroborating evidence never seemed to arrive.

Which may well be the main takeaway of the season – the subplots that never really plotted. When aliens first showed up at the beginning of the very first episode, I was honestly not surprised. AHS is a series that will throw literally anything to the wall to see if it sticks, so aliens were actually almost quaintly conventional. But what did they do? We never got what they were after and we never learned anything about them other than that they apparently had nothing better to do with their time than muck about with Kit’s life. Likewise, why did Arden’s Nazi past matter so much if we never got anything for it other than the parallels between the Nazi internment camps and the Asylum itself and returning theme of the inmates, including those woods zombies, as chattel in either case?

I was legitimately creeped out by the second episode “Tricks and Treats” when the possessed boy was brought to the asylum for an exorcism. Exorcisms and possession scare the daylights out of me (blame my Catholic upbringing) and when I saw that demon possession was going to a component of this season, everything clicked for me. The 1960s was probably the last great era of Catholicism in the United States and so to pair that timeframe with a demonic possession story seemed inspired to me. But then, that pesky little devil never really did anything other than get the best one-liners and generally make Sister May Eunice one of the most fun characters to watch. Much like the aliens, it felt a little like the demon’s heart just wasn’t really into this story.

It leads to the question of what really is horror, especially on a television series? True to promises made last summer before the season aired, this season was completely ghost-less, a remarkable turnabout from the parade of endlessly horny poltergeists in Murder House.  Asylum’s horror was much more rooted in how frightening average, normal people can be all on their own, which is probably why the alien and possession subplots fell so flat and why watching Lana’s transition from Intrepid Girl Reporter to rag doll abusee to eventual Living Moral Ambiguity Machine was so interesting. The entire question gets summarized nicely in the end of course, as Sister Jude not-so-subtly reminds the viewers of the very Nietzsche-esque message of the season - when you stare into madness, madness stares back at you. 

Is it a mirror? Is it a reflection? Is it an album cover?

A final takeaway, though an obvious one, is that Jessica Lange continues to rock every single scene she finds herself in. I don’t know if an established career actress can ever legitimately be said to be the breakout star of a show, but if that’s possible than that’s what Lange has done in two seasons. Her award-winning depiction of Constance the fading southern belle was every bit as memorable as the harsh, demented but ultimately sympathetic Sister Jude. Given enough time, American Horror Story may be able to run an effective season without Lange, but thankfully it doesn’t have to just yet.

Speaking of which, it’s never too early to ponder what we might see from season three, premiering in just a scant seven months. Here’s what we know so far:

First, several veterans will be returning for the next season including Lange, Francis Conroy (Old Moira, the Angel of Death), Sarah Paulson (Lana), Evan Peters (Kit, Tate), Lily Rabe (Sister Mary Eunice) and Taissa Farminga who played Violet in season one. Kathy Bates (Misery) has also been announced as a main character based on someone who was apparently real. As is now practice for the show, creator Ryan Murphy says that he has dropped a hint as to next season’s story and location in this year’s episode “The Name Game”. Given the jukebox playing “I’ve Put A Spell On You”, speculation is leaning strongly toward witches being a theme next season. Murphy has also said that he wants to get back to the “evil glamour” aspect of the show, which bodes well not only for Jessica Lange never having to wear a habit again, but also serves as a possible hint itself.

Call yourselves warned, people. You’ve got seven months to stitch together your Pillow of Fear in preparation.

The Newsroom

I'm having a lot of trouble writing this review; I've thought about how to frame it all day yesterday. I think my big mistake was reading critic's reviews of The Newsroom before I actually watched it. Most of them were not kind, and so I went into the show expecting another debacle like Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip. You know what I mean: Sorkin basically using the show as a soap box on which to impress us all with his cleverness and instruct us on how to think like the benevolent god that he is.

Ok, that might be a little harsh, but it turns out that I actually enjoyed The Newsroom. It's definitely more The West Wing (and Sports Night) than Studio 60, which is to say that it's essentially about a small group of dedicated people who are out to change the world. Well, change America. Well, change Americans who watch late night news.

From HBO.com:

From the mind of Aaron Sorkin, creator of The West Wing and screenwriter of The Social Network and Moneyball, comes The Newsroom, a behind-the-scenes look at the people who make a nightly cable-news program. Focusing on a network anchor (played by Jeff Daniels), his new executive producer (Emily Mortimer), the newsroom staff (John Gallagher, Jr., Alison Pill, Thomas Sadoski, Olivia Munn, Dev Patel) and their boss (Sam Waterston), the series tracks their quixotic mission to do the news well in the face of corporate and commercial obstacles-not to mention their own personal entanglements.

Unfortunately, the show is loaded with plot points and characters that are obviously derivative of past Sorkin shows. But if you can get past the parallels to past programs, The Newsroom is an interesting and insanely well-acted show.

Jeff Daniels' news anchor, Will McAvoy, is known for being the "Jay Leno" of late night news, essentially because he is entirely unoffensive because he doesn't share his personal political views. Turns out he's actually a giant jerk though, which I don't know, I found kind of refreshing? I wouldn't say he is particularly likable, but for some reason I didn't mind that he yells, is disrespectful, and is ruled by his ego. Maybe because there is a strange sort of egalitarianism to his behavior; he may not be a nice guy but he treats everyone like shit so what do you think makes you so special? He is also, as it turns out, remarkably good at his job. But then so is everyone in this workplace. Just once in a Sorkin show I want there to be a character who shows up to work 2 hours late, naps at his desk, and spends the day surfing the internet. It would be like The Office meets every Frank Capra movie ever.

Sorkin's dialogue is, as ever, brilliant, whip-smart and whip-fast, and it's clear The Newsroom is a response to Americans' tendency to engage in discourse by yelling in each other faces. The characters in The Newsroom want to CHANGE THINGS and MAKE US BETTER. Remember the whole, "let Barlet be Bartlet" plot from The West Wing? It's like that except instead of working towards political goals, these folks are going to educate America and change the way they think. 

I think the best way to enjoy The Newsroom is to take it as optimistic theater; don't fool yourself into thinking this is a realistic look at the behind-the-scenes of a news show and try to check your cynicism at the door. I found myself engaging in some major eye-rolling (usually following some broad pronouncement about how they were like Don Quixote) but then I felt kind of bad about it. After all, what's so wrong about wanting to make a show about people who want to improve America? Am I really so jaded? And how much introspection can I cram into this review?

Long story short (too late), The Newsroom is clever, but it knows it. Still, at the end of the day, I was glued to the seat of my couch, I am excited about where the show is going, and there were some genuine surprises in the pilot. Oh, and the news show within a show? Is actually good. So already it's got one up on Studio 60.

The Newsroom airs Sunday nights at 10:00 on HBO. The first episode is available for viewing at HBO.com.

Cognitive Dissonance

There are some tv characters you love to hate. Remember Wilhelmina on Ugly Betty? Or Sylar from Heroes? Mr. Burns on The Simpsons, Victoria Grayson from Revenge....the list goes on and on. These characters are over-the-top, deliciously evil and oh how we delight in them.

And then there are some characters you just hate. They're not evil, they're not the villains, they are just...annoying, constantly make bad choices, and make you want to scream at the television. I suppose the best recent example is Ellis on Smash. Thank goodness he finally got his walking papers.

It's a real problem for a show when the main character is the one you loathe. For example, HBO's Girls. I hesitate to call the show "controversial" because it's that kind of bullshit made-up controversy that only exists on the internet. Because The People Who Blog About Television* always have their panties in a twist, and Girls seems to be a popular punching bag.

I discussed the first two episodes recently, and while I think the show has improved and become really interesting the past few weeks (note I did not say "entertaining,") the main character Hannah is a big problem for me. She pretty much encapsulates everything the critics have identified as flaws in the show: she's entitled, arrogant, privileged, and possesses a lack of self-awareness that is glaringly obvious to everyone but herself. I guess the point of the show will be her character's "journey" or whatever...but it's hard to root for someone when all I want to do is throw a shoe at her face.

"Sure, I wrote something really horrible about you, but if you had read the essay and it wasn't about you, do you think would've liked it? As a piece of writing, I mean."

But here's where I get the cognitive dissonance. As much as Hannah irritates me, there are certain aspects of her character that knock my socks off with awesomeness. And I don't know what to do or think as a result For example, she is obviously carrying around a few extra pounds, but she has no shame or embarrassment in whipping her clothes off for intimate encounters. In a recent episode when she was hooking up with a random dude in her Michigan home-town, his needing to be under the sheets before removing his clothes was clearly puzzling to her. I suppose a side-effect of her ego is a lack of shame, but for someone with body issues her ability to be comfortable in her own skin is astounding. She also summed up what I think most women are looking for in a relationship when she said, "I just want someone who wants to hang out all the time, thinks I'm the best person in the world, and wants to have sex with only me." You guys have no idea how much I related to that.

I read a really great interview the other day on Jezebel in their "Boys on Girls" column (where guys who watch the show Girls weigh in with thoughts) and the interviewee noted that Hannah is the kind of character that is "always saying the wrong things. Kind of selfish. Usually doing and saying the wrong thing that gets them in trouble, but they're so likeable, we let them get away with it." I'm not sure I would go so far as to call Hannah "likeable," but there's a certain something about her that just gets to me.

And here it is: for me, Hannah provides a double dose of uncomfortable, from both the negative and positive sides of her personality.  Her bad qualities are enough of a reflection of mine that I feel like a terrible person, whereas I also wish I could have more of her good qualities and therefore feel lacking.

At the end of the day, I guess Hannah makes me uncomfortable, because she seems so real. Her bad decisions feel like real bad decisions. The consequences feel like real consequences. And I want to throw a shoe at her because sometimes I want to throw a shoe at real people.

Hannah isn't one-note. And as a result, her character has resulted in a level of self-analysis that I was not expecting. If I may riff on the old Soviet Russia style of joke...in HBO, television series watch you.

*And yes, I realize the hypocrisy of mocking The People Who Blog About Television when really that's what all I do. But if we outlawed hypocrisy there would be no organized religion, political parties, or really any establishment and then we could all live happily ever after inside John Lennon's Imagine. Wait, what's the downside there?

In Which We Debate the Value of the Mytharc

The A.V. Club has an excellent article about the re-emergence of long-form storytelling in modern entertainment and whether or not that is a “good thing”.

Anyone who’s ever marathoned a new television show over a weekend, say while stuck in one’s apartment during an east coast blizzard that may or may not rhyme with “flomageddon”, knows that the lines between “episode” and “installment” can get pretty blurry. Having personally watched all of The Wire in such a fashion, I can recall everything that happened, but I can’t rightfully tell you which season it occurred in. You lose your sense of time, kind of like how taking a subway in a new city gives you absolutely no idea how big the place is or far away any particular landmark is from another one. So the argument that fitting everything into one bigger narrative can actually harm a show does potentially have some merit.

The most dreaded word known to TV-watching man?

This passage, in particular, I think summarizes how problematic the divide is between deciding between long-form and short-form storytelling on television:

Then there are shows that adhere to the USA network’s model of modern-day television “mythology.” These portray themselves as having a larger mystery at play, but really are procedurals covered in breadcrumbs. Shows like Burn Notice popularized this model, which soon spread to other USA shows and to other networks as well. The model: Any particular episode will have roughly 90 percent self-contained story. This works well and counters the trends listed above. But for some reason, these shows also feel the need to have a larger, ongoing story that serves as the spine for a season. Whether it’s Michael Westen seeking out those who burned him in Miami, Nick Burkhardt discovering his past on Grimm, or Rebecca Madsen investigating the reappearance of criminals on Alcatraz, these shows feature long-running arcs that usually harm, not help, their sturdy-if-bland lather/rinse/repeat episode structure. Rather than having the two dovetail, they often work against each other, producing uncomfortable friction as both sides seek to establish the same space.

For me, I rather like the serialized format. I would rather watch one 10-episode long season of a show that I liked where a full plot was promoted, engrossed and dealt with than a 22-episode long season where we just got a lot of filler. That said, my only addendum to this article is that I think the question of how serialized a show should be should depend largely on the kind of show it is. Serialized television works when there’s a big mystery or big issue to be developed and discovered. Sitcoms just don’t need that kind of grand scope. No one really needs to know the back story to understand that Ross and Rachel kind of have a thing for each other and are totally an OTP for suburban America.

In other words, the finale of The Sopranos may have instructed us to “don’t stop believing”, but the lesson may be that, for some shows, such belief should really only be ongoing for no more than three episodes at a time. Otherwise, you run the risk of just ending up with a mess on your hands.

Avenge me!