The Superb Owl

Hey, did you know that Super Bowl XLVIII was last week? Yeah, neither did Denver, apparently.

Look, no one thought that this game was going to be some down-to-the-wire, last minute Hail Mary kind of game, but it’s safe to say that no one also expected…that. A game that should have at least been a bit of a give and take quickly descended into a lopsided three and a half-hour long slugfest where Denver could barely manage to find its footing and Seattle somehow came out looking like an actual pro football team. 

Some games are won not because the underdog team did better, but because the favored team just couldn’t pull it together. This was not one of those games. Right from the start, Seattle ran roughshod all over Denver.  It’s worth mentioning that Seattle were the Super Bowl virgins in this game – not only has the franchise never been to the Super Bowl, but no individual member of the current Seattle Seahawks roster has ever played on a team that’s competed in the Big Game. Compare that with Denver, the older more experienced team that has not only a franchise history but also individual players with several rings in their possession. In Elite parlance, “It wasn’t supposed to go this way.”

Ouch...

To wit: the final score was a crushing Seattle 43 to Denver 8. Denver couldn’t even manage to get on the board until the end of the third quarter, quite the feat considering that Denver’s quarterback is the much ballyhooed Peyton Manning, a man who by himself has five MVPs and a Super Bowl win under his belt coming into the game to say noting of the fact that his family is genetically incapable of producing failures. (See: Manning, Eli; Manning, Taryn; and Manning, Archie; to say nothing of Manning, Cooper.) And yet, somehow during Denver’s opening drive, we got this:

Whaaaaaa?

That was essentially the first play of the game - a miscue whereby the QB fails to connect with his own snap leading to a ball flying so far over his shoulder that the first score of the game came less than 12 seconds in and was a safety awarded to Seattle on Denver's drive. It’s fair to say that Denver never truly recovered. In fact, by the first play of the second half where Seattle, already significantly ahead, managed a return from its own territory to secure yet another touchdown, the majority of the country was ready to turn off the Super Bowl to see what was going on over at Downtown Abbey. You hear that, England? America has given up its national pastime in order to see what your turgid melodrama is up to. Clearly, we’ve ceded the culture war to you. Well done, Queen Elizabeth. Regardless of how bored viewers were with the rapidly descending thrill of the game, you have to at least credit Denver with trying to put together something that would qualify as entertaining. They finally managed to score at the end of the third quarter, thus by at least ensuring that they wouldn’t be completely shut out of a game against a bunch of neophytes led by a Quarterback that is barely old enough to buy beer legally.

"Mom says if throw for more than 100 yards I get an ice cream before we go home."

As I’ve written about several times before, the Super Bowl is far less about sports than it is about entertainment. It is to the regular season what Glee is to a Ken Burns documentary on PBS. That’s part of the reason why advertisers pay so much to get an overblown commercial on that airtime – it is, in theory at least, one of the most entertainment-driven nights on television of the year. The worst sin that a Super Bowl can commit is to be boring and, unfortunately, that’s what we got this year, though I suspect Seattle folk found that boredom more bearable than their Denver counterparts did. Still, the job of the Super Bowl is to keep people watching and to provide a active night of television. To quote a tweet from a friend of mine, “Sucks to be the company that bought a fourth quarter ad this year.”

As it is, the most entertaining thing about Super Bowl 48 is the aftermath. There are so many pundits at the “What It All Means For Peyton Manning” Club that they’re going to start running out of beer soon. If it’s a truism that the Super Bowl needs to be entertaining, it’s equally true that for all the love that we as a country generally have for the Manning family, there’s nothing we like more than watching giants fall.  Whether or not Super Bowl 48 marks the end of a long and celebrated career for Manning (personally I think we’ve still got him around for a few years, but he’s veering dangerously toward Brett Favre territory here), the most exciting thing to see right now in this Super Bowl aftermath is the talking about it. 

Careful, Peyton - the Manning family eats their own weak in order to purify their powers. 

I Don't Want His Juice. I Want MY Juice. MY JUICE.

Sorry about the delay in updating you good folks on the progress of our pilgrims on Mad Men. Imma gonna do what the celebs do and plead exhaustion.

As you may already be aware, the big bombshells for last week week were that Troutshorts is gay, and that Sally Draper is going to be needing even more therapy than previously anticipated.

Dafuq?

Bob Benson revealed a secret love for Pete Campbell (really? seriously? Pete?),  ending WEEKS  of speculation about whether or not he is gay. Still unexplained is why any man in his right mind would look at the trout shorts and think he could wear them in public. Well, it was the 60s. Everyone was dropping acid. The trout shorts have really made me question Bob Benson's judgement, so maybe it shouldn't be too shocked that he has the hots for Pete. Haha. Pete. Hahahaha. His life sucks so much. Anyway, yes. Troutshorts = gay. Suffice it to say that Clovis has better gaydar than I do. I probably owe him a pint.

I'll begin by recapping last week's episode just in case anyone has been living under a rock, and stay tuned for a recap of this week's episode. Which I have yet to watch. SO NO SPOILERS. 

So last week, in the episode "Favors" (snort), my Time Warner Cable says, and I quote, "Betty makes plans for Sally's future; Peggy faces trouble at home." I think by "trouble at home," they mean Peggy maims a rat and offers Stan sex in exchange for killing it. So, way to knock it out of the park, Time Warner. 

Seriously, Peggy is afraid of rats.

Don walks into his office and Roger is raiding his bar. Should he be at all surprised by this? I'm not. 

You're all out of gin.

Don and Roger are in with Sunkist and Roger learns to juggle oranges. Look at you, Roger. You've inadvertently found a purpose in life.

In Pete's mom is dressed like Jackie O. hawking Pepto-Bismal news, Pete's mom shows up at the office with her new nurse, Manolo (Blahnik?) whom Pete has hired upon the recommendation of Troutshorts. Pete is rocking some 70s sideburns and is annoyed that MOTHER has shown up at his his place of employment. Pete takes Manolo into his office and Peggy has THE MOST AWKWARD CONVERSATION EVER (and that is saying a lot) with MOTHER. You think, "Omg. Omg. Omg does she know?" and then MOTHER tells Peggy she should work things out with Pete, for the sake of their child! And you're like OMG SHE KNOWS! Then, you realize that it's just MOTHER's dementia talking and MOTHER has gotten Peggy confused with Trudy.

Oopsie. Tea?

Now, tell me, dear. Are you the estranged wife or the one he impregnated?

Over at the Francis home, Betty's sucking on a cancer stick and yelling at Sally because Betty has found out from Julie's mom that Julie and Sally are the only girls signed up for the model UN team. Of course they are. Has Betty not noticed it is 1968? Betty doesn't want Sally alone with all of those boys, and Sally asks to stay with Don and Megan, because Don, unlike Betty, doesn't just think Sally is a pain in the ass. Well, he thinks she's a cockblock, but we'll come to that later.

Speaking of people Don probably shouldn't have had sex with, Don meets Mitchell, Sylvia and Arnold's son. Mitchell's paid a surprise visit to Megan because Mitch has gotten himself into a passel o' trouble. A. Passel. Kid's in school, but he sent back his draft card in protest. Like WTF. Now he's 1-A.  Mitchell was asking Megan if she could help him run to Canada, but Don tells Megan that it's not their problem.

In other ill advised decision making news, Ted's getting hammered with Pete and Peggy before he flies them back to New York. I choose to believe that this entire scene was an outtake and this is how Elisabeth Moss and Vincent Kartheiser interact in real life because it was prosh. 

So, Peggy. I don't suppose you'd...No? No. Okay. Just thought I'd ask.

Pete picks up on the sexy tension between Ted and Peggy and Pete figures Peggy's just screwing Ted. Peggy denies it and moves on to MOTHER having told Peggy that Manolo has been giving her (MOTHER) about twenty big ones a day and the thought completely grosses Pete out. Peggy thinks it's just a delusion on MOTHER's part, but Pete isn't so sure. MOTHER better not be having more sex than he is. 

The doorbell rings and oh, crap, it's Arnie. Don takes Arnie to a bar so he can commiserate, and Arnie confesses that something has been "off" with his relationship with Sylvia. Ha! Don asks Arnie if he has any connections, and they talk about their service in Korea. Don served in Korea, but he's against Vietnam and tells Arnie as much. 

Ted's wife is angry because Ted hasn't been home to spend time with his family. Ted's wife seems a lot more human in this interchange and isn't just the harpy she appeared to be when we first met her in the MLK episode.

Don pulls Pete into his office and asks Pete if he still has a contact at the Department of Defense. Pete's contact left for Union-Carbine, and Don asks Pete if he knows anyone who can really pull strings. Pete reminds Don that's he having dinner with GM, so he should ask them. Pete reveals to Roger and Don that he's been working on an Ocean Spray account, and this undermines Don and Roger's plan to reel in Sunkist.

To be fair, this WAS Roger's original promo idea. 

Ted comes out of the conference room and wants to know if we are having this meeting? Are we having this meeting? Are we having this meeting? Ted wants to know why Don didn't tell Ted that Don told Harry Crane to put together a prospectus for Sunkist, while Ted has been having Pete court Ocean Spray. Ted wants to know why Don hasn't been following the memos. There's been a series of memos. 

Read your effing memos, people!

This leads Ted to fling himself dramatically on the couch and whine to Cutler about how he doesn't want Don's juice. He wants HIS juice, not Don's juice. Ted's juice. He just wants to avoid a urinary tract infection. That's all!

In this can't end well news, Mitchell Rosen has raided the Jackson 5's wardrobe and, thus finished, he is standing in the foyer of his parents' apartment building. Sally walks in, accompanied by her boy crazy friend, Julie. Mitchell says he would be down for some fun statutory times. Wait. They're, like, 14. Mitchell is 19. Ummmm... Anyway, Sylvia comes downstairs and yells at Mitchell for not calling a cab, and he sulks off with  his mom, giving the audience a full view of the Donny Osmondness of this ensemble he's got on.

So, what's the limit of what we can do that won't get me thrown in jail?

Anyway, Julie's in luv.

Mitchell Rosen, circa 1998.

Speaking of inappropriate sexual advances, MOTHER is supposed to have a nice dinner with Petey and then she has to go and ruin it all by talking to Pete about the heights of Nirvana to which Manolo has been taking her dusty lady bits. I think anyone watching at this point has figured out that Manolo is probably gay and that's probably how he knows Troutshorts, but poor MOTHER is firm in her delusions about Manolo's love stick. Pete tells her he's disgusted and that's when MOTHER tells Pete what we've always known to be true: That MOTHER is disappointed in Pete. She tells Pete that he was a sour little boy and he's grown into a sour little man (tru dat) and then she wanders off into the night. And Pete just lets her go.  Pete confronts Troutshorts about Manolo and tells Troutshorts that Manolo has to go. Troutshorts reveals to Pete that Manolo's interests lie elsewhere...ahem...and...so...do Troutshorts' interest. His interests lie with Pete. Yes, Pete. Out of all the men in that office. Troutshorts likes Pete. That's what.

In awkward dinner conversation news, Don makes thing REALLY awkward at the Chevy dinner by bringing up Mitchell Rosen, even after the other partners have already broken the ice.

Cutler: Well, you should go to Florida. Saltwater. Down off the keys where the marlin run.

Ted: Write your own Hemingway story.

Roger: If you don't catch anything, you have to blow your brains out. 

Too soon?

You see, these good ole boys at GM are in support of the war, and they don't like this here talk about no draft dodgin'. Wrong move, Draper. 

Am really going to need my teddy bear after tonight. 

So, over in Sally's room, Sally and Julie are writing all the stuff they like about Mitchell on a piece of paper. We really do stuff like this when we're fourteen, fellas. No joke. You think it's just a harmless bit of fun, but Julie signs Sally's name to the letter and volunteers to "take the trash out" the next morning. She sneaks over to the Rosens' apartment and leaves it for Mitchell.

Over at Peggy's, the aforementioned rat has fallen victim to Peggy's trap, and, sans male to rescue her, Peggy calls Stan and basically tells him she'll sleep with him if he comes over and takes care of the rat for her. You were hitting on me five episodes ago, remember? Stan's actually in bed with someone and he sleepily tells Peggy that he's not coming over and that she has to deal with it herself. Peggy's not our poster girl for feminism in this episode.

At SC&P, Ted is livid that Don horned in on Chevy and made them uncomfortable at the dinner.   Ted calms down a little when he realizes Don seems sincere about helping Mitchell, and Ted reveals a contact with a brigadier general in the International Guard. Ted says he'll help if Don backs off and stops going behind Ted's back and stops chasing Sunkist.

Mmmm. Cranberries.

Deal thus brokered with Ted, Don calls the Rosens', ostensibly hoping to reach Arnie. Buuut, he has to know who is most likely to answer the phone in the middle of the morning, and he reaches Sylvia instead. Thus it all makes sense. Don awkwardly tells Sylvia what he might be able to work out for Mitchell. Sylvia apologizes for being cold to Don, and tells him she was just "frustrated" with him. Hello? HE LOCKED YOU IN A HOTEL ROOM. Okay, Sylvia. Anyway. She's grateful. Really, really grateful. 

Julie and Sally get into the cab to go to the model UN, and that's where Julie tells Sally what she's done. Sally is like, "SHIT!" and books over to the apartment building, but she's forgotten her key again. She gets the keys from the doorman, and runs upstairs. She's relieved to find the letter still on the counter, but then she hears some...noises...and whispers...and THENOMGSHESEESDONHAVINGALLKINDSOFSEXWITHSYLVIAOMGOMGOMG. 

Sally runs out of the building and Don tries to chase after her, but she's already gotten into a cab. Later that night, the Rosens arrive and personally thank Don for all he's doing for Mitchell. Sally starts yelling about how she's disgusted with Don, and Don tries to mansplain why she caught him banging the neighbor chick, and Don tells her that Sylvia was upset and he was comforting her. Yes. That's what.  Yes he wanted to comfort her. With his penis. So, as if Sally weren't already going to be in therapy for the rest of her life, she's probably going to go from three sessions a week to four.

Bottom line, parents: Do not have or talk about having sex in front of your unfortunate offspring.

In sad, sad singleton news, Pete schleps home after a day of professional and personal humiliation and pours himself some cereal for dinner. We all knew that  Peggy was going to make some cat very happy one day, and she's taken in an orange tabby. D'awww. Ted's not going to be leaving his wife and family for her anytime soon, so sometimes it's just best to accept one's fate and get oneself a feline. 

Hope you enjoyed my ranting and raving. The recap of this past Sunday's episode to arrive posthaste. Ta! 

The Night the Lights Went Out in New Orleans: Super Bowl XLVII Reviewed

Okay, seriously, so was that a Super Bowl or was that a Super Bowl? Amirite?! Fresh off the news, confirmed this morning by CBS, that Super Bowl XLVII was the most watch Super Bowl in history (which, frankly, owes part of its distinction to the fact that the power outage which I’ll talk more about in a second pushed the airing into Prime Time on the west coast) this was honestly several hours of good television.

For those not inclined to read about football, you can jump ahead four paragraphs where I talk about the commercials. See you there.

It didn’t look like it was always going to be thus. The Baltimore Ravens dominated the game for the entire first half, going into the halftime show up 21-6 over the San Francisco 49ers. San Francisco’s only points came from kicks, not even making it into the end zone until more than midway through the third quarter. The second half began with Baltimore receiving the opening kick and then instantly running the return down the field for 109 yards into the end zone and bringing the score to 28-6. For a game that was not supposed to be a route, it was shaping up to be one.

And then! AND THEN! Even folk who don’t watch football know what happened next – a power outage caused the field to go “dark” for more than 30 minutes. While TV stations vamped, players tried to throw the ball around just to stay loose and Twitter utterly exploded, someone somewhere was likely having a major coronary just trying to figure out how to get the power back on. All the progress that the city of New Orleans was hoping to show they had made since the last time the entire country stared breathlessly at the Superdome under much different circumstances suddenly was in danger of being brought out for another round of collective cultural hand-wringing.

The Good Times, they did not roll.

Nonetheless, come back on it did, but it may as well have illuminated an entirely different game. “Momentum”, that frankly mythical yet somehow strangely present fuel that every game seems to run on had completely shifted. Baltimore was no longer running literal rings around San Francisco and the 49ers delivered 17 un-answered points to bring the game to 28-23 at the end of the third quarter. With only 15 minutes of play left, we suddenly had a real game.

I’ve written before that the point of the Super Bowl is to be flashy – it’s not about grinding away on the gears of good ball, it’s about dazzling all the corporate sponsors and creating some pizzazz. In that way, the final quarter lived up to its hype. The score was tight, the plays energetic. Each drive literally could change the outcome of the game and with the clock dwindling, it seemed like anything could happen. In the final minute and a half of play, Baltimore managed to stop San Francisco from getting into the end zone and retained their lead only barely, 34-29 despite a block that many 49ers fans saw as an illegal hold. With few tactical options, Baltimore allowed San Francisco to score an additional three points (complication reason – for the uninitiated, let’s just say it was because the move ate up valuable time) in the hopes of punting a final return with only 8 seconds left, believing that their defense would be able to stop San Francisco from accomplishing what Baltimore themselves did only two quarters earlier. It was a gamble that paid off and Baltimore won the Super Bowl for only the second time, defeating a team that had yet to lose a Super Bowl game it played in.

ATTENTION NON-FOOTBALL FANS! YOU CAN START READING HERE!

So yes, the game was exciting, but we all know that the commercials are a vital component. (Oh yeah, Beyoncé was there for something, too.) It was the usual mixed bag, of course, with a surprisingly touching Clydesdale commercial forming among the best of the offering and unfortunately having to mix it up with the insulting, juvenile worst. (I’m speaking of pretty much anything put together by the GoDaddy.com team.) 

However, the most effective advertisement for a product wasn’t any of the glossy, high concept live action clips that interrupted the game every few minutes – it was this pitch-perfect, utterly timely Oreo ad that you would have only seen if you happened to be on Twitter or Facebook while the game was playing. Or you are now like the rest of the world and have seen retweeted and liked a million times over.

Simple in design, epic in scope. Also, damn. Now I'm hungry.

Whole marketing graduate theses are going to be written about how Oreo got their ad up and into the public consciousness without even paying money for it and in such a way as to make everyone remember the product. And don’t laugh – that’s pretty hard to do. Think about all the commercials you saw last night – how many of them do you remember what they were schilling for?

The blackout alone will ensure that this Super Bowl gets mentioned in highlight reels for the next fifty years, but even if you weren't the type of person to enjoy watching the game, you still likely found something that was entertaining beyond talking with fellow party-goers over the crab dip. Until next year, then! Only 212 days until the start of football season!

New Year, same old crap.

Happy New Year, gentle readers! I hope you had a fun and safe New Years Eve and are ready for 2013. Because ready or not it's here, so strap on your seat belts and let's get ready for a new year of entertainment!

....except there isn't much happening right now. We're still in winter hiatus which means TV right over the holidays was pretty lame. The lone bright stop on the horizon is the return of Downton Abbey on PBS on Sunday (check local listings), but other than that I've been relying on my Netflix instant queue.

Sidenote: did you know that The West Wing is now available for instant watch? According to Facebook, a lot of my friends are just now discovering the show or the first time. My response to this is "WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU, PEOPLE?"

But until our beloved shows return with new content, I'm spending my time catching up on Gossip Girl and only a few episodes until I reach the end of the series (which only aired a few months ago). This show has a remarkable ability to make me feel simultaneously terrible about my life--why don't I have all these elaborate schemes and romantic entanglements??--and also awesome about my life--thank GOD I don't have all these elaborate schemes and romantic entanglements.

I hope you all are ready to get back in the swing of things and Happy New Year! Good luck remembering to write 2013 on all your checks.

What's Next?

Remember when we talked last week about how it was winter hiatus? You'll be happy to know that the DVR managed to make it back to 5% (I haven't had a chance to watch the last American Horror Story: Asylum episode yet). But there still isn't a lot going on in tv land and you've probably noticed there haven't been a lot of posts on the blog either. In fact, one third of the TV sluts staff (meaning one person) are already out of town.

So what is there to do when the winter blues take hold? Look forward to the returning shows in the new year, of course! Over at Television Without Pity, they've got a breakdown of when all your new faves are returning. Here are some of the highlights.

Merlin: January 4 at 10pm on Syfy--It's the final season for everyone's favorite boy sorcerer, and things have changed around Camelot. Arthur is (finally) King, Gwen is (finally) Queen, and hopefully we'll finally get the big show-down between Merlin and Morgana that we've been waiting for since she first went all Dark Side.

Downton Abbey: January 6 at 9pm on PBS--OMG YES! Sure, the second season was a bit lack-luster, but the Christmas episode more than made up for it. I am sure those writers will come up with some wacky plot developments to keep Mary and Matthew apart, but Shirley MacLaine going up against Maggie Smith? SOLD. Oh, but I couldn't give two shits about Anna and Bates anymore.

Justified: January 8 at 10pm on FX: Last season was so awesome and twisty I can't wait to see what everyone's favorite US Marshall gets up to next. I plan to break out the cowboy hat and moonshine and watch Timothy Olyphant swagger his cute little bow legs across my tv screen every week.

Face Off: Janaury 15 at 9pm on SyFy--I feel like I am kind of shouting into the wind on this one. It's my favorite reality competition show and very year I am blown away by the creativity and awesomness of the challenges and talent on this show. But is anyone else watching?

Smash: February 5 at 9pm on NBC--I cannot WAIT to see the changes they made to this show and whether it will make a difference to the ratings. The first season was rocky (no doubt), but I never quite reached the "hate-watching" levels of some people...I still always really enjoyed the show. The songs were good and most of the cast was great. But what will it be like now?

"Super" Bowl?

In terms of epic-ness, it should have hit its mark. Two storied teams fighting for the top position both managed to outlast other upstarts throughout the season in order to make it to the final game. If that wasn’t enough, the same two teams met four years previously, the added value of a rematch potentially permeated the air. Plus you had the New York Giants squaring off against the New England Patriots, two teams with fan bases so devoted they could form de facto religious sects. So with all that promise, why was this year’s Super Bowl so, well, boring?

It could...go...all...the... oh, who are we kidding - no, it couldn't.

From the ridiculously lopsided first quarter (the Giants kept possession of the ball for almost the entire time, giving it to the Patriots for only one play before a technical error ended up costing New England a two-point safety in the end zone), this game looked hard fought, but frankly no more astonishing than a typical Sunday game. The fans in the stadium didn’t even really seem all that into it. New York gave a solid, and ultimately winning, performance but it wasn’t one that seemed especially inspired. And the Patriots, with the exception of a record-breaking 98-yard long drive from their own two-yard line into the opposing end zone, pretty much only got by with short, 10-yard passes and the occasional run up the middle.

Unfortunately for Boston, much of the fault for the low-excitement game likely lies with the Patriots. That failed Hail Mary drive in the final moments of the game aside, none of the team’s playing was exactly dramatic. That’s not to say that the Patriot’s short play style wasn’t strong. As my father used to say, if every play you run gets you three yards, that’s always going to be enough for a first down and that’s how you move down the field. Given that the only thing that counts at the end of the game is the final score, that style is the basis for solid, winning football. It’s just that when compared with the Giants’ muscular, relatively angrier playing style, the Pats just came out looking a little worn.

I’m typically the last person to fault a team for a solid playing style that doesn’t look that flashy. I come from the world of Big Ten college football, where the knock on the entire conference for years has been that the low-scoring games and lack of relative flash makes for bad ball. Of course, that’s because the Big Ten’s stock in trade is defensive playing, which by definition exists to shut down football plays. Compared with other conferences, such as perennial chart-toppers in the SEC, the Big Ten often looks slower, putting a larger emphasis on the size of players and their ability to break apart offensive lines. Meanwhile, those whiz-bang Heisman trophy winners in the SEC can put the football wherever they like it, rack up a combined total of over 100 points per game from both teams and have heard about defensive players and secretly have made plans for what they might say to a D-line if they ever meet one.

Right. Now, which one of us runs and which one of us blocks again?

The difference between my crabby defense of reliable, if not glittering, football and my boredom at this year’s game is actually the game itself. This was the Super Bowl. For all that I’d prefer to watch an actual game where the low score means higher stakes per touchdown, the reason we watch the Super Bowl is for the big plays, the explosions and the twirls and twists. The Super Bowl is all about spectacle and special effects and as such it is far more akin to entertainment than sports; it’s the Glee to the rest of the regular season’s CBS Nightly News. This year the league ended up with a game that lacked the pizzazz that it needed for such a night of event television. It didn’t feel fake or overcooked like some other Super Bowls in recent memory, but it didn’t exactly live up as the sheer entertainment machine that it’s designed to be either.

But as they say in the game, there’s always next year. Detroit Lions for XLVII, baby!