The Idiot Box

Ross Douthat is right. You really ought to read Emily Nussbaum's post-partum on The Sopranos. She gets the essence of the show exactly right: It was brilliant, but like all of Tony's enterprises, it was a con, a way of making suckers of the audience while bringing them back for more. As I wrote of the first half of the sixth season, the show initially seemed to toy with making its characters sympathetic, but by the time the end rolled around, the writers had "dropped any and all pretense of the show being about somewhat lovable, likable characters." And yet, as Nussbaum points out, we kept on watching, unable to say we hadn't been told.

So now what to watch? The Sopranos is gone, BSG and Lost (which I still maintain are flip sides of the same coin) are on hiatus till 2008, Heroes went out with a ho-hum and won't be back till fall, Brotherhood and Dexter won't be back for at least a few months, and 24 is off the air for now too (and even if it was on, I doubt I could muster much enthusiasm for it -- I didn't even watch the last handful of episodes this season). Adam Sternbergh says to tune in to repeats of Friday Night Lights, and since Catherine has been raving about it pretty much non-stop, I suppose I might. I want to get into Big Love--and Ezra Klein's recent recommendation intrigued me--but I missed the whole first season, and when I tried to watch the first episode of season two, that seemed like kind of a big deal. Maybe it's time to Netflix season one?

Are You or Someone You Know Inolved in Dangerous Pod Racing?

See George Lucas? See what you've done to us? We can't shake you from our lives!

According to the authors [of a study arguing that Anakin Skywalker has borderline personality disorder], who reported their findings at the American Psychiatric Association's annual meeting in San Diego, Skywalker meets the criteria for the condition: He has difficulty controlling anger, stress-related breaks with reality (after women in his life die or leave), impulsivity (dangerous pod racing), obsession with abandonment (those women again) and a "pattern of unstable and intense interpersonal relationships characterized by alternating between extremes of ideation and devaluation" (hello, Obi-Wan).

The diagnosis came to Bui, a Star Wars fan, as he watched the series. "I thought to myself, 'That guy is crazy.' But he's not crazy. He's borderline."

Everybody's in therapy, yeah? I look forward to the Woody Allen-directed sequel/prequel/spinoff that features Vader at the shrink's. Lucas is supposed to be developing a Star Wars TV show, right? Well, maybe he can do it Sopranos-style, and have "Annie" spill his feelings in weekly therapy sessions. It worked for gangsters, why not for Sith Lords?

Made in America

I don't really know what to say about The Sopranos, except that the finale was about as complex and frustrating as you might've expected. David Chase, you are a cruel, cruel man. And we love you for it.

Addendum: A little more from me here.

I Always Cry at Endings

The Sopranos ends its six-season run this Sunday night. It's a great show on numerous levels--the rare entertainment that is popular, critically acclaimed, and recognized as a lasting classic in its own time--and scholars of television, drama, and pop culture will almost certainly devote thousands of pages to reexamining the show over the next few decades. There's undoubtedly a lot to the series, but a crucial point that's I think has been somewhat overlooked is... well, to find out, you'll have to pick up the new issue of National Review. Although, if you do, I have to ask: Why aren't you a subscriber already?

Jack to the Future

I never posted on the end of Lost this season, but this is what I wrote at the time but just never got around to putting up:

I gave in and read the spoilers in advance. The episode had been billed as a SERIOUS SHOCKER that CHANGES EVERYTHING, and the stuff I was reading from people who’d looked at the spoilers sort of did me in. They were saying it was some sort of major, major reveal. But no, nothing of the sort. Was there ever any real chance Jack and Kate wouldn't make it off the island? Honestly? So, I was fairly disappointed by the spoilers when I read them, but I do think they generally played much better in the show. Charlie’s death was nicely handled, which is more than I can say for most of his irritating subplots over the last two seasons. It was also nice to see Locke back in commanding, enigmatic form, and the stuff with the phone and the message from Penny almost felt like real development.

Almost.

Unfortunately, like most everything in Lost, it’s all a shell game. After three years, the show still hasn’t actually given any real information about its central mysteries, namely the island’s powers and their origins. We’re no closer to understanding the smoke monster, or Jacob, or the healing powers, or the dead relatives who keep showing up than we were during the third episode. Sure, we now know that Jack and Kate eventually get off the island--and we're foaming at the mouth to find out how. Seems exciting, right? But that’s a typical move for this show: Introduce a new, cool-seeming mystery to distract us from the fact that it’s refusing to answer old ones.

That said, I think the show has made major improvements the last half of this season, and I enjoy it now a lot more than I used to—mostly because I’ve completely given up hope of anything resembling solid answers. This is the best of its season finales, but it’s still a con, albeit a rather diverting one.

"What You're Doing Is Immoral"

The smart money was always on The Sopranos going on with a sigh rather than in a hail of gunfire. But this conventional wisdom, based on the assumption that series creator David Chase would break with convention and refuse to give audiences a slam-bang ending, seems to have gotten to Chase, who has chosen to subvert expectations by taking the show more-or-less exactly where you might have expected a conventional mob show to go.

Except, of course, that, in Chase's hands, the Big Showdown becomes something far more grand, more personal, and more affecting than it ever could've been on any typical gangster drama.

Tonight's penultimate episode of The Sopranos, which featured the death of Bobby Baccalieri and the potentially fatal shooting of Silvio Dante, was almost certainly the season's best episode (so far), and included several scenes that should go on the series' all-time best list.

Bobby's death was poignant, tragic, heartbreaking, and, in keeping with the cruelty and cynicism of the show, entirely undeserved. Yes, he's a killer, a cold-blooded criminal who commits murders and robberies for money. But of the Sopranos crew, he's also the most sympathetic, a gentle, even soulful, simple family man who, after losing his own wife, took on the burden of Janice as a wife and put up with her, even tamed her--or at least soaked up much of the waves from her self-absorbed behavior. So of course, by Chase's rules, Bobby has to die.

And then there was Sil. Not all gone yet, but not expected to regain consciousness either. Sil was always the trusted adviser, the likeable, sensible number two that helped stabilize the family under Tony's mercurial leadership. You might have expected Paulie Walnuts, the bug-eyed, violent-tempered psychopath who failed to have Phil hit at the show's beginning, to be the one to get hit (certainly if anyone deserved it, it was him). But The Sopranos never takes the easy or pleasant way out. So Paulie comes out unscathed while Sil and Bobby take the bullets.

There was a big showdown with Phil's crew tonight, but there was another major confrontation as well, one that, at least for the moment, actually interests me more: the exchange, probably the final exchange, between Tony and Dr. Melfi. Melfi has always been the show's audience surrogate, the sole character on the show who is something like good, decent, and normal--except, of course, that she, like all those of us in the audience, is fascinated by Tony's violent, hedonistic, criminal lifestyle. The show has long given Melfi to guilt for continuing to see Tony--and by doing so, subtly forced the audience to face up to its own pleasure in watching him. But in tonight's episode, there was nothing subtle about it. It made its audience surrogate, (and by extension, the audience) realize that not only has she not been helping Tony, she's been enabling him the whole time.

This was Chase's way of telling his audience (who he's never really been kind to, at least not with his show): "You've got to give this up. It's wrong, and it's unhealthy, and you've enjoyed it for too long. It's time for this all to end." It gets to the point where even Tony confirms it. "What you're doing is immoral," he says, and he walks out the door of her office for the last time, leaving Melfi to bear the weight of the guilt that, for seven years, she not only made no difference, but made a murderous thug's life easier.

Addendum: Over at the House Next Door, Matt Zoller Seitz brings up a lot of the same issues I do with the episode, but smarter, better, with more nuance, and generally in a more readable manner.

Great Moments

We are like 10 minutes away from never having to suffer through another Charlie flashback again.

And Bernard and Rose are back!

Update: I gave in and read the spoilers. Everyone has always gone bananas over the big season finales, and I've never, ever understood it. So the hatch opened. So we heard a noise and saw a big white light and a four toed statue. Nothing of significance was revealed; the stories weren't grounded or given any meaning. It was just more weird stuff, only a little bit higher level of weird. Well, this time, the buzz is... not accurate, once again.

Just when I was almost starting to like the show.

TV Leaks: More Fun than Dirt from the WH

Looks like the juicy bits from the season finale of Lost have been spoiled. I haven't read them yet (and I don't plan to), but I hear there's a pretty serious game-changer in there.

Christopher Moltisanti, RIP

So. That was intense, yeah? More on The Sopranos soon.

Update: Well, ok. Not that soon. A few weeks?

That Old Drippy Feeling

At some point, I want to respond to Matt Zoller Seitz’s statement about Quentin Tarantino, “What I want from Tarantino is a palpable, identifiable sense of what he believes, about life on this earth, about how people interact with one another, that is identifiable apart from the quotations from film history.” There's a real answer to that. But the point at which that answer comes is not going to be today. No, it won’t be today nor any other day in which I feel certain that some malevolent force snuck into my house, filled my brain with oatmeal and maple syrup and sealed my ears. Yes, I’ve got a severe case of the drips and the sniffles, the kind where one’s only choice—or at least my only choice—for the day way has been to spend it wrapped up in blankets on my couch watching bad television and trying to remember what it feels like to think thoughts unimpeded by a giant cloud of brain-crushing, thought-killing mush.

So I caught up on Lost and was pleasantly surprised by how interesting the last few episodes were. I caught up on 24 and was disappointed by how listless the last few weeks have been, and now I’m watching the new Tim Minear show, Drive. The concept is sort of Death Race 2000 meets Battle Royale meets Lost, but so far, not as good, or even as awesomely bad, as any of them. The main problem is that every character aside from Nathan Fillon and the crazy mom is irritating and unappealing. If the show were mainly about Fillon, I’d be in, but his performance just isn’t good enough to make the half dozen other painfully bad subplots worth watching.

Worth Noting

This House Next Door essay on The Sopranos' place in gangster film history manages to reference both David Brooks and George Will. Almost hard to believe there's only 9 more episodes left...

Thoroughly Deserved

You'll want to read Andrew Stuttaford's review of The Tudors today, which begins with this lovely line: "No television series boasting an opening sequence that includes a brutal assassination, ecstatic adulterous sex, the gorgeously bared breasts of Ruta Gedmintas, and an angry, thoroughly deserved, shout of 'French bastards' will ever get too harsh a review from me." I tried to watch it last week, but my On-Demand pooped out. Maybe it's time to add a new show to the list?

David, x2

You really need to read this interview between David Mills and David Simon--two of the key creative forces behind the greatest show in the history of television, The Wire. Thanks to Alan Sepinwall for the heads up.

Addendum: And in part one, they talk politics. Needless to say, it's interesting.

There are many copies

All the world-leader wannabes are announcing their candidacies (or hinting of an announcement to come), and there's much flutter amongst the pundit class. But I think the truly important question that no one is asking is: Which one of them is a Cylon? Is it the smoky-voiced Obama? The mother-robot Hillary? The New Model (now with patented Perfect Hair!) Edwards? And what if none of them are toasters, but one or more is a collaborator? We could end up with Baltar! (Would that make imaginary-6 Vice President?)

Nine more episodes left this season. And apparently, some of them will be doozies.

Every episode better than the last one

Looks like I'll be on this Boston NPR station talking about 24 tomorrow around 11 a.m. You should be able to listen in online from the link. And, since you can never, ever, ever spend too much time debating the show, here's a recent bit from Rush Limbaugh on the silliness of treating the show too seriously.

I moderated a seminar last June for the Heritage Foundation with Howard Gordon, who is the lead writer and executive producer, and Joel Surnow, who is the executive producer-creator, and Mary Lynn Rajskub was there (Chloe) and Carlos Bernard (Tony Almeda), and a couple other people, and Bob Cochran, who was Surnow's co-creator, and of course they were kind of amused at the serious think tank-type questions that were being lobbed at them. They said, "Well, we do take terrorism very seriously, but it's a television show, and we write this thing so many months in advance that to try to predict future events and then tie our show to them is sort of impossible. We don't do that. We're just trying to make every episode better than the last one."

Tim Carney, incidentally, wrote a piece on that seminar for NRO.

Update: Looks like the panel lineup has changed, and I won't be on. But it's possible that Carney might be on, so listen in anyway.

Bauer Power

Jim Henley has interesting, funny, useful thoughts on the new season of 24 here, here, and here. Best point (which I wanted to make, but didn't have the willpower to go back and figure out how long each of the annoying suburban subplot characters lasted):

This season’s “suburban teen subplot that needs to end ASAP” is done, and in record time. Last year, they kept Derek on my TV screen through hour 5. The year before that, Behrooz was on my TV screen for nearly half the season, but it was OK because his terrorist mother was the awesomest villain in any season of 24. In season 3, viral decoy (don’t ask) Kyle Singer was on my screen for 6 hours (and they didn’t even kill him!). And in seasons 1 and 2, despite constant kidnappings, every single villain failed to kill Jack’s annoying daughter.

I also have to say that this season's suburban teen subplot was far less loathsome than the others, mainly because it focused on something directly related to the action at hand. Did anyone really care about Behrooz and his teeny bopper girlfriend? No. Not for a minute. But dealing with the way decent folks handle finding out that their nice neighbors are actually terrorists is, well, kind of interesting (if typically ludicrous).

The true definition of riveting

Boostery hack critics who like to get quoted in ads love to throw around the term "riveting." But I suspect not many of them really know what it means. It's just one of those words, like "visceral," that has entered the pop culture critic's jargon and come to mean "good," maybe in an exciting sort of way. So, being the helpful guy I am, I looked it up:

Riveting (adj):

1. that which holds (the eye, attention, etc.) firmly.

2. 24, especially any scene with Jack Bauer.

Riveting, it's clear, was a word invented to describe everyone's favorite action blast of a television show, 24, the most extreme macho fantasy of the last decade and, not coincidentally, the fictional show that most reflects our nation's views—or at least its fears—regarding the war on terror. Intentionally over the top in almost every possible way, the show posits a world where terror has become a regular part of the American landscape. This season it's especially true. Instead of trying to prevent an imminent attack, the show's hero, Jack Bauer (Kiefer Sutherland), is trying to put a stop to a terror wave that's already in progress. Fortunately, Bauer, a do-whatever-it-takes public protector, is the epitome of the modern action hero: a hypercompetent, single-minded terrorist killin' machine who, through 6 seasons, has never stopped to eat, sleep, or use the restroom. In fact, he once actually died and then continued working. Talk about productivity levels--that's devotion to your job.

Mostly, of course, 24 is built to relentlessly bludgeon its viewers with suspense. Each and every week, it straps you in, pulls out the pliers and the blowtorch, and goes to work—and it's jarringly effective. Partly this is due to the creative lengths that the show's writers go to in order to drum up suspense. In the same way that horror movie mavens attempt to satisfy hardcore gore fiends with ever more creative methods of death and dismemberment, the writers of 24 seek to jolt viewers with continually more twisted situations for their hero, Jack Bauer.

Thankfully for all of the besieged residents of 24's America, Bauer is up to all of them. He's Superman, except he doesn't need powers; he's traded the suit, cape, and American flag for a pistol, a cell phone and the ability to override any order, public or private, simply by barking, "I'm a federal agent."

This season looks like most of the others: explosions, mad plots, terrorists with bad accents and what seems to be unlimited funding and manpower. Surely by this point the henchman's union must be demanding some sort of extra compensation for any job that requires facing off against Bauer. He takes out machine gun-toting terrorists by the dozen; we don't need a surge—just send Bauer to Baghdad.

Watching TV

With David Edelstein gone, TV-critic Troy Patterson is shaping up to be Slate's most consistently fascinating entertainment writer. TV critics tend to focus on dramas and sitcoms, but Patterson has set himself apart by writing brilliant dissections of guilty pleasure gimmick television--the ephemeral waste of what passes for reality and gamesmanship on television. It would be easy for him to simply run through each show's faults, or line them up and knock them down with obvious punchlines. But Patterson gives the shows, if not respect, then careful consideration, allowing each to suggest something about the shallowest fringes of pop culture. He doesn't make the usual culture crit mistake of railing about the decline of Western civilization either, and is willing to recognize when (and how) a show is effective, even if it's not great. His work is smart, narrowly-focused, to the point, and balanced.

Just look at his two most recent articles, one on the new reality show about wannabe rock journalists competing for a spot on the Rolling Stone roster, the other about two new dating shows. He gives the Stone-show credit where it's due, but doesn't hesitate to examine and poke fun at the show's cast of young wannabes, managing to play the "I'm an actual journalist" card fairly lightly, considering:

A bit later, braying a summer's-long farewell to her hometown from a concert stage, [one contestant] pledges sincerely to represent up in New York City. "We gotta make money, dawg. We gotta make money. That's what I'm talkin' 'bout." What is she talking about? Has the dear thing confused print journalism with one of those lucrative professions—bagging groceries, say?

His piece on dating shows is even better, capturing rather succinctly the distinct awfulness of two new shows that offer their contestants a chance to compete for a hot date, but at the risk of humiliation. And again, even though he is clearly disturbed by what he sees, he's honest about its appeal, saying about one of the shows, "As pure nonsense goes, Gay, Straight or Taken? is briskly paced, invitingly shot, and painfully contemporary—a Love Connection for the conspiracy-minded." This, I think, is what really sets him apart from other TV critics--the ability to both seriously examine the cultural implications of the idiot box and simultaneously not require it to be anything more or other than what it is--shameless, shallow diversion.

2006: Top Honors

I named Apocalypto the best movie of the year, but the best filmmaking I saw in 2006 wasn’t at the movie theater. It was on television—specifically, on HBO. The Wire is the best dramatic series ever to grace the (increasingly larger) small screens of our nation’s homes, and the fourth season was the best so far. I’ve written about my love for the show before, but I’ll say it again: No other filmed fiction matches its intricate narratives, its sprawling cast of carefully drawn characters, its masterful dialog, its thematic depth and complexity. And, certainly this year, nothing else matches its pathos. It’s quite simply the best thing on a screen of any size, and it deserves every bit of the accolades it's received, as well as any others the various proprietors of awards and critical judgments can throw at it.

Dexter: Blood on the Wall

I have to admit: I was apprehensive about Dexter. For one, the premise—a serial killer who works as a police blood spatter analyst—seemed far too consciously offbeat and pleased with itself. And while I loved the satirical amorality of American Psycho as much as the next yuppie-hater, and am quite fond of Seven and Silence of the Lambs, I’m suspicious of any “entertainment” that looks positioned to add to the mythic grandeur of the American serial killer—especially when, like Dexter, it appears ready to ask you not just to give the killer respect, but sympathy. [Mild spoilers ahead]

And in some respects, I was right to be suspicious. Dexter takes the American Psycho route of presenting a fit, attractive, totally affectless serial killer as its protagonist. But instead of allowing us to feel revulsion at such a despicable human being, it asks us to relate, to empathize. And, just as American Psycho conflated disgust between serial killing with our natural antipathy toward the solipsistic materialism of urban yuppie culture, Dexter pulls a similar bait and switch by playing on our natural sympathy for cops, guys with girlfriends and sisters, and vigilantes (crime fighters) who bring the bad guys to justice. Dexter is someone who, by the usual rules of TV narrative, ought to be a good guy; he’s a serial killer, yes, but the deck is stacked in his favor. Occasionally the show gets nervous and backs off, trying to frame its central idea as a question—it is possible to have sympathy for such a cold blooded killer?—but mostly it simply tells us that we should, that it’s okay to look kindly on such a man, that it’s wrong to merely judge him a monster.

This is a dangerous route to go, because it essentially instructs people to ignore their moral sense and to refuse to cast judgment. Dexter’s murderous habit, we’re to understand, isn’t his fault—it’s simply the way he’s wired. The show takes pains never to get too graphic with his murders, never to dig too deep into his rituals and fetishes, never to have him murder an innocent by mistake. It’s a kindler, gentler portrait of a serial killer, one you can take home to meet the folks (or at least the kids—he’s got an attractive, divorced girlfriend, after all). The Sopranos may have humanized its murderous thugs for us, but it never let us forget for too long that Tony and his associates may have been lovable in some respects, but they were also violent gangsters who committed despicable acts. Dexter glosses over its protagonist's gory predilections, making them safe and easy to condone.

That said, the show is often quite captivating. Sure, the shifts in tone we occasionally awkward; early episodes, especially, contained numerous disjointed lurches from light, goody satire to dark, brooding thriller. And, as Alan Sepinwall points out, some of the subplots didn’t work—especially those involving police department infighting—but the primary story was played rather well. The arcs that mattered most (those dealing with Dexter’s father, sister, and the ice truck killer) came through. The revelations about the ice truck killer, I think, were handled particularly well, and in the final few episodes he made an incredibly fascinating, spooky villain. My biggest complaint is that ITK didn’t live through the season’s end. He was such a complex creature—especially in relationship to Dexter—that it would’ve been great to see a season built around his torment of Dexter now that both are fully aware of their relationship.

In the end, I think it’s ITK—Dexter’s truly uninhibited mirror image—that makes the more compelling character. A good guy serial killer is novel, of course (and I’m sure that went a long way toward selling the show), but the way Dexter is presented seems designed to avoid complexity rather than confront it. He is, in the end, just a updated version of Batman—a man with a dark past that drives him to violent action, yet channels it into “good.” But ITK is a real killer, one who murders unabashedly and without reason, and yet still claims to have the moral high ground—or perhaps claims to be above morality altogether. Now that’s a character of real complexity; yet as soon as the show revealed his true nature, it killed him off. For a series that so clearly wants to be seen as bold, innovative, and edgy, that’s a remarkably timid move.