Normally, I go all politically ape-shit this time of day.
But I have decided to postpone my article about Sonia Sotomayor - since there is nothing whatsoever that can be done to prevent her from being appointed to the Supreme Court anyway, and thus my comments will still be topical, say, this weekend - and instead blog about something lightweight.
...I'm tired. Sue me.
So, since I've been watching Hulu.com a lot, and buying the occasional TV box set, I have some reviews for ya.
...As a note, I LOVE LOVE LOVE the TV box sets. One of the reasons I never have really been a devoted fan of ANY TV show is that I always end up missing stuff. Miss an episode because of work. Or five. Miss something crucial because I took a leak during the ads and didn't get back fast enough. Watch it get pre-empted on the night I have off so the Teleprompter In Chief can give yet another pompous exhibition of windbaggery on 14 channels simultaneously.
With DVDs, no such issues exist. I don't have cable... but I do have a GREAT DVD player, and a pretty nice TV.
So.
First up: Dollhouse.
There's been a lot of buzz about this show, on the pro side from legions of rabid Joss Whedon fans, and on the con side from errr everyone who remembers what FOX typically does to shows created by Joss Whedon.
There ought to be buzz about the show because it's damn good TV. The premise, for the five or six of you still living like Amish, is that a technology has been discovered that allows human bodies to be stripped of their minds - and reprogrammed with any mind they want. This technology is being used by an outfit called the Dollhouse, which takes "volunteers" and uses them as reprogrammable secret agents - "operatives" may be a better term, actually, since they're not always spying. Unfortunately for the Dollhouse and its shady owners, the imprinting process isn't always perfect - and neither are the erasures.
The show is smart; carries a more mature level of social commentary than has really been present in Whedon's work before; has a solid cast, and thus far pretty solid scripting. The show has been renewed, thankfully, for a second season, and FOX reportedly BOUGHT OUTRIGHT the next season of episodes, which means that hopefully Whedon and company will have a real chance to shine.
I heard a lot of people rambling about the show before I ever saw it, and they pretty universally said episode 6 was where the show really started to take off for them; frankly, not so for me. I liked it from the jump. I grant that I seem to have a bit different tastes than the rest of, well, everybody, but I thought it was pretty badass from the get-go.
Next up is a show struggling right now to find a way to stay on the air for another season, which I somehow managed to completely miss out on last season, called Reaper; Reaper follows a guy named Sam Oliver, who - under threat of the forfeit of his mother's soul - has to serve the devil as a Reaper, capturing "escaped convicts" if you will - souls who escaped from Hell, and returning them to their appointed punishment.
Let me get it out of the way. Reaper is fucking funny. The NOTION of a bounty hunter for Satan who works in a hardware store, and fights demons with magic cigarette lighters I WISH I WAS FUCKING KIDDING is pretty goofy from the start, but the cast makes it ten times worse by virtue of the fact that they're really, really good at playing very goofy scenes, and the screenwriters are doing a fantastic job. There's at least one legitimate laugh-out-loud joke in every episode, and considering this is the kind of show that DOESN'T use a laugh track to tell you when you're supposed to think it's funny, that's an achievement of note.
Next is a really, really unusual one: Harper's Island. This show is odd for all kinds of reasons. First, it's on broadcast TV, and it's GRUESOME. I am frankly amazed they are keeping it on the air; in the first episode a guy gets run through a boat propeller WHILE THE CREDITS ARE STILL RUNNING. Secondly, it's really, really, really good. Thirdly, it's plotted start - to - finish as a complete single-season show which claims "all" questions will be answered by the final episode.
The premise revolves around the titular island, off the coast of Seattle, on which, 8 years prior to the events of the show, a serial killer named John Wakefield killed a bunch of people and hung them from trees before being killed by the island's sheriff. As the show begins, former residents of the island are pouring in for a big wedding, but the guests - and pretty much anyone else - keeps getting bumped off in very, very Wakefield-ish fashion.
There are questions - lots of them - and the show seems to delight in tricking you. The promise is that the cast will lose one (or more) members each week until they figure out who the killer(s?) is, and some of those deaths are not only gruesome, but actually shocking. So far the death tally is ten, in seven episodes; after having seen all 7 that have hit the intarwebs so far, I am looking forward eagerly to having the chance to prove or disprove my theory that Wakefield himself was never killed, and is the killer for this round as well - and the sheriff covered that little fact up for reasons unknown.
Frankly, this show - among people watching it - is generating as much in the way of discussion, conversation, and theorizing as the first two seasons of Twin Peaks, and that's a good thing. A hall mark of awesome TV is hearing about it at work, in my book, and Harper's Island - if you haven't seen it - is GREAT TV. Very much not for kids, but GREAT TV.
Another one - this one's odder - is Legend of the Seeker, which is a fantasy show based - very, very loosely - on the Sword of Truth series of fantasy novels by Terry Goodkind.
This is also really pretty cool TV, although if you even attempt to relate the TV show to the books, you are doing both the books and the show a grave disservice; the translation between the two media didn't work for this show, at all.
It's a hell of a lot of fun to watch a wizard in a TV show actually DO something, though. Fireballs from the palm of your hands? Staple in FICTION, but never, seemingly, on TV, at least not that I've seen, so LotS is a big win in my book.
Especially since, from the episodes I've seen thus far, they managed to keep the endless political theorizing Goodkind shoves up your nose in the books to a bare minimum. Look, I'm a small-L libertarian, ok? I AGREE with Goodkind's espoused viewpoints a lot of the time; that doesn't mean I really want a major character dropping everything that was previously time-sensitive (kinda like that stimulus bill) to make a 31-page speech about how freedom must be earned by those intending to enjoy it.
Gotcha. Can we go back to the part where you find the badguy, stick a sword through his head, and then set him on fire with magic? Please?
*sigh* At least they did, on TV.
Finally, and possibly most oddly, is the HBO original series - by which they again mean loosely adapted from some books - TrueBlood.
These come from a set of books by Charlaine Harris, titled the "Southern Vampire Mysteries" but pretty commonly known to anyone who has read them as the "Sookie Stackhouse books."
Yes, I've read them.
I read 10,000 words per minute. You get bored, ok?
Anyway, unlike most examples of the genre - again, you get bored - this particular series is actually quite good; most of the "supernatural" novels that seem to be in vogue for women right now frankly suck, and have the level of technical writing to be expected from a 7-year-old native Hindi speaker.
So, I was enthusiastic - not delighted, but interested enough that I was looking forward to it - when HBO said they were turning it into a TV show.
And fortunate enough that a friend ordered the first season on DVD for us as an anniversary present.
Awesome! Free shit!
I will say that to many people some of the casting decisions may seem a bit odd. The one that stands out to me is the lead role; Anna Paquin is an enjoyable actress, and pretty enough to look at, but lacks a bit... hmmmm. How to put this.
...In the novels, which are narrated by the "Sookie" character, she makes a point of emphasizing - making a specific note of - the fact that she has big boobs.
...This is an issue, because the character has a fairly low opinion of herself, and mentions frequently that they (the twins, y'all) are her main selling point to men.
Anna Paquin is a pretty enough girl, a competent actress, and is maybe a solid B cup. Nothing wrong with that, but that doesn't really sound like the description the character gives herself in the books.
...Fortunately, this is a minor cosmetic ding, and it's typical of the kind of casting changes that you can expect from this show: evident, but not significant enough to get your panties in a bunch about.
This show is actually much closer to the books than LotS is to the Sword of Truth novels, thankfully in both cases. The changes in the LotS series are, I suspect, at least in part due to the fact that each of the eleven novels in the series is literally 800 pages or so long; this is not a small reading project, even for me, and in translation to the small screen, some of that just plain has to get cut out.
In the case of the TrueBlood series, however, most of the changes I have noticed so far are little more than cosmetic, and it seems to be conforming pretty well to the general idea of the books. I am enjoying it; that is worth what you paid for it.
Now I just have to get around to watching Fringe, and seeing what everyone's going on about for that one.
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