A note to our friends in other countries who have requested that this be broken up into individual threads for spoiler purposes: Sorry, guys. I sympathize, and that’s actually the way I used to do it. But there were times it seemed that every blog posting was TV discussions. So I decided to consolidate all the major ongoings I watch into one place. Hence the “round up.” I apologize if reading the thread in its entirety muffs up your enjoyment of the episodes when they eventually hit your airwaves. On the other hand, you can always wait until you’ve seen all the shows and then read this in the archives.
So…onward…
ALIAS: So on the one hand we’ve got Jennifer Garner in skimpy underwear diving from a height that would seem to require more depth to cushion her fall than the average hotel pool deep end (around six feet) would provide. On the other hand…we’ve got Jennifer Garner in skimpy underwear. So I’m, y’know, okay with the rest of it. Once again “Alias” deftly keeps you off balance, from the passionate greeting by the guy whose organization she’s trying to infiltrate to her dad suddenly coming clean about the video of her just when you figured that plot line would go for at least half a season. The most welcome moments, however, involved Vaughn’s wife having her mind totally screwed with by Sloane. For those of us actually entertaining the notion that, oh God, Sloane might really be on the side of the angels, it was a relief. Either he was messing with her for some dark reason, or else he was doing it just for šhìŧš and giggles. No matter which, I just found myself going, “Ooo yeah. He’s back, kiddies.”
SMALLVILLE: You have to love a show where, even in his deepest fantasies, the hero can’t get laid. At any rate, the moment I saw the trailer featuring Clark and Lana skinny dipping, I thought, “Okay, dream sequence.” But then he didn’t wake up at the end of the teaser, and I thought, “Hmm…okay…maybe not.” But then out of nowhere Clark gets a new car and I see the episode is written by Drew Z. Greenberg, and I’m thinking, “Oh, okay…Buffy/Angel-length dream sequence. Lots of events that are either too good or too catastrophic to be true.” See, after last season’s “Angel” episode “Awakenings,” you don’t catch me off guard again that easily. The thing is, “Smallville” has developed into a compelling “arc” series. And most of the really compelling arc episodes are driven by the Luthors. Why? Because their status quo is the most likely to change, if for no other reason than you find yourself waiting for Lex to finally decide he’s learned all there is to learn from his dad…and then arrange to take him out of the picture. When you’re doing an arc series, though, every so often you need a “breather” episode. A place marker, a done-in-one. Just for pacing. That’s what this one was. And it was engaging enough, if for no other reason than the visual of the Traveller (without Wesley Crusher in tow, thank God) cruising across the lake like a Frazetta painting. And I appreciate the irony of Clark getting whomped on by a guy in a red cape. But with minor tinkering it could indeed have been an episode of “BtVS,” and the best episodes are those which are so unique to the series you couldn’t imagine it being somewhere else.
It’s also worth noting that even Clark is not immune from the truism that, in Smallville, if anyone is seen driving a vehicle for more than thirty seconds, that vehicle will either flip or go off the road or crash and burst into flames. Hëll, Lana was in a car that wasn’t even moving and she nearly got blown up. Ask the Geico lizard about getting insurance there, he’ll just laugh at you.
ANGEL: Okay. I’ve been silent about this for three episodes, but I’m having serious metaphysical problems with the whole being dámņëd thing, and it’s been exacerbated beyond my ability to overlook it with the Angel/Spike We’re Both Going to Hëll chat (which, by the way, was nicely written. “I always liked your poetry.” “Yeah, but you like Barry Manilow.” Heh.) Here’s the thing: Before Spike was Spike, he was William, and before Angel was Angel or Angelus, he was Liam (Sure sign you may be transformed into a vampire: You don’t have a last name. Don’t believe me? What’s Drusilla’s last name? Harmony’s? Darla’s?) And William was a benign individual, loved his mum, wrote poetry, etc. Then, if we go with Whedon-verse myth, his soul went off into happyland and a demon set up shop in his body. Now his soul’s back and, except for when he was being controlled by the Source of All Ev–(sorry, wrong show) by the First, he’s done nothing but good. So why in the world would this benevolent soul be dispatched to hëll to suffer eternal torment? Even the bad guy, Dread Pirate Nitwit, said “Your soul dámņš you.” WHY? It makes no sense that the soul of William No-surname should be taking the big dive when it’s done nothing to merit it. What, it’s killed? So has Buffy, and she floated in peace for three months. For that matter, Liam may have been a wastrel, but that was only for a couple of decades…and the soul of Liam has done tons more good than evil. Why is HE condemned to burn? If one is trying to comprehend the cosmology, it just doesn’t track. Yes, bad things happen to good people, but after you die is when it’s all supposed to be sorted out. Instead in the Whedon-verse it apparently just gets worse.
Theological concerns aside, I liked what they did with the episode, even if Kathleen did embarrass herself drooling during the nude Marsters sequences. (She will likely claim she didn’t. She lies.) The concept of Spike (or any vampire) being haunted by the dead is nothing new, and it almost seemed as if they tried to make up for the lack of novelty by ratcheting up the gore level so you wouldn’t notice. Nice try. But I sat throught the episode where Willow got turned into fingerfood for a Gollum knock-off, so it takes a lot to faze me. Having Spike faced with that decision point, the classic self-sarcifice moment, was very nicely done, however. And apparently he’s picking up a few tricks from Patrick Swayze. If he’s going the poltergeist route, then he can do something other than stand around, which was my major concern. Honestly, though, the best Spike moment was in the trialer for next week with him giving the thumbs up to Angel who apparently was “getting some.” “Good on you!” Can’t wait for that.
WEST WING: Crack out the flashlights, kids, it’s another underlit episode. But worse, EVERYONE seemed in the dark on this one. I’m sorry, I know what they were going for in this episode, but all it did was piss me off. You can have your main characters lose one every now and then, but you have to feel they did everything they possibly could have done to avoid it, and that feeling wasn’t present by half. Here was a story showing a tough sacrifice being made in quest of a greater good…with the kicker being that the greater good then fell through and our heroes were left with ashes. But the way that it was done made Bartlet seem…what’s the word I’m looking for…stupid. Weak. Inept. Bartlet is the soul of the show, and if he’s not strong, you have a show that isn’t strong. Yes, the sequence in which Bartlet has to think fast when the unedited speech came up on the teleprompter was funny…but c’mon, who didn’t see it coming?
Bottom line, this episode presented the characters with a problem: Can they allow a young Korean pianist to defect without screwing up nuclear disarmament talks? Answer: They can’t. Sorry. I don’t buy it. These people have been established as having combined brain power that gives off enough voltage to light up downtown Albuquerque. There should have been a slam dunk way to solve it, and they should have found it, and they didn’t. Which leaves me pìššëd øff with them, and pìššëd øff with the writers depicting them as that weak. CJ says she was disappointed? Join the club.
NIP/TUCK SHOUT OUT: I talk about ALIAS, SMALLVILLE, and ANGEL because they’re genre, and WEST WING because it’s politics. But I have to mention the season ender of Nip/Tuck, which provided nothing short of a miracle: An upbeat resolution to a plethora of downbeat and even dangerous storylines without seeming too contrived. Just when you think the two doctors are going down the tubes, they–along with a bit of luck and the unwitting aid of the Feds–turn it all around. Granted, I kept waiting for Christian to just smoke the bad guys with fireballs in order to solve everything…
Hmm. Maybe I should start discussing “Charmed.”
PAD
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Regarding Smallville, Den asks:
Okay, I’ve been rolling this in my head over the weekend and I can’t remember: Did they ever reveal the uncle’s motive for keeping that girl in the coma for all those years? Was it so he could control her family’s money or just because he was a weirdo creepy guy?
It was pretty much implied that he kept her under to control her inheritance. It sounded like her parents were pretty well-off.
(BTW, everyone who hasn’t read it yet should read Larry Niven’s essay “Man of Steel, Woman of Kleenex.” He takes a very scientific, and rather humorous, look at the problems Superman could have with, er, mating. It should be interesting to see if any of his topics come up in SMALLVILLE.)
At the Comic-Con after the first season of Smallville, I asked Millar and Gough if they were going to explore the “Man of Steel, Women of Kleenex” issue on the show. After they stopped laughing, they said they weren’t.
While I knew the skinny dipping scene was a dream sequence, I still enjoyed it. Now we need a Lex skinny dipping scene.