This Week in Television - Apr. 1-6, 2012

Once Upon a Time
I'm not sure why they want us to sympathize with Regina, but it doesn't work. She's already been too horrible for me to feel sorry for her. This episode might have worked better than the one earlier in the season where she lost her father, except wanting vengeance on someone who wronged you inadvertently because they don't know any better isn't exactly a just cause. But it turned out to be brilliant casting, having the little girl from Bridge to Terabithia play young Snow White. Her resemblance to Ginnifer Goodwin in her facial expressions and performance was eerie.

New Girl
Winston's monologue at the end of the episode was worthy of applause, clearing people out and fixing everything just so he could enjoy his weekend. Nick's highly disturbed and disgusted reaction to Schmidt and Cece was also a highlight, in a different way than Winston's was last week. And I enjoyed the cameo by David Wain, who directed this episode, as a runner in the marathon. But I have to say it: can't blame the guys for thinking about Jess when they go solo.

Survivor: One World
Kim was the star of this episode, and seems to be the smartest person left in the game, so I am rooting for her. Although I don't like the idea of Alicia being carried by that alliance.

Community
While I had some minor problems with last week's episode, I wasn't expecting part two to arbitrarily be a parody of a Civil War documentary. The awesomeness of that makes me more forgiving of last week's outing because it was a set-up for this. It was done so perfectly. They even added the PBS telethon at the end, which was a nice touch, and snuck in a little Dan Harmon cameo in one of the "historical" paintings.

30 Rock
30 Rock has more or less already done versions of the stories in this episode (remember when Jack got Pete to wear a hairpiece to instill confidence, Jenna got revenge on the writers by locking them on the roof naked, and Tracy became more responsible at his job when he and Liz switched minority roles?), and perhaps last week's episode about repetition was a way for them to sneakily get away with this week's plot recycling, but the important thing is that it was funny. 30 Rock usually puts jokes above story and character, anyway, and that's fine with me. I think my favourite was Dr. Spaceman's line as he inserted the mini troll pencil topper into Tracy's nose: "Goodbye, only evidence tying me to my ex-wife's disappearance."

Up All Night
The one thing I chuckled at this time was Fred Armisen as Ava's physical trainer, inexplicably using Don Henley as a motivator for her. But otherwise it was mostly going for the easy, predictable jokes, as this show often does. On an unrelated side note, why did NBC feel they had to put Parks and Recreation on hiatus when The Office hasn't aired a new episode in a month? The whole reason they took it off was because there were too many Thursday comedies and not enough timeslots, but they just wasted four weeks of opportunity (okay, three, because 30 Rock had a double in there). Ah well, Up All Night finishes next week and then Parks is back.

Awake
That was one of the most entertaining episodes yet, and highly thought-provoking throughout, thanks to Mike's confusion and hallucinations. Being injected into unconsciousness in the red world made the green world, once again, seem like the dream, because it just feels more logical to go into a dream from that rather than wake up from it, live a whole day in the green world, then go back to sleep and continue right where you left off. The penguin, in my opinion, is meant to be a red herring. It appears in both worlds, but it showed up in green first and then, also in green, we learned where it came from. Seeing as it is a hallucination either way, it doesn't really matter where it came from. Being in both worlds just makes green's reality a little more deceptively plausible due to the uncertainty of the penguin's genesis - i.e. it is as equally possible that Mike pulled it out of the dream as it is that he put it into the dream, because the penguin book exists in his memory. Hallucinating Dr. Lee in the hospital, however, is different. If the green world turns out to be real then Lee is a major clue, because if Mike can imagine Lee and his stock of psychological advice whenever he wants, who's to say he isn't always imagining Dr. Lee? But it is for this reason that Lee may also be a red herring if the red world is real. The fact that Dr. Lee never made an appearance in the green world may also be significant. My brain is hurting now.

Fringe
I'm actually kind of surprised that Lincoln became a big enough character to have an episode centered on him, because to me he's always felt somewhat insignificant to the show. I mean he's important to the Fringe team, but to the show itself, he's just kind of there not being noticed by Olivia. But he was used very well here to demonstrate why the current iteration of our universe, which had gotten along without an adult Peter until recently, is slightly different than we remember it. It's not just the absence of Peter, because the alt-world was always Peterless; that this iteration had no Peter in either universe, yet they still differ from each other, lends credence to free will and the idea that if you kept resetting the world, it would play out a little differently every time. But not 100% different; there are still certain time landmarks that will always happen and can be used by the observers as checkpoints. Or something.

Hero of the Week: Winston from New Girl, for his awesomely funny and effective monologue that was topped off by having a bowl of cereal.

Douchebag of the Week: Regina/Evil Queen from Once Upon a Time, because she apparently doesn't understand when vengeance is justified.

Weeds - Season Five

When season four was somewhat less than exciting, I wondered if the series was heading downhill. I thought it might be the location/setting change that caused the problem, or maybe it's that Guillermo wasn't a very interesting foil for Nancy, but this season managed to be good again without Nancy having to move the family a second time. In comparison, I think the character development was also stronger this season, as we saw changes occur in almost everyone: Celia hit an even lower rock bottom, Doug got even dumber and is still in his own downward spiral (though a different one from Celia's in that he occasionally attempts to get out of it but keeps failing), Andy and Silas became more mature and responsible, and Nancy seemed to stop selling weed altogether because she was too busy dealing with Esteban and the baby. As crazy as it is, I think Shane and Isabelle have become the most grounded characters on the show because they might be the only ones not to have changed since the show began. I think my favourite transformation to watch was Andy sobering up at the realization that he is in love with Nancy. While I did enjoy him as the show's second biggest fool (especially when paired with the biggest fool, Doug), these new feelings add a whole bunch of layers to his scenes with Nancy that automatically make them more interesting to watch. One thing I found a little strange was the use of Esteban, in that the show was always bouncing him back and forth between being someone Nancy loves and an antagonist from whose oppression she must escape. I guess you could say he wasn't going back and forth at all, he's just both of those things, but it almost felt like the writers weren't sure which one they wanted him to be. Maybe I'm not used to watching things where two people who love each other are making moves against one another.

Some other thoughts:
- It was a really funny series of scenes - and a nice wake-up call for Celia - when literally nobody wanted to pay a ransom to save her life. It will be interesting next season to see if she can get out of her slump by imitating Nancy (she's already got the wide-eyed expressions, dark hair, slushees, and pot-selling team.)
-Also funny: Doug and Dean mangling each other's genitals out of revenge. They are now the two biggest idiots on the show.
-Andy's beard now joins Nathan's on Heroes and Jack's on Lost in the exclusive club for TV depression beards. I thought I had a cool mental list going, but UGO beat me to it with an impressive 25 beards.
-The finale ending was unexpected but very welcome, no matter the consequences.

Best episode: I think I would have to go with "Glue", in which Andy and Nancy have a lengthy discussion about love while taking a magazine quiz in a waiting room, Dean poses as a black cop to freak out Celia, Shane and Silas rescue Esteban's daughter from date-rapists, and Pilar gets Esteban back under her thumb.

This Week in Television - Mar. 25-30, 2012

Once Upon a Time
It was interesting that they gave a reason behind the Mad Hatter making all those hats, but like Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland I don't think it's within the spirit of the original setting to apply logic to any of the characters or events from Carroll's work. I like that Emma is starting to believe in the fairy tales, because it takes the show in a new direction. Maybe that mysterious "writer" who came to town intended to make Emma believe so that she could break the curse and then, if he really is a writer, he intends to write the fairy tale book about Emma saving Storybrooke.

New Girl
While funny, I think this episode was somewhat forgettable, but the best part for me was Winston's reaction to Schmidt and Cece. Way to be funny again, Winston. Not really buying the chemistry between Jess and Russell as a romantic couple. Friends, maybe, but I think there is too much difference in both age and lifestyle for it not to be a little weird. But as I said last week, I support the prolonging of a Jess/Nick hookup.

Survivor: One World
Sometimes the players get rid of "threats" way too early, and sometimes they don't get rid of them at all even when there's a perfect opportunity. Why is everybody worrying about the jury when there isn't even a jury yet? If you're going to vote out a threat when there's 12 people left, you vote for someone who is good at challenges, not Jonas. But Tarzan trying to convince everyone that it was dirt in his underpants and not poop was funny.

Community
I can't put my finger on it, but something about the storylines in this episode didn't quite feel like Community. Maybe it was because there were three seperate sub-groups and not enough time with the whole cast together. I don't know. It felt off. But the Britta/Subway romance was funny, which also led to Pierce hilariously drinking a dangerously unhealthy amount of ink. I don't think I enjoyed the fort-building as much, because Troy and Abed are so great to watch as friends that I actually feel a sense of melancholic disharmony watching them fight. Maybe that's what nagged me about this one.

30 Rock
I love Jack's "shower principle." It's completely true: the mind creates good ideas to entertain itself when the body is busy with mundane activities. Or at least mine does. I like the idea that a journal can be a cheat sheet for a predictable, repetitive lifestyle, although it suggests that Liz's solutions are just temporary fixes and not preventative measures. While Liz drew comparisons between Hazel and Kenneth because they're both weird pages, Hazel actually acted more like Jenna in this episode: psychotically selfish.

Up All Night
Surprisingly, I found something funny in this episode, and that was Julian's sleaziness ("Is this the 'ladies I'd like to do it with' convention?"). I wish they would use him more, but he is a sparse tertiary character.

Awake
When they throw out these episodes that hint someone knows about Mike's double life, it makes the show more interesting than just a police procedural with a cool twist, so I'm all for it. If this Gemini knows about the dual worlds, then it's possible that either he is himself experiencing the same thing, or, because I believe the green world is a dream, he is the part of Mike's subconscious that secretly wants to know which world is real, the part that Mike has to fight if he wants things to remain the way they are. I kind of want Mike to go to Oregon just to see what that would be like.

Fringe
It's almost ingeniously lazy to reuse a case from a previous season but be able to tweak it because of the new rules of this season. I really liked the idea of Walter saving up gifts for Peter; it provided some nice moments. In fact, I think I enjoy Walter and Peter's father/son relationship more than the Peter/Olivia romance. Lincoln tasting the smoothie antidote was also a highlight due to how funny it was. Poor sap is into Olivia in every universe but he's stuck in the friend zone. It's his own fault for not liking peanut butter.

Hero of the Week: Walter from Fringe, for caring enough to get his dead son some beer and porn.

Douchebag of the Week: Vice Dean Laybourne from Community, for disturbing the Troy/Abed friendship. THEIR HANDSHAKE INVOLVES HEART PATTING!

Carnage

Impressions before seeing it
Never saw a single frame of preview footage. I was just excited about the cast, and the prospect of the concept, because good actors yelling at each other is fun.

How was it?
So these two couples have a meeting to smooth things over after their sons got in a fight at school. They start off friendly and polite, but eventually they begin to offend each other, then piss each other off, and the event escalates into unrelated anger tangents and everyone ganging up on each other in different combinations. I cannot imagine a better thing to do with four talented actors. This was even more fun than Attack the Block, and that's saying a lot.

Carnage is based on a French play, which shows because the whole movie takes place on one set and is very dialogue driven, but the script and performances completely sold it. As you might imagine, it gets funny when these civilized adults, even while acknowledging themselves as such, get out of control and begin behaving childishly. It's fantastic. The ending felt somewhat abrupt, but it had to be in order for the final shot to put the parental meeting into perspective. I like that basically the entire message of the movie is summed up in those last frames. That's filmmaking efficiency.

Recommendation
This is one for the people who like watching actors act. In a film like this, that's all there is to rely on. Check it out; it's immensely entertaining.

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy

Impressions before seeing it
It looked like an interesting intelligence thriller along the lines of Masterpiece Theatre's Page Eight, which I really enjoyed but didn't end up writing about on this blog. And Gary Oldman is always great.

How was it?
Unfortunately, I have to admit that I found this movie difficult to follow. I can save some face because I was at least 30% distracted by the food I was eating while watching it, but it's more than that. I would liken it to The Wire in that the cast is somewhat big and it doesn't do the best job of putting names to faces so that you know who the hell people are talking about. It was too complex, subtle, and smart for me to get into. I know I often complain when viewer intelligence is insulted, but this is at the other end of the spectrum, assuming the viewer is smart enough to catch everything and thus making me feel like a huge moron. Maybe I'm overreacting and I'll get it if I watch it again without distractions, but sometimes I'm just stupid. At least the acting was good.

Recommendation
It's not a bad movie, you probably just have to be smarter than I am to enjoy it. For a more accessible intelligence thriller, I'd recommend Page Eight instead.

Melancholia

Impressions before seeing it
Lars von Trier has made some unique (if morbid) films, and a wedding before doomsday sounded interesting. To me, pre-apocalyptic is a richer concept than post-apocalyptic, and the latter is done more often than the former.

How was it?
In some ways, I feel like Melancholia is the film that The Tree of Life should have been, or wanted to be. The indulgent artiness is kept to a much more tolerable minimum and is actually relevant, and all of the handheld footage documenting the characters' lives has more of a narrative to it. It's not trying to be poetic and elusive, it just lets us feel for these people as they struggle with whether or not they're about to come to a cataclysmic end.

And they most definitely are. That's not a spoiler, because we see it happening in the film's opening montage. There's a reason von Trier wanted us to know that at the beginning of the movie, but that reason actually is a spoiler so I won't go there except to say that I loved the implied reveal of it. I really enjoyed this movie in spite of it being anti-climactically climactic. What I mean is, unlike a film like Don McKellar's Last Night, which is more centered on people trying to prepare for the end by doing everything they've always wanted to do, Melancholia is mostly about sulking over the possibility that it will happen. There's not a whole lot of rushing around to cross off bucket lists, which is interesting in its own concept and that's why Last Night exists, but I think the inaction here represents the mediocrity of daily life and the laziness of human spirit, even in the face of oblivion. I'm not saying that's what everyone would do in that situation, and I don't think von Trier is either, but it may be a somewhat more grounded approach to the event than McKellar's film (which is not a bad movie, if I recall.) And for anyone who claims that Kirsten Dunst can't act, this movie should shut them up.

Recommendation
Personally I think this movie should have been nominated at the Oscars over The Tree of Life, but because of an unfortunate comment made by Lars von Trier in an interview, the media jumped all over a chance for negative press and the Academy shunned the entire movie. Not really fair to everyone else who worked on it. Anyway, I think it's a fascinating film, and if you find it too depressing then couple it with Last Night, the more positive version of this movie.

This Week in Television - Mar. 18-23, 2012

Once Upon a Time
I can buy that David remembered a fragment from the fairy tale world - I knew it would happen as soon as he stepped into the psychiatrist's office - but how would he not mention the part where Mary Margaret had long hair and was wearing medieval adventurer gear? If he wasn't supposed to have remembered what she looked like at the time, then they didn't do a good enough job illustrating how hazy the memory was. I also noticed that this episode was heavy with catchphrase-type lines (though Kitsis and Horowitz, the creators, did write TRON: Legacy, so it's not surprising), and seemed like it was attempting to fit in nearly all of the show's established characters. But they are finally building toward something, and for that I thought this was ultimately one of the series' stronger episodes.

New Girl
The storyline with Winston and his lady friend worked better with Schmidt added in, and I think I much prefer it when Schmidt is a more self-aware douchebag, voluntarily stuffing cash into the douchebag jar even when no one is around. That is a funnier, more likable (and tolerable) version of the character. Nick is becoming more and more a pathetic bum with every episode, but again I think it's a funny direction to take the character, so no complaints. I'm proud of this show's progress, as I recall in the pilot when Jess was the only character I found funny, and now we have a more well-rounded cast. I am wary of the show's hints that Jess will end up with Nick (this week her description of the guys she dates sounded like him), because I think romances on comedies work better with guest stars than between castmembers. So it's good that this cool rich guy showed up, at least for now.

Survivor: One World
Evil Colton gets taken out by karma! Awesome. Now if only the same thing would happen to Alicia. She and Colton were just being unnecessarily mean to Kristina. They're not good people. And Jeff seems to be catching the fever, as he has now taken his biased commentary one step further to outright insulting poor challenge performers. To be fair, he was mostly insulting Alicia, who deserves no sympathy due to her behaviour, but knowing Probst I'm sure it had less to do with who she is and more to do with her performance in the challenge, so he's still a dick.

Community
With all of the crazy impersonators running around in addition to the unusual amount of graphics and special effects, this episode was weird, but in a good way. It was still funny - Dean Pelton's reaction to Jeff in aviator glasses was priceless - but it also went to some serious character places, such as Troy and Abed having to confront the problem of excessive escapism, and Jeff struggling with his ego. If they continue those quirky peeks into Jeff's internal organs, we might one day get a Jeff Winger Operation game that includes a slot machine heart and ego apple.

30 Rock
For the record, I know who Krang is and would love to see a sketch about him. But I would settle for characters just repeatedly using "Krang" in sentences. I was surprised that they would pull Kenneth out of his new job so soon after spending the last few episodes lining it up so the character had something fresh to do. Maybe the writers just said "it would be funny if Kenneth was a janitor, but he would never quit his page job and we already fired him, so how do we get him there?" and the promotion story was born. But it does leave room for potential parallels to when Jack worked his way back to the top from the bottom.

30 Rock
Like the last time they aired double 30 Rocks, one of the episodes was clearly more awesome, and that was this one. Billy Baldwin playing an actor playing Jack Donaghy in a TV movie? Nice touch. (I imagine Billy is the brother Alec is closest to, but I don't know why I imagine that.) Weird Al Yankovic parodying Jenna's song, and then reverse-parodying her when she tries to outsmart him by writing one that's already silly? Genius. Kenneth's admission that he lies to himself every day and is close to breaking point, in what is the most depressing Kenneth moment in the entire series? ...Disturbing. In Canada they cut off the ending tag where Weird Al sings the theme song, but thanks to Youtube I was able to enjoy the extra meta joke about 30 Rock's ratings and fans.

Up All Night
It was kind of obvious Chris was going to do all the things Reagan told him not to do when he got on air, and then they just went to the old "working with spouse = bad" storyline. This show just doesn't have much imagination comedically - or often even dramatically - and with the way the writing has been, it probably would have worked better as a laughtrack sitcom. And when I say "better", I still mean lame, but the live format is more appropriate for unimaginative humour.

Awake
Apparently this episode was aired out of order, which shows because Rex is still distant and angry when he was supposed to have grown closer to his dad last week. But it was interesting that they used the dual realities this week to explore someone's life going in two opposite directions, even if one of them isn't real.

Fringe
The love potion thing was an interesting concept, but they didn't explain what happened to that dude's face. I know the deformity was likely his motivation for wanting to create a love potion, but seeing as this is Fringe, I was expecting some kind of horror story behind it. But I can't say I was moved by Peter and Olivia's reunion; they've been apart so long now, I can't even remember if I ever "shipped" them.

Hero of the Week: Weird Al Yankovic on 30 Rock. I may have mostly outgrown his music, but he's still Weird Al.

Douchebag of the Week: Alicia from Survivor, because it horrifies me that she is actually a special ed teacher. What does she teach them, gym?