Got two weeks to get through, though… I have been a bad blogger!

Buffy Season 4: 20-22

0420 – The Yoko Factor: Spike’s secret power is that he’s smarter than everyone else – sneak-smarts, anyway. Seeing him work the Scoobies in this episode, on Adam’s behalf, is just a joy. Oh, and Angel turns up briefly, following the run in he has with Buffy in the episodes I’m… uh… about to mention in a minute.

0421 – Primeval: The fall of the Initiative, and Buffy’s first real encounter with the innate supernatural force of the Slayer line. There are some nice effects moments, and some nice character moments, but I don’t know if many people were really sorry to see the Initiative go, so the final showdown between the demons and the soldiers lacked a certain amount of audience investment.

0422 – Restless: … And the oddest of Buffy seasons, the red-headed stepchild of them really, closes on an odder note, having finished off what was arguably the season’s main arc an episode early, and instead running with a surreal episode mostly composed of pitch-perfect dream sequences, as the core gang of Buffy, Willow, Xander and Giles meet the malevolent spirit of the first Slayer.

It’s a really enjoyable episode, but it’s also oddly placed – though in some ways it’s the perfect finish to this season, because it’s actually a bridge between the awkward dischord of this season, and the major themes of the next. In fact, the last few episodes of season four have been building towards setting up the themes of self-discovery and identity that will dominate season five, which is a shift in structure for the show. It’s almost as if Whedon realised that the season arc was never going to end perfect, so he decided to cut his losses and use it as a springboard to the following year’s fun.

And though I’ve mentioned it before, I never realised quite how much Whedon seeded the ‘sudden’ arrival of Dawn.

Angel Season 1: 16-22

0116 – The Ring: It’s “Gladiator”! Only with demons! A fun enough wrinkle on the show’s exploration of the hero archetype, as Angel fights by not fighting. Another new Wolfram & Hart employee appears, too.

0117 – Eternity: A stupid actress does a stupid thing, and brings out Angelus temporarily. It’s big fun seeing the psycho again, but though there’s obviously a lot of effort to make us see how difficult the aging process is for her, we don’t sympathise with her.

0118 – Five By Five: This was the year that Faith went from an interesting idea that sometimes felt a little overcooked, to being a 360 degree character. After a really solid two-parter over in Buffy, in which Eliza Dushku did a great job of selling some complex characterisation as Faith got in touch with her inner self-hatred, she turns up in LA, and is taken on by Wolfram & Hart to assassinate Angel. She tortures the fuck out of Wesley, but Angel manages to find her, and when he refuses to fight her, it becomes obvious that Faith was planning a suicide-by-vamp. Dushku takes her from defiant to helpless in a few beautifully convincing and moving seconds.

0119 – Sanctuary: Angel finally manages to make some headway with Faith, and then of course Buffy turns up and is all indignant up in his face. Buffy is a pain in the arse at times like this, but Gellar acts up to the slightly different tone of this show this time out, and things unfold at quite a rate. The fight coreographers always do an awesome job when working with Faith and Buffy fights, so the action is pretty solid, by TV standards. Wesley gets to be a badass, too. All in all, these and the two over in Buffy are probably the four most solid Faith episodes they ever did.

0120 – War Zone: Heh. Gunn turns up. It’s fun enough to see some black street kids in the show, but as much as the character is sometimes pretty well written and J.August Richards does a likeable job with him, I still kind of cringe every time I hear his name – it’s obviously a quite laughable riff on “Blade” but it doesn’t work for me!

0121 – Blind Date: I didn’t really remember this episode until it got going. Not surprising, really – it’s a Lindsey episode, and it’s easy to forget his part in this series. But actually, Lindsey, and Angel’s relationship to him, are pretty important to the show. Lindsey’s journey runs from the first to last episode of “Angel”, but this is the first story where we really see how complicated and layered Lindsey really is.

And it’s interesting, because this is also the first time he tries to do something good, but it’s his actions here that lead him onto the path that will see him through to the end of the show.

0122 – To Shanshu In LA: This whole episode builds around Wolfram & Hart’s attempt to “raise” something – and the demon who is performing the mysterious ritual goes quite effectively about dismantling Angel’s team to stop him interfering. Wesley and the offices get blown up, and the bad dude does something particularly nasty to Cordelia.

It’s a strong climax to the season, with a new mission set up for Angel, and a real sense that anything can happen in the next season. And finally, we find out why the show has spent so much time dwelling on Angel’s history with Darla. One might have thought it was just to fit in with the “immortal protagonist” aspect of the show – it’s a rule in western TV drama that if you’ve got a character that lives forever, you have to have endless period flashbacks just to, y’know, press home the idea that this is a character that lives forever.

But when it turns out that the thing being raised is Darla, who Angel killed way back in the first season of Buffy, it’s clear that the real reason we’re being reminded of why Darla is important is that she’s going to be a major part of the second season.

Criminal Minds Season 4: 05-12

0405 – Catching Out: Bubbles from “The Wire” guests as a transient serial killer. Big fun, because it means that Morgan gets to have a train-top fist-fight.

0406 – The Instincts: A bluff episode – a child abduction case draws the team to Vegas, because the real motive of the episode is to get Reid near the place where he grew up and dreaming about his childhood, a thread which leads into the following episode…

0407 – Memoriam: A complicated but nicely stitched together drama, as Reid tries to piece together the truth about his childhood, and his father’s desertion.

0408 – Masterpiece: This episode starts on a movie moment – an eccentric man arrives at a lecture given by Reid and Rossi, and tells them that he has murdered several people, challenging them to find his latest victims before they expire.

It’s a bit of a “Saw” by way of “Hannibal” episode, but it’s fun, though the killer isn’t one of their more believable unsubs…

0409 – 52 Pickup: Spree killers are always fun, but the really cool thing about this episode is that JJ has her baby, and asks Reid to be the godfather.

Man, we like these characters far too much.

0410 – Brothers In Arms: Ah, well, a bit of a blah episode… these come along every now and then. Not a lot to say about it, which is rubbish, I suppose…

0411 – Normal: An awesome episode – basically, it’s like “Falling Down”, but without the cop-out ending, with some truly brutal stuntwork and motivation, and an unsub that the audience finds itself uncomfortably sympathetic toward. One of the few truly shocking episodes, too.

In this case, the middle-aged, emasculated man is played with beautiful understatement and convincing bubbling rage by cult TV favourite Mitch Pileggi.

0412 – Soul Mates: An odd episode, which seems to have been written by someone who had a cool idea for a murder story – or in this case, a serial rape/murder story, and just loosely camoflagued it as a case for this particular team of FBI investigators.

In fact, the “Criminal Minds” regulars don’t really do much in this episode, and the whole thing is carried somewhat by a charming and measured performance by Michael Boatman, the favoured suspect from before we’re even invited into the story.

The Office 0508 – Frame Toby

Heh… Michael Scott is so delightfully irrational when it comes to Toby that there are some great moments of complete bewildered rage from Carrell’s character.

Even if Michael doesn’t like him, it’s good to have Paul Lieberstein back as the permanently monotone HR guy – though it does seem like a particularly cruel twist for Michael, to have his soul mate so unceremoniously swapped out for his arch-enemy.

It’s still not entirely clear what exactly it is that Toby ever did to earn his wrath, though. Just quietly enforcing the rules, but happily caving when Michael goes too far doesn’t seem like it’d even get the ridiculous office manager’s attention.

Elsewhere, the cosy romance of Jim and Pam almost looks like it is going to be derailed when Jim makes the ill-advised purchase of his parents’ house, but it seems like the showrunners think the terrible anxiety that we feel whenever it looks like this couple’s bliss is going to be ruined is enough for now. I’ve made myself clear on this, mind – much as I know a lack of conflict makes for boring TV, I’d be happy if these two are just left to actually have a nice, heart-warming love story, after the trauma of their near-misses and glancing hits of the first few seasons.

Let the other characters fall out and fuck around, I say!

The Office 0505-0507
A sequence of mean episodes, these ones.

0505 – Employee Transfer sees Holly transfered immediately following the events of the last episode, and it is terrible to watch the dissolution of Michael and Hollys’ lovely relationship over the course of the long van journey that they take to get her to New Hampshire. Neither character is happy, and it’s either genius or terribly cruel that the showrunners decided to take this relationship away from Michael so soon after giving him it.
Dwight, also is particularly harsh, if hilarious, in his ongoing torment of Andy Bernard, who actually hasn’t done anything to deserve it, and remains oblivious as to why it’s happening. I don’t like seeing Dwight this cruel – it’s tragic how the humanising relationship that he had with Angela is now having the exact opposite effect on him.

0506 – Customer Survey actually has Dwight and Jim united for a common cause, but it’s an uncomfortable episode. Since Ryan’s decision to discipline Jim last season, there have been a few moments where Jim’s position – or at least his confidence – as an employee in the office have been shaken, and this episode continues that theme.
As it happens, it turns out to be down to KellyKapoor. Kelly is a character who has always been horrid in her insane girly exuberance, but her worse character traits – her pettiness and her lack of a sense of appropriateness – are really coming to the fore this season. She’s a bit of a monster in this episode…

0507 – Business Trip features some very odd developments around Andy Bernard. Andy, Oscar and Michael go on a business trip that is supposed to be a treat for Michael, but ends up being a massive let down, during which he really feels the loss of Holly.
It’s always nice when Michael has a moment of clarity and sticks up for himself – and in this episode there’s a nice moment when he berates his boss for forcing her to move.
But the real revelation of the episode is Andy and Oscar’s interplay, which comes out of nowhere but is totally natural. I’m a bit fan of Oscar, but it’s interesting how well he handles Andy’s bizarre personality.
They end up getting on pretty well. The internet seemed to think a few weeks back that there might be a bubbling storyline about Andy being gay in the offing, and I don’t know if that came from this episode, or something else that’s coming up, but it was interesting how actually unsurprising it would be if they did take Andy in that direction.
However, I also wonder if establishing a line of communication and mutual affection between the two isn’t also going to be a way for Andy to find out about Angela’s affair – after all, he’s unlikely to work it out for himself, and Oscar is smart, and sits, like, right by her.
The other cool but mean-spirited moment is Ryan and Kelly’s reunion, and Darryl’s complete joy at being let off the hook of his relationship with Kelly. And Ryan’s subsequent change of heart that unfolds entirely through his facial expressions, where it becomes obvious that he mainly wanted Kelly because he thought somebody else wanted her. It’s mean but cool, because at that moment you realise that both Ryan and Kelly have ended up with exactly the relationship that they deserve.

Criminal Minds 0303-0404
Really hammering through these episodes. Actually, we’ve generally zoomed through the seasons of this show, because it is quite addictive.

This will slow down a little, now – we’re almost up to date, and the real reason for deciding to watch the show in the first place was the episode that we watched last thing yesterday. More on that later.

This batch of episodes is the first that we’ve watched that have had absolutely no Gideon, and it changes the feel of the show a little, but he’s not as missed as you’d expect.

The team goes three episodes without it’s venerable grumpy old man role filled, before introducing Joe Mantegna as Rossi. He takes a few episodes to really fit in, with an awkward meanness and independence that puts him at odds with both the rest of the team and the viewer, until circumstance softens him. His hidden agenda for coming back to the BAU is thankfully dealt with relatively quickly, in 0314 – Damaged, and this brings the team together around him somewhat, while also offering up a strong vignette as Reid and Hotchner give a death-row convict one final interview about his crimes.

Character developments, or at least the appearance of them, abound throughout – JJ has a secret relationship with a familiar face, Penny Garcia has a traumatic plotline which gives birth to one of our favourite supporting guest stars ever as her new beau, Hotch has family problems that – while unsurprising – are still sad, and then gets blown up which has continuing repercussions, Reid continues to cope with his addiction, and Morgan does… uh… stuff. The strength of this show is – quite aside from the intriguing murderer-of-the-week – the warm and sympathetic characterisation of the regular cast, so even if very occassionally the situations that they get in are contrived, you care enough about them that it makes for intense viewing.

One thing that Girl One noted about these episodes, mind, is that recently, every episode features one of the team having doubts or some sort of emotional response to the case. They wouldn’t be believable if they didn’t get involved, but she’s right that it’s an uneasy balance to strike between humanity and mawkishness, and it’ll be hard not to be bothered by it if it starts to slide too far in that direction.

Talking points of these episodes:
Guest Francis Capra – a favourite from “Veronica Mars” – appears as a tragic Angel-Of-Death character, who actually makes you feel a little sorry for him, despite him being a child-killer, in 0304 – Children Of The Dark.

0305 – Seven Seconds: A formula-busting episode – which to be honest didn’t really need the BAU’s profiling skills, but did benefit from their characters – takes place entirely in a shopping mall, as what seems to be a serial child-abduction degenerates into a strong family drama.

Morgan has a strong scene as Rossi, screwing with him, insists that he follows a lead that means him walking into an armed-militia packed bar, in 0307 – Identity.

Garcia has some great scenes with Morgan, and some great scenes on her own, in the story that unfolds incidentally in 0308 – Lucky and explodes into 0309 – Penelope. There’s a lot of team-bonding and some lovely character work on JJ, as well as an almost unrecognisable but wonderful appearance in support by Nick Brendon from Buffy, in a role that I hope won’t just sit forgotten. This is also probably the point where Rossi stops being a total prick, and starts working for the team, a little, which is a turning point for his character.

0310 – True Night: Another episode that breaks with the show’s formula, and while I can see what they were trying to do, it’s a badly misjudged episode. It’s good to see Frankie Muniz trying something different from his role as the titular character in “Malcolm in the Middle”, but the character doesn’t really work for him.
It’s a comic-centric episode, and Muniz plays a comic creator that appears to have been written by an enthusiast rather than someone who actually researched the field. There are some interesting and fairly well produced visual gimmicks that ape the “Sin City” movie style, but by about midway through the episode you’re tired of it. This is a show that at times can stand shoulder-to-shoulder with a cinema thriller, so to see it only competently aping that medium seems odd, somehow – it doesn’t need to.
The clever aspect of the episode is that it tries to take the investigation from the point of view of the killer, and only access the regular team’s investigation in passing, but it breaks it’s own rules too often for that to really work. At which point the murder mystery is too slim to carry itself, and doesn’t seem to fit with the generally realistic psychoses normally seen in the show.
And that competent but slightly misguided aspect of the writing I mentioned before carries through – the idea that it’s written by a fan of comic books rather than someone who did their homework – because the use of comic-related quotes at the beginning and end comes off as totally gimmicky, rather than smartly chosen as usual, and the only really insightful scene in the whole episode is an incidental discussion between two comic geeks and their comic shop guy that perfectly captures the fragile arrogance and posturing alpha maleness of fandom, which falls apart the second the shopkeeper exerts any authority.

0312 – 3rd Life is another intriguing episode, in which the team try to find a kidnapped girl. Before long it becomes clear that something else is going on with the girl’s father, and eventually it becomes obvious what it is – he is a murderer for hire for organised criminals, in the witness protection program, and either it’s his old employers who have taken the girl, or her kidnappers have bitten off more than they can chew.
This episode also triggers off an emotional relapse of sorts in Reid, which comes to light in later episodes.

0316 – Elephant’s Memory is when this really comes out. It opens with a great scene, with guest Michael Ironside meeting Reid at an Addicts Anonymous session, and features another one in a string of tragically sympathetic murderers that Reid begins to identify with. Reid’s responses throughout the episode are convincing, and when his behaviour puts him at odds with the rest of the team, it is difficult not to be engaged.

0319 – Tabula Rasa is a very rare example of an episode in a procedural investigation show that tackles the subject of guilt and punishment, in an involving story about a suspected serial killer who has woken from a coma – which he fell into as a result of an accident during the team’s pursuit of him in 2004 – with absolutely no memory of his past.
The episode is reflective in tone, which is quite unusual for this show, but it’s outstanding.

The season finale – 0320 – Lo-Fi - and the subsequent continuation of the story in 0401 – Mayhem, is a much bigger scale story than we normally see in the show, and is more like a season of “24″ or a decent “Die Hard” movie than an episode of “Criminal Minds”. The first part of the story is a pretty cool investigation story, but the conclusion that opened this most recent series is fraught and stressful, and brilliant.
THERE ARE EXPLOSIONS!

It’s taken a while, but this year the show finally had their Waco episode, in 0403 – Minimal Loss. Two of the team are undercover with a cult and get trapped inside due to a screwed up federal raid. With Reid and Prentiss on the inside, and the rest of the team trying to negotiate from outside, it soon becomes apparent that the cult leader – played with oily charisma by Luke Perry – isn’t willing to be taken captive, and plans to take out the whole cult with him.
Perry is great, and Reid has some great dialogues with his character. There’s some nasty insinuated deviation going on in this one, too, which makes for a hard and cool episode.

And finally, 0404 – Paradise. This is the episode with Wil Wheaton in. It was Mr Wheaton Tweeting about this airing a couple of months ago that first brought the show to my attention, so there was an interesting feeling of coming full-circle watching this one, and it amazed me how quickly we got to it.
It’s a good episode, though pretty quiet after the excesses of the last few, which also has a strong performance from William Mapother.
Episodes of “Criminal Minds” tend to either be BAU or criminal centric, and this is certainly the latter – we know a lot more about Wheaton’s character from seeing it first hand than we learn through the investigation – and how good those are always tend to rest as much on the quality of the actor playing them as on the script. In this case, Wheaton is better at playing his character in “charisma” mode than he is at being menacing – it’s easier to believe the scenes where he is using his social camoflague than when he turns it off – but he’s still damn good. If anything, there’s a fraction of uncertainty with his face and body work, and I kind of wish people would give him more practice doing live-action acting, because aside from that, he’s brilliant.

Criminal Minds Season 2: 04-07

0204 – Psychodrama: A quartet of strong episodes begins with a fairly disturbing story in which the team are called out to deal with an armed robber who is showing signs of making the psychotic leap to becoming a spree killer.

The investigation features a lot of pretty nasty behaviour on the part of the episode’s unsub – who is apparently attempting to re-enact the story of his apparent abuse at the hands of his mother – although it’s a little confusing at times what the exact details of his crimes are, due to some uncharacteristically squeamish and euphemistic writing around the sexual elements of the story.

The episode wraps Hotch’s own failure to pay attention to his son’s childhood around the crime plot, which thematically works better than one might expect. Although I wondered whether I’d warm to Thomas Gibson’s performance – or perhaps Hotch’s stoicism – when we first started watching the show, he plays his emotional scenes with a quiet charm that now I quite enjoy.

0205 – Aftermath: Jason London guests as a creepy serial-rapist with his own, romantic agenda, in this episode, and in doing does a better acting job than I’ve ever seen him do before. The case plot is pretty horrible and cool in this episode, though at times the episode’s true driving force – that of showing how Elle’s survival of the attempt on her life at the beginning of this season has affected her – isn’t so well disguised.

The close of the episode has her performing actions that would have been quite shocking, had I not known that she was bowing out later on in the season…

0206 – The Boogeyman:… though I’d obviously failed to register, during my adventures on IMDB, that it was actually the very next episode that saw her departure.

An odd episode, this, as a series of child murders hit a small town, and the team – minus Hotch and Elle – try and fail to create a working profile. When the actual killer is revealed, it makes for a bit of a shocker, but fails to sustain any real drama, because the scenes where he pursues his latest victim end up looking a little silly. Quite aside from which, the team’s profiling skills have absolutely no effect on the outcome of the episode.

More importantly, Hotch has stayed behind to try and track down Elle, who has failed to show up for a psych evaluation. When he finally catched up to her, he gives her an ultimatum that ends up seeing her leave the show – though oddly, she seems to have been allowed to literally get away with murder. I have to admit, I’m not sorry to see her go – Elle, or Lola Glaudini’s performance of Elle, has always been one of the slightly annoying things about the show. With any luck we’ll see someone better replace her before long.

Great to see Geoffrey Lewis in this episode, as well as a solid performance from Sean Bridgers, one of my Deadwood favourites.

0207 – North Mammon: A very creepy episode that puts JJ front and center in the team, as they attempt to find three kidnapped girls in a small town obsessed with an upcoming football game. Though the team’s interactions are written perfectly, and A.J. Cook gets to do some nice character stuff with JJ, the real meat of the episode are the excellently nasty scenes featuring the three girls in captivity, where their captor has set them the terms that if they choose one of their number to die, the other two will be allowed to go free.

These scenes are excellently played, and create a lot of drama and gravity to their plight. It’s another one of those episodes where in the end, the BAU’s presence in the town actually has little to no effect on the outcome of the case, which kind of sorts itself out here, without them having much of a chance to do a proper profile!

Buffy Season 4: 12-19

Something quite peculiar has happened with Buffy – I seem to have missed talking about a whole bunch of episodes that we’ve definitely seen in the last few weeks.

Because of that, I’m a bit hazy on my most recent responses to them, so I’ll just pin it down to a couple of comments, with your indulgence.

I think the main reason I’m not remembering much about these episodes is that despite the quite cute developments between Willow and Tara, and some excellent Spike stuff that mostly happens earlier in the season, there’s not a lot that’s really memorable about the Initiative and Adam storylines that dominate the latter half of this season.

Having said that, within this bunch of episodes, there were some great highlights, including:

One of the better Faith stories, a two-parter in which Eliza Dushku pretty much justifies Joss Whedon’s faith in her after actually being a little two-note throughout most of the rest of her appearances.

The excellent “Superstar“, in which Joss Whedon and Jane Espenson opt to have one whole Jonathan dominated episode, rather than have Danny Strong play the character across a series of smaller appearances in the season the way he normally does. The episode isn’t particularly content-packed, but it is very funny, as we see all of the show’s characters responding to the universe that Jonathan made in various excellent ways.

The team discovering Giles as he plays an acoustic set at a local open-mic night – Xander’s dismay only made worse by the adoration of the female Scoobies.

The final episode in the bunch is one of my favourite Buffys of the whole run, though it’s also one of the most upsetting, as Oz returns – to reveal that he has got his lycanthropy under control. Willow has her own revelations, though, and the scenes between Alyson Hannigan and Seth Green are perfect and incredibly sad – not least because of the tragic finality there is to them. The two always give such good performances when they work together, and Green in particular just breaks my heart again and again in this episode.

And if that makes me a gigantic gaylord, than so be it.

Angel Season 1: 09-15

0109 – Hero: I suppose it was a bit silly to follow that last episode of Buffy with this episode of Angel.

Audiences didn’t respond too well to Doyle when “Angel” first aired, if I remember rightly. At the time, I wondered whether it was something to do with his accent – that sounded a little deliberate to me at the time, but was actually Glenn Quinn’s real voice – or his general “annoying sidekick” demeanor.

Actually, watching these over again, I don’t think there was anything wrong with his performance, and have to wonder whether it was just the fact that, at the beginning there, it wasn’t the shock of the new – he was the only regular character and actor who hadn’t made his way across from Buffy, for starters, and he was also the conduit through which all of the show concepts that were alien to viewers of the other show were introduced, such as Angel’s new ongoing mission, and the way in which he received each case.

However, over the first three or four episodes, he started to win me over, and I think he might have endeared himself to the viewers, too. Certainly, by the time this episode came around, he felt like a part of the family, and thinking back it’s weird to think that he was in less than half a season worth of episodes in a five season run.

Because of course, this is his final episode. And they get rid of him in quite a final way, sacrificed to stop the plot of a band of hellish fascist demons, and save the lives of a group of innocent refugees.

Despite the nastiness of his demise, Girl One didn’t quite believe that he was gone, and I think this was for a couple of reasons – for a start, she hadn’t heard anything about it in that way that one gets vaguely spoilered about shows through conversations with other people, down through the years. She also didn’t buy how out of the blue and arbitrary it was – the writers had, after all, gone to a lot of trouble to try and establish Doyle, and there seemed to be storylines that would now go nowhere.

So for her, the episode wasn’t as potent as it was for me, because she didn’t really know how final it was – I kind of remember having the same vague response to it at the time. But for me, they did a good job of giving him an emotional send-off, that allows the repercussions that Angel and Cordelia feel over the next few episodes to ring true, despite the shortness of the run till this point.

Course, it’s possible that it means a lot to me because I know that Quinn died later on, and quite young, in real life.

The rest of these episodes are fairly standard, compared to this one, so as with Buffy, I’m going to scurry through them – which seems pretty lazy, but we’re really forging forward with these shows at quite a rate!

Wesley, who never managed to distinguish himself on Buffy, joins the cast here in the very next episode after Doyle exits, and it seems a little too soon, really. It doesn’t help that it seems, for these first episodes at least, that he is only brought in as comic relief. While slapstick is always fun, his buffoonery sometimes seems a little much for a show that was supposed to be Buffy’s darker sibling.

However, he does a good job in the horrific exorcism story at episode 14 – “I’ve Got You Under My Skin” – in which we see a harder, realer side to him as we learn that he was abused by a dominating father as a child.

We also see Wesley and Angel dancing. This is… well… this has to be seen to be believed, really. It’s one of those moments that stuck with fans for years.

The phantom, Dennis, who lives with Cordelia, is the best thing about an episode in which Cordelia is impregnated by a demon and gets very quickly pregnant – though there are lots of great moments in the episode.

And in the final episode of this run – “The Prodigal” – there’s a nifty little moment that I still loved seeing it the other night, as Angel, uninvited, stands yelling at the open doorway to Kate’s father’s apartment, as two vampires, invited, kill the old man in plain view of him. When Kate’s father expires, Angel suddenly finds he can enter the room, but it is too late. It’s a silly thing to be so impressed by, but it’s a moment that fits so well, and garners a really solid tension from an idea that could only exist inside that particular mythology – it just works.

The I.T. Crowd Season 3: 03-04

0303 – Tramps Like Us: After my first episode fears that this series was going to be a bit lacklustre, every one since has been pretty consistently awesome.

This episode continues the theme. Jen’s job interview perfectly captures both her blagging nature and the general silliness of job interviews given by managers who don’t know what they’re doing, and it leads into a perfect exchange with the concussed Moss.

Moss, himself, is great value as always, with his uncharacteristically risky prank that goes wrong, and the aforementioned concussion. And Matt Berry as Douglas gets to have some fun with his electric sex pants.

If there’s a weak link in the episode, it’s Roy’s storyline, which starts strong with a telegraphed but great moment of public inappropriateness, but descends into an extended and whimsical montage of his two hour adventure as a homeless.

0304 – Speech: Though the second episode is still my favourite one of the series so far, this one has some of my favourite set-pieces. There’s a little more Douglas than I’d hope for (the character is great, but runs the risk of becoming a Kryten – A cool supporting character that ends up becoming the focus of a show that they can’t support), but the pay-off of all his deep-throated shenanigans in this episode is just perfect.

Perfect, too, is how Moss and Roy’s plot to humiliate Jen when she gives her employee of the month speech plays out. It’s an excellently executed prank in the first place, but how completely they have misjudged the speech’s audience, and how badly wrong it all goes, is just perfect. The central idea of the prank-puller’s overestimation of the general population’s intelligence is similar to the episode of the US Office in which Jim plays a similar trick on Dwight, but Linehan’s surreal execution, and the fact that the “Internet” is a central theme here, just makes it sing for me.

The Office Season 0412

0412 – Did I Stutter?: This is quite exciting – we’re getting to the end of the episodes that I have already seen, so after the next one, Girl One and I will both be watching the episodes fresh together.

This is a bit of a harsh one. It begins with an outburst at Michael from Stanley that at the outset is pretty short and inconsequential. But when Michael is unwilling to acknowledge or deal with the slight, the situation builds, until Michael, being Michael, decides that rather than approach the problem head on, he will hit Stanley with one of his “scenarios”.

This backfires badly, and it makes for an interesting sequence, in which Michael is severely dressed down by Stanley in front of the whole office, and then explodes himself, in an impressive and utterly suprising moment of anger.

Which of course instantly gives way to wheedling and silliness, the second everybody else is out of sight. But when Stanley still fails to apologise, Michael performs one of the few solid bits of management we’ve ever seen out of him, and Stanley ends the episode not particularly repentant, but at least back at a more appropriate level of behaviour.

It’s a sign that the showrunners know what they’re doing that they can pull off the awkward and uncomfortable scenes that play out in this episode, and still make it funny, even if this one doesn’t have as many straight-out jokes as usual. There’s also a very mean-spirited and nasty scene in which Ryan, with Toby on hand, gives Jim a completely out-of-the-blue verbal warning. It’s a moment of bad management, and John Krasinki plays it like the true slap in the face that it is. It’s interesting to see Toby gloating, obviously fuelled by his jealousy of Jim’s relationship with Pam – Toby normally endeavours to be fair, and is such a nice character, but it’s realistic to see nice people be nasty when they feel they’re in the right. In TV we more often see it the other way around – with bad guys showing touching moments of humanity – so it’s good to see Toby being a jerk.

So that’s three characters getting dressed down, running down to the end of the season – and season closers in “The Office” are normally pretty nifty.

Survivors 0104

“Survivors” continues to be entertaining, and it seems counter-productive to be too critical of British genre television when it gets most things right, as it doesn’t happen that often…

However, this most recent episode did make Girl One and I raise the same concern simultaneously as the final credits rolled:

This all seems a little bit too safe. Both the ongoing situations and the television show housing them.

I suppose this is the point where that question gets asked. The episodes so far have each had their role:

Episode 1: Set-up – in which the scenario and different central character drivers and traits are established.
Episode 2: Establish physical conflict – in which the group’s safety is physically threatened for the first time, and we see that there are, in fact, dangers out there.
Episode 3: Establish ideological conflict – in which the questions of right and wrong away from matters of moment-to-moment physical survival in this new world are addressed, as we see for the first time how exactly an attempt to return to organised civilisation on a large scale might go wrong. This is the grittiest and hardest episode so far.

So episode 4 is the stage at which lots of groundwork has been set, and now we start to see how people are dealing with it. There’s a return to the organisation of the domed sanctuary, which, following the shocking events of the previous episode, seems to have made a shift to Stepford style symbolic comformism over difficult questions asked by idealists who are objectively good people.

At the same time, we get a look at what happens when the Lord Of The Flies syndrome kicks in, and a group of teenaged boys go near-feral – although still for the most part speaking RP English – and take over a manor house, violently fending off the place’s rightful owner.

There’s a very small sub-plot wherein Anya and Greg see off some invaders at their own home base.

There is plenty of room in this episode for this to be the point where hard lessons are learnt, in at least one of these stories. We are enjoying each of the characters and would miss any of them, but there is a point where Max Beesley’s Tom could easily have ended the life of Sadiq – the drama is built to suggest it – and created a deeper conflict and more meaty secrecy in the show – just as there is a point when the teenagers could easily have reverted to primal behaviour and betrayed the trust that Abby put in them, subverted the message that all they needed, even in this terrible world, was a mother figure to come along and sort them out.

Anya and Greg, too, could have been forgiven for taking the lives of the two invaders – in fact, it would have been the smart choice, and right or wrong would have caused some emotional torment for them – but instead opted to leave them out there, and angry.

Our concern was this – if the world that these characters live in continues to be a place where most bad situations can be solved with a bit of talk, or a danger-lite escape, that world starts to loose a little of what makes it worthwhile watching. If it becomes idyllic, we’ll start to switch off.

Of course, this is only episode 4, and there’s plenty of time for these decisions to start coming back to haunt the characters. But the thing about continuity and consistency of plot in a show is that it’s a matter of faith – there’s no way to know how much attention will be paid, or how much causality there will be in a show’s run, until the run is well on it’s way. Right now, Girl One and I are hoping this doesn’t go down a mediocre road.

As always, I’d love to know what you think in the comments. And I’d love to know whether there’s anything that you’re watching that you think I should keep an eye out for!

Criminal Minds 0122 – 0203

After a mostly strong first season, I was wondering whether this sharp procedural/investigative show was going to be able to sustain that level of quality.

Thus far, it’s been patchy, which is a shame, but we’re still early in the season, so it’s hard to know how it’s going to turn out.

0122/0201 – The Fisher King Parts 1 & 2: The “end of season” cliffhanger story is a tough one to pull off, especially in shows like this one. You have to make the season finale strong enough and high-stakes enough that it will keep your current viewers excited about the show during it’s hiatus, but your second part comes at the beginning of a new season, and conventional wisdom states that, while it doesn’t have to completely explain everything about the show for new viewers, it has to accomodate them a little, or at least not exclude them.

Over the last few years, we’ve seen a few examples of how this can go wrong – “CSI NY” fluffed it’s cliffhanger last season by having the second part almost immediately drop the tense situation of the first. “CSI” set themselves up for a year of conspiracy and betrayal at the tail of the last season, but forced a resolution – albeit it a tragic one – for the current season, too.

I’ve also spoken before about how quickly drama shows seem to forget their unique selling point, and descend into soap-opera or lazily written investigation – it’s that weird point in entertainment where “formulaic” is actually a positive thing, because it’s the formula that makes a show stand out. Grissom’s insistence that the team follow the evidence and trust in science was the coda by which CSI Prime lived for around the first six seasons, and it managed to keep the show locked into the cases without getting too distracted by it’s characters lives while it remained in full effect. Brennan and Booth used to apply their very different skillsets to the processes of scientific interpretation of human remains and interrogation, eventually solving each case in a way that couldn’t have happened without each of them in “Bones”, though in more recent series they have relied a lot more on questioning suspects and having perpetrators fall out of the episode plot at their feet.

The story that unfolds across these two episodes of “Criminal Minds” falls foul of a lot of these problems from the start, but it doesn’t really become a problem till the second part. It starts with all of the team members finally grabbing some vacation time. After a cute bit of set-up, in which we get to spend a bit of time with each character in repose, suddenly, in their disparate – and in some cases secret – locations, they find themselves being dragged into an elaborate plot, involving murder, planted clues, and a kidnapped girl.

The problem at this point, if it exists, is that this show isn’t first and foremost about the team-members, so much as it’s about them being brought in to different locations to help profile criminals. And generally, the criminals are relatively realistic and convincing criminals – even when they are extremely intelligent lunatics – not moustache-twiddling nefarious villains. The particular bad-guy plotting against them in this episode is more like Anthony Hopkin’s Hannibal Lecter than would normally fit in this show.

This isn’t too much of a problem in the first episode, because it all unfolds with enough mystery and intrigue that the viewer is taken along with it quite happily. Even when Elle is left alone in her home and apparently shot, due to a bizarre piece of careless decision-making by Hotchner, you buy into it, because you kind of accepted that if this was going to be a cliffhanger episode, then something truly bad had to happen to close it out.

But unfortunately, the second part of the story carries none of the sharp-thinking and nice scripting of the first, and feels almost as if it was written on the fly, with a desperate urge to get the story over with – as if the idea of a two-parter had seemed like a good one, while everyone was looking forward to completing the first season and heading out to wherever TV production crews go when a show is on hiatus. After going to so much trouble to set up some nice character moments for most of the team at season’s close, and making such an effort with the locked-room mysteryness of it, most of the second half of the story is given over to a frankly cringeworthy operation-table hallucination, and relegates the actual solving of the mystery itself to a sequence of coincidences and discoveries that are more about Reed’s connection to the case than they were about particularly well-applied investigative or profiling skills.

Which is a bit daft for a few reasons. First, in a show whose success rests on convincing it’s audience that this is as close to a representation of real-world profiling and investigations as it’s possible to get, the “character close to death finds themselves in a misty location where a dead loved one helps them decide whether to go on to heaven or fight for life” is a self-indulgent piece of fantasy.

It’s also a painful cliche, that we’ve seen too many times before, and it’s delivered here in such a po-faced and earnest way that it doesn’t feel like it’s come from the same writers as previous episodes at all. It was more “Highway To Heaven” than the almost gritty vibe the show has had so far. This sort of leap in quality on a show screws with my head.

And finally, if you want to build any sort of tension about whether or not a character is going to die at the beginning of a season, giving them any scenes beyond either flashbacks while other characters worry about them, or scenes where they actually look dead, are a major mistake. Audiences are wise to shit like this by now, and know that an actor who is being let go as a new season starts doesn’t get long talkey scenes where we find out more about them. They certainly don’t look happy to be there and invested in the scenes that they’re in. “Lost” is the only show that played convincingly with the idea of you finally getting to know and like a character in the very episode that they die suddenly in, and even they only managed to get away with it a couple of times.

A very weak season-opener.

0202 – P911: And what’s more, it seems that last episode was a bit of a loose-end, because for some reason, the action has time-shifted a few months on from it by this next episode. It’s normal for shows to have an in-show time gap between seasons, but it’s quite odd to have one between the first and second episodes of a new run.

This is a decently tense piece of television, but the team’s presence in the case is largely arbitrary, with them doing very little profiling on a paedophilia case on which there is already an expert team working – so that there are a couple of comedy moments like the point where one of the show’s familiar expositionary psychology info-dumps is only delivered by one of the regular team members when the actual child-slavery specialist gets air sick-ish.

But if I didn’t quite enjoy this show, I might totally lose my rag at some of the moments of typical Hollywood issue-wrangling and hand-wringing that go on in this story. For a normally smart show, there are some truly irresponsible bits of pandering, and Girl One spotted the signs of a Nick outburst quite early on when the FBI expert actually claimed a causal link between the growth of the internet and the growth of child-abuse.

It didn’t spoil my enjoyment of the episode, but after a child-snatching case in the first season had the quite pragmatic suggestion that the hysterical response to child safety of educating children about “stranger danger” had actually done more harm than good, focussing as it did on an area that actually wasn’t the primary risk for kids, this episode was a little sanctimonious and off the point.

(Though to be honest, “Bones” is about the only show that really deals with “issues” in a relatively consistent and almost balanced way, so I should have expected it.)

0203 – The Perfect Storm: A bit more back to normal, this, with a twisting, turning plot that actually involves a little bit of standing and sitting around in a room and throwing profiling ideas around. Which is, after all, one of the things we like this show for, so it’s nice to see that they haven’t completely dropped it for this second season.

The Office 0405 – 0411

Again, too much “The Office” goodness to really break down into episodes, and there hasn’t been a point where the show has gone bad. I know that some people probably decided that the show had jumped sharkward when it finally got Jim and Pam together, but this watch-through has convinced me that my initial thoughts on this were right:

That it was “time” – to drag out their awkward mutual cautious crushes any longer would have stretched it too far, and to let it dwindle away – or go out with a nasty bang – would have devalued all the work done on making it real in the first few seasons.

That this isn’t Ross and Rachel all over again - Far from turning this into the “Jim/Pam Happy Half Hour”, the writers have taken the opportunity to actually take the focus off the adorable couple – or at least, have their romance take up less screen time than it has since they were in two different offices. In fact, it allowed them to shift their focus back onto Michael’s dysfunctional relationship with Jan, and also to devote a little time to Ryan’s change in position, and poor Dwight’s heartbreaking love-triangle with Angela and Andy.

If anything, Jim and Pam have been shown to be anything but perfect at this point. Though they have what seems to be the perfect relationship, the show has taken the refreshing – and pre-emptive – direction of making the rest of the office actually see them as a little too great, and want to take them down a peg or two. In these episodes, we actually see two scenarios where Jim is actually badly at odds with the rest of the office and messes up badly. And in fact, in some brilliant moments, finds that by trying too hard to not be Michael Scott, he is actually turning into the man.

Some highlights:

Michael deposed – as in, at the deposition!
At least two scenes of “That’s what she said” metatextual examination!
Jan’s awesome meltdown!
Jim and Pam are worst couple ever!
Angela necking with Andy – sighing “Oh, D! Oh, D!”
Ryan’s friend with the magic powers!
Jim’s racial faux-pas with Oscar that turns out to be on the nose!
Toby’s wandering hand!

The Survivors 01 – 03

I totally failed to mention that we started watching this last week, which was silly, because so far it’s been great.

From what I’ve been told, the original was pretty much awesome, so once this first run is over, I may have to seek it out, but these few episodes have been impressive, evoking a quiet isolation and seeping paranoia as convincing, but utterly contrasting to, the recent spate of survival horror stories set in England.

At odds with many other pieces of genre TV or film made in the UK in recent years – or ever, I suppose – this tale of a world almost entirely wiped of people in a virulent flu epidemic is handled with a level of restraint and an eye to understatement in which the characters don’t all either talk in RP English or strong regional accents, and it makes for a watching experience that is pretty much free of irritation.

There was a bit of cheeky promotional trickery done by the BBC in the run-up to the first episode, which I haven’t quite recovered from, but it all adds to the general effect, so that’s okay.

Alongside the nicely handled main element of how the survivors deal with their new situation – how they relate to each other, how they cope practically, and how the main group that we are following are different to the various others that they meet, there’s a second thread, about the secret labs where a conspiracy relating to the roots of the sickness seem to be unfolding. This adds a bit of intrigue, but thankfully is left in a very much reduced and secondary position to the more interesting human dilemmas that the show excels at.

Paterson Joseph gives a more nuanced performance than I’ve seen from him in a while – I’m certain that he’s been in straight dramas before where he has impressed me, but I’ve sometimes felt that his performances in genre television have been a little bit heavy on the pantomime. Max Beesley is surprisingly good, and I could happily watch Zoë Tapper do the washing up, so seeing her perform in this is a treat! Even Chahak Patel, who plays the eleven year old Najid, brings a naturalism to the role, so that the kid is never too twee, but never too bratty, either.

There’s only one thing that really niggles with me with the show, and it really just is a pedantic thing. Perhaps deliberately, the geography of the show is kept pretty vague, and there aren’t many indicators of, say, how far someone has driven to get to a particular situation that they’ve ended up stuck in. It gives a strange sense of an England both vast and tiny at the same time, which may be deliberate, and is, I suppose, quite poignant, but when one of the characters stumbles across an amazing or dangerous state of affairs, it’s difficult to get a real handle on how far they are from their base camp, and as such how cut-off they are/how likely a given situation is to directly affect their companions at a later date.

But it seems unreasonable to let that bother me too much, when the show is already giving us so much enjoyment, and the BBC have timed the show perfectly, with that actively horrific first episode going out just as the next wave of indeterminable and ubiquitous bugs go around our workplaces and online social groups. It’s actual honest-to-god viral marketing that they didn’t even have to pay for!

At this rate, before long I’ll be writing one, thing, and then none things, and we’ll be back where we were six months back. Hopefully before Christmas I will be back on top of this stuff, though! You have my sincerest apologies!

The IT Crowd Season 3 Episode 2

This second episode was a lot funnier than the first in this season. If I’m honest, though I enjoyed the first episode of the season, I kind of wanted to enjoy it more than I did. It’s normal for a season of “The IT Crowd” for there to be a 4:2 ratio of awesome to average shows, but so far the first part of each has been great, so I was a little worried when the series started with a lackluster opener.
This show had a lot more Roy/Moss interaction in it, and that’s where the show is at it’s best. Actually, no Matt Berry at all, which is a bit of a shame, but his character is better in moderation anyway.

The Roy/Moss storyline is perfect, here. Though the “awkward chaps masquerading as lads” is something I’ve seen before – most notably in Armando Iannucci’s show and in a sketch on “Man Stroke Woman” – it’s an area that’s ripe for comedy, and something that I can personally relate to, so it’s fun to watch Lineham’s take on it.

And Roy and Moss’ tender moment is played out with characteristic Lineham surreality. There’s normally at least one joke in every Lineham series which he drags out or repeats until it’s even funnier than it was already – in fact, even funnier than it should really be. Second episode in, and he’s done it already. It’s a great trick that he manages to make it work every time.

Criminal Minds 0117 – 0121

A persistently strong first season, which runs down to it’s climax with a jumble of very varied stories and approaches to those stories. The only one that didn’t really work for me was one in which one of the team becomes deeply entrenched in a Hollywood lifestyle/stalker story.
It isn’t that the episode isn’t well-written or produced, but shows tend to work better when they stay on-track with their core ideals, and this episode doesn’t do that – there’s little investigation for the team to do because all of the action comes to them.

However, they ditched the frantic “psycho eye view” of previous episodes, and I was very glad of that.

Though these episodes include a trip to Mexico and a 24-esque tale of CIA intrigue, my favourite was a particularly strong story in which the team are chasing a charismatic but desperate serial killer across the country.
When this show is good, it’s really very, very good, and one of the things it does best is create an authentic situation that the viewer can get fully involved in. When that situation involves a dangerous maniac whose victim rate is rising fast, it makes for great telly.

The Office 0313 – 0404

Oh, wow, far too many high points among these episodes. Favourite three things?
Dwight: Saving Jim from Roy’s attack, and then refusing to accept any thanks – Being sabotaged by Andy to the point where his loyalty to Angela loses him his job – euthanizing Sprinkles and subsequently losing Angela – trying to outdo Ryan’s website for sales – actually feeling sorry for Dwight in the aftermath of that break-up.
Jim: Getting attacked by Roy – the job interview – finally ending up with Pam! Oh, spoiler warning: Jim and Pam end up together!
Pam: Pretty much everything she does on “beach day”. And, you know, everything else.

The whole process around the end of season 3, where Michael thinks he’s leaving the Scranton branch, and looks for a successor, along with his attempts to ditch Jan and how that all turns out, are just perfect.

The only thing that’s a little odd about these episodes is the longer running time on the first four episodes of season 4. The writing and acting is solid, but each forty minute episode feels like it has two distinct parts to it, which makes them feel less like single episodes and more like two shorter ones mashed together.

Bones 0406 – 0407

The seemingly endless cycle of interns continues. It’s big fun, but there’s a slight problem with this roster Russian roulette – every time they have a fun guest shot as the final team member, you kind of want them to stay, and every time they have someone annoying, you really hope they don’t end up sticking with them.
I half wonder whether they’re going to avoid replacing Zach permanently all season. The rolling team member does keep things fresh.

The focus of this season so far continues to be Angela and Hodgins break-up. It’s tough for fans of the show, and that particular romance, to really deal with, and I’m not convinced that the show itself has really come to terms with it, either, as neither character seems at ease with the situation.
Still, there was girl-on-girl smoochin’ for Angela in the last episode we watched, so it’s all gravy.

These two had some genuine twisty-turny in their mysteries, but there’s been an uncomfortable simplicity to the murderer unmasking which does make one uncomfortably aware of how dense the investigators are being at more than one point.
Having said this, it might just be that we’re getting to know these shows too well – it’s an ongoing problem with a lot of the murder-mystery shows we watch.

Life 0201 – 0205

Though having said that about murder-mysteries being a little flat on intrigue or actual, you know, mystery – the second season of “Life” is just as refreshing and well-written as the first, with crime stories that – while maybe ultimately not that original, are told in such new ways that you feel like you’re watching them for the first time.
Though there is a slight scheduling anomaly which has these detectives investigating a corpse in a crushed car within a fortnight of the “Bones” crew doing the same. Which is unfortunate. You wouldn’t think it happened all that often!

The introduction of a new boss is interesting – as I didn’t really feel like we’d seen enough of the wonderful Robin Weigert. This feels like a shift in focus from the over-arching conspiracy and paranoia of the first season to a more open and episodic feel for this one.
Certainly, the new chap – played with winning charisma and sleazy New York pragmatism by Donal Logue – seems to bear that out, with a much more traditional boss/detectives dynamic than we saw last year.

That said, there’s a sustained effort to keep an over-arching plot for Charlie Crews, though so far, it’s the weakest link in an otherwise strong show. Which isn’t to say it’s not interesting – there’s just not the urgency or gravity to it of his quest to find the man who committed the murder that he did time for.

Torchwood 0207 – 0211

They dropped the fast cutting silliness of the previous episode, but stuck with the lovely Freema Agyeman! Yay!
There’s some Owen weirdness in 0207, with his recent death and rebirth apparently dropping him into the Negative Zone periodically, and an overly laboured run-up to his climactic battle with the grim reaper.
But if it was all necessary for the glory that was 0208 – A Day In The Death, than it’s forgiven. In fact, it’s fair to say that if every episode of “Torchwood” was as well written and produced as that episode, it would actually be a great show, instead of an occassionally fun but often torturous one.

Mind, the following episode with the disastrous events of Gwen’s wedding day, were a lot of fun, and the monster design and make-up in it is pretty excellent.

Then episode 0210 – From Out Of The Rain shows so many moments of greatness – mostly in the truly spooky moments with the episode’s two eerie villains – that it’s a shame that it hijacks it’s own atmosphere with some nice ideas that lead nowhere useful, and a couple of arbitrary plot devices that spin the story out like so much exposed film till it’s rendered almost meaningless.
This is one of those episodes that could have been like Buffy’s “Hush”, or Dr Who’s “Blink”, but it never quite pulls it together – it’s got the creepy baddies, but lacks the narrative cohesion.

Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles 0207 – 0210

This continues to be a great show, but I have to wonder whether I’m setting myself up for heartbreak, with audiences continuing to not watch it, and persistent rumours of cancellation.
Still, there seems to be a plan – or in fact several different plans – and it’d be nice to see them to fruition… if they can just get Shirley Manson to act. After a strong attempt in 0206, she’s back to normal again in these episodes.

There’s a great episode in the middle of this run, as we finally see a bit of closure to the brilliant Cromartie storyline, though it looks as though they like Garret Dillahunt as much as I do, because they’ve found even more for him to do.
Though John Henry is a bit of a sudden and drastic leap from what we’d seen so far, I foresee some great scenes between Dillahunt and Richard T. Jones as Ellison.

Also, there’s a nifty and surprising bit of meditation on the subject of the consequences of time-travel and alternative universes, in an episode based around Derek Reese’s and his mysterious lover Jesse, that also features a note-perfect performance by Richard Schiff.
Though at the same time as they’re dropping some great philosophical nuggets in scenes like this, I can’t help but think they’re doing a bit of on-the-spot retconning with John Connor’s friend Riley that stretches credibility just a tiny bit. We’ll see. Still loving this show.

CSI NY 0502 – 0506

A sequence of nice, solid episodes at the beginning of this latest season of CSI NY – while none of them are truly excellent, they are still a lot of fun.
It’s less science-fictional than previous seasons, which is interesting, too.

Still, though, it’s tough to see what the direction of this season is going to be. Maybe this is a flaw of the franchise, now. In theory, all the show needs to be is a mystery – or mysteries – each week, but Girl One and I are so used to the way most of these shows are going now that we’re half looking to see what the over-arching story is going to be.
Six episodes in, there doesn’t seem to be one, though Stella has apparently noticed the beginnings of a criminal undercurrent at the Greek Embassy. However, it’s difficult to see what sort of longer story they can really spin out of that one without it getting a little too heavy or maybe silly for the show, so I’m not sure whether to wish for that thread to find quick resolution or not!

And Adam nearly got fired! But then he didn’t. So that’s okay. But still, it’d be a hell of a loss to the show, as he’s one of the more likeable characters here, now.

Criminal Minds Season 1: 03-16

This first season moves on apace – with Bones and CSI taking a backseat for now in the procedural show stakes. I do wonder whether we’ll go off it when Mandy Patinkin leaves next season. Anyway, five things:

The scenes where Gideon is stuck back at HQ are played down somewhat, but a lot of fun, mainly due to the exasperation he causes for the wonderful techie Garcia, and his inability to remember who she is. Exceptionally sweet is his warm smile and his line: “Her? Oh, she’s great!” when asked by his colleague to go easy on her.

I continue to not entirely be convinced by Ellen. Of all of the characters, she is the one written with the least consistency, and the one who – despite being pushed front and center in every single episode as the “capable female agent” I’m still not buying as a useful member of the team.

However, we are now as fond of the of the team as we are many of our favourite characters from other shows. Girl One is attracted to Shemar Moore as Derek Morgan, and can even manage to go a whole episode without referring to Patinkin’s Gideon as Inigo Montoya. And though Thomas Gibson as team leader Hotch is clearly stoic housewife eye-candy, there has been enough background information given on him in these last few episodes to flesh him out a little, and make him a more believable head investigator.

Despite the similarities, Dr Spencer Reid – played by Matthew Gray Gubler – is a much more developed and human character than his counterpart Zach in Bones. This isn’t down to the actors – though both do great jobs with the roles – so much as the tone of each show. Bones is a much more cartoony proposition, despite it’s often graphic visuals and sharp writing, but the characters, especially Zach, are written a lot broader than those in Criminal Minds. This is great, though, because otherwise Zach and Reid would be much too alike.

Of course, the show is still great, but hasn’t managed to maintain it’s perfect record, for me at least. My one bugbear with it isn’t bone-deep, but it has become quite persistent, quite quickly. Somewhere around episode 11, for some reason the show-makers decided to start using camera filters and POV shots to “capture the mind of the killer”. The quotation marks are mine – though I don’t actually know what the thinking behind using this technique out of the blue was, and it might just as easily have been “a few years down the line, this guy will start watching it, and using this fuzzy camera shit will drive him to distraction! Let’s DO it!”.
Whatever the thinking, it’s an unneccessary dumbing down of a show that was doing a pretty good job of restraining itself from falling into the usual traps of daft TV. These scenes don’t ruin the show, but they do seem a little pointless and gimicky. And I’ve recently decided that the monster/killer POV shot is an anacronism anyway. I mean, thanks to Raimi et al for coming up with it, but we’ve seen it enough, now, and I think audiences might be becoming immune to the trope.

CSI Season 9: 06 – Say Uncle

Only had the one episode to watch this week – we’re bang up to date with vanilla CSI, it seems.

A slight reprieve on the old forensics-lite complaint I raised about recent episodes – they used them a bit here. They also broke out my old favourite – the plastic rods for working out bullet trajectories. There’s a particularly gruesome moment where they are shown extruding from the bodies themselves – which look better here than I’ve noted in recent episodes, but I wish they’d get over the whole “eye” thing.
Also nice having Hodges in the field a little more. He’s a great character, who has grown as the show progresses, but it’s an indication of how little lab-focussed stuff there’s been this season so far that they have to move him into the field to get him on screen.  

Decent enough mystery in this one, with a couple of twists and turns to it, only hampered slightly for me by the fact that – and this is going to sound terrible – the two young-ish male Korean suspects that they had looked near identical, at least for the short times that they were on screen.

Good to see James Kyson Lee – Ando from “Heroes” – in this episode, however briefly, as an interpreter. His appearance was totally low-key. Having someone from such a well-known show make a cameo like that always seems quite cute to me, because it suggests that he just wanted to work on CSI, no matter the role – it makes showbusiness seem just that little bit less unfriendly.

There’s a little bit of friction between Gil Grissom and new girl Riley Adams here, and though it fits the events of the episode, it’s a little uncharacteristic of their relationship so far. I guess it’s either the show’s way of trying to remind us that she’s the new girl on the job, and as such needs to be brought in line by the team’s leader, or trying to indicate that Grissom is changing. Either way, it didn’t distract from the fact that she’s doing alright as the first proper new insertion into the team since Sara Sidle back in season 1.

And it’s clear that Grissom leaving mid-season isn’t going to be sudden or unsupported. So far, the main focus of the season has been about Gil losing his way, and we’ve had a lot of Grissom “firsts”. This episode’s got perhaps the most pertinent one – throughout it, he has been more affected by the plight of the story’s young victim/suspect than we’ve ever seen him, and in the final scene, he turns to Brass and admits that he was sorry that they had solved this one.
This is a complete contrast to his mantra throughout the show’s run, that you go where the evidence takes you, and that you don’t let it get personal. Far from being inconsistent, though, it’s definitive of the changes that his character is going through, and it’s a brave move on the part of the showrunners to encode what is essentially a cast-change into a show’s whole half-season like this.
It might make for far too morose television, if William Petersen wasn’t so damn good at his job, and so damn watchable.
Actually, going back and typing in the episode name just made me wonder – though “Say Uncle” as a title is relevant to the crime being investigated here, I wonder if it isn’t also a reference to Grissom’s surrender to his growing discontent? 

The Office Season 3: 09-12

The merged office continues to work it’s magic, with Michael making the worst of it:

Michael has three girlfriends in the space of these episodes, and though Girl One struggled to make sense of Jan’s attraction to him, she hasn’t yet seen how quickly it becomes apparent that, against all odds, Michael is the better-adjusted one in that relationship.

“Why did he have to be black? That’s so stereotypical…” Michael’s discomfort at the potential problems of having an ex-convict in the office who is also black are brilliantly observed. But not as funny as his attempts to show his employees that the office is better than prison.

Kevin rules over many of these episodes. He’s easily one of my favourite things about the show. Him and Stanley. And Phyllis. Plus, y’know, of course, Pam and Jim and Dwight.
Michael’s alright. In fact, I came to the conclusion the other day that you aren’t really supposed to laugh at Michael, as much as you are supposed to both recognise and feel uncomfortable about him. This is more of a tightrope in the US show than it was in the UK one – David Brent didn’t have to earn his place in the show for nearly as long as Michael Scott does, which I think is why every now and then they’ll throw you a human moment for Carrell to work with.
With Brent, we really only got those at the end. 

Pam crying by herself in 0912 is just heartbreaking, and it’s testament to these actors, and their writers, that when Dwight comes and comforts her, it remains awkward, but is also totally poignant and believable. Despite, you know, it being Dwight. He goes from a vengeful and protective “Who did this to you?” to “I guess you’re PMSing pretty bad, then, huh?” in the space of two minutes.

Other standouts – Jim and Dwight as an actually pretty awesome sales team, Toby’s little boy “…why?” when Dwight snatches his gift package and Pam’s subsequent gift to him, Karen’s terrible hair, and Andy’s not-subtle-at-all subtle attempts to turn Michael against Dwight.

The IT Crowd Series 3: 01 – Hell

This is one of the better sit-coms to come out of the UK in the last few years, so it’s a welcome return. I could go on about it, but luckily I’ve got this whole “five” thing going on:

Channel 4 scheduling made the return of this a little bit of a damp-squib. Putting it on at 10 on a Friday night meant that all of the people that I’d expect to be texting each other about it as it was broadcast, or talking about it online, were either out at the pub, or had dropped off before it started.
Yes, yes, I know, this being the age of “watch when you want”, everyone will get to see it eventually, but there’s no need to force the point, and while I expect that it’ll still be discussed come Monday at work, that’s hardly the sort of respect a show that has been as good as this one should have been shown.

Having said that, this wasn’t a particularly strong episode. The jokes that there were were still pretty strong, but the balance of the episode was slightly off, and though both Matt Berry as Douglas Renholm and Katherine Parkinson as Jen are great, starting the series with an episode that focussed on storylines for them at the expense of Roy and Moss, who are the real humour-generators of the show, felt like a misstep. Rich Ayoade in particular is tragically under-used in this one, which is a shame because his subplot had a lot more potential than Jen’s. And the final shocking pay-off of Jen’s storyline doesn’t seem to make a lot of sense, even by the often surreal standards of the show, and of Graham Lineham’s ouvre.

Still, Douglas’ slap of his advisor across the desk was perfect – an attempt to calm a hysterical man who clearly isn’t hysterical or in need of calming. There’s also a great moment with a gun, that for a second looked like it was going to mirror his father’s bowing out at the beginning of the second series.

Speaking of which, absolutely brilliant to see Chris Morris reprise the role for this episode. I love that guy!

I’m not too worried about this slightly flat episode, though. Traditionally the ratio in an “IT Crowd” series is around four outstanding episodes to two average ones, and an average Lineham is still pretty good TV. At the very least, it’s good to have them all back!

Batman – Brave & The Bold Season 1: 01 – The Rise Of The Blue Beetle

This new series came a little out of the blue, and was an absolute shock to the system! It’s based on the old comic series, “Brave & The Bold”, which month on month teamed Batman with a different superhero from the DC universe.

This is one of those shows that works because of the talent and care that has gone into making it, because if someone described it to me before I saw it, I’d have thought it was the worst idea in the world. It takes Batman back to the 60s (70s?) Adam West version of the character, which I’m preconditioned to loathe by twenty years of having my favourite medium openly mocked.
But what this show is, first and foremost, is the most fun one can have with a television.

I just don’t know what Warner Bros are up to. There are two marketing peculiarities about the release of this show.
For a start, it comes on the back of the singularly most grim version of the Batman since “The Dark Knight Returns” with Nolan’s movie, and couldn’t be a more different take on the character.
And the first character that they have paired the grinning Batman up with is one whose monthly book has just been cancelled – the Blue Beetle.
While the show is a delight, as a cross-marketing exercise, it seems mistimed!

The production design is lovely, with slick, contemporary animation that manages to evoke the smooth and cinematic style of the Bruce Timm series, as well as having the look and feel of a neat mix of Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko comic art.

And the humour is great, with a lovely light touch that belies the randomness of the plot. There’s plenty of stuff to love in here – there’s even a wonderful homage to the old TV show, with Batman walking up the outside of a building with a rope. If you can get past the breakneck pace at which the show unfolds, there’s plenty of sharp writing and little details for an adult to play around with.

This is not the grim and posturing Batman that we’ve got so used to over the years, but, you know, we’re grown ups – we should be able to reconcile the different versions of the character in our heads.
The fact is that kids are certainly going to. All this talk of continuity, consistency and canon is entirely an adult’s need to quantify and control narrative – children don’t need that. If something doesn’t make sense to a child – and let’s face it, most things don’t, because kids are retarded – they’ll just reshuffle it around in their heads and invent stuff until it does.
And a child that can’t do that kind of inventing is one that needs to have their imagination stimulated, which shows like this will be great for. God, I actually can’t wait for the next episode. That’s silly, isn’t it?

Criminal Minds Season 1: 01-02

From the first scene, the show has a great use of camera angles and music to build a sense of threat and tension.

Mandy Patinkin totally owns in this show.

Because of this, at least in the pilot, all of the supporting characters, while useful, are almost interchangeable.

At this point, the show shows wonderful restraint, in that it doesn’t revel in it’s own gimmicks like some procedurals do early on.

It runs at a different pace than the other commercial procedurals, and comes across as altogether more thoughtful or intelligent.

The Office Season 3: 07-08

Interesting seeing the dynamics of the two offices as they meet each other.

Michael is always much, much more embarassing to watch when characters from outside the office are exposed to him. Which almost means that his employees are accepting of his excesses.

The Jim/Pam awkwardness, now that they’re back in the same office together, is deliciously hellish and beautifully played, especially now that Jim has a new girl!

Jim: “Say what you want about Michael Scott, but he would never do that.”

Andy Bernard and Dwight’s powerplays against each other are brilliant and cringeworthy, especially when it turns out that they’re futile, because Jim is actually second in command. Dwight knows everything about films. He has seen two hundred and forty.

CSI Season 9: 02-05

Great, cinematic filming and production values, this season, so far.

Well-delivered dramatic storylines, with Grissom and the team coming to terms with Warick’s death, and Sarah’s leaving again at the forefront.

New girl is great, and Lady Heather turns up in Ep. 5. Yay! I love Melinda Clarke!

In a continuation of my one major issue with the last couple of seasons, the forensic examination in these episodes is almost non-existent – the crimes are all solved through data-mining, interrogation and happenstance. What always made this show different was the “science!”, and I miss it. It was pretty.

Odd as it may sound, the corpses this season are all out of wack. In 0902 – The Happy Place, the main body of the day is a woman whose bones apparently liquefied when she leapt from a very tall building onto a bus, and they made a “thing” about her limbs being rubbery and floppy, but in every episode since, the dead limbs have seemed to bend in the same fake looking way. Whereas their eyes have had a lot of attention paid to them. This is a step in the wrong direction – the bodies in CSI have always been getting progressively more awesome, and are what gives the show’s forensic bits a lot of their credibility.