Buffy season 05: 01-04

We didn’t take much of a break between seasons on this, I’m afraid.

What I’m finding interesting about this season so far, watching it now for what is probably my first time since the series ended, is that once you know that Joss Whedon ultimately pulled it off – finishing seven years of a great show with continuity and character development that stayed pretty consistent throughout the run (even if the quality of individual episodes didn’t always) – this season feels a lot stronger than it did when it was first aired. For me, this is going to be the test by which continuity-heavy shows like “Lost” and “Battlestar Galactica” are judged – when BSG ends this year, and “Lost” finishes the year after, it won’t matter to me if either show has dissapointed me a bit along the way, as long as on balance they hold together and they end well.

Part of the reason this season always felt so lacklustre first time out is part of the reason it feels so strong this time around. Back when, and especially after the slightly duff long-plot of season 4, I would get pretty fidgetty if the show strayed too far from self-contained or episodic stories week on week.

Season 5, though having a crack at some fun weekly stories, was almost all about overarching story and themes. This was hard to take when superficially what these episodes looked like were enclosed stories with flat or pat endings.

Of course, what I was missing was that Whedon was totally focussed on the long story and exploring his chosen themes for the season, and by this point he had learned his craft to the extent that he could do it, and with style.

Buffy’s story for this season ran along two rails. Spurred on by her experiences at the close of the previous season and at the beginning of this one, Buffy has a new personal mission, to learn more about her Slayer nature and become better in the role. At the same time, Buffy finds herself having to deal with, and soon protect, her younger sister Dawn – a girl who didn’t exist before, but who everybody seems to remember always being around.

The latter is where the season gets it’s real strength from, because what keeps these episodes interesting is the themes that Whedon is playing with this time out. The surface themes of this season are self-discovery, growth and finding your role in a family, but Whedon doesn’t stop at exploring these, opting to run another theme through at a structural level. Though this show has always featured a lot of smart subversion of expectation, season 5 seems to have narrative sleight-of-hand encoded in it at an almost genetic level.

This should have been obvious from the first episode of the season, 0501 – Buffy Vs. Dracula, when the show takes the most famous vampire of all time, builds him up in the series’ mythos throughout the episode, but by the end not only disposes of the vampire unceremoniously, but also deposes him as notional king of vampires. In the end, the episode works well as a expositional key for the show and each character’s preoccupations as the season starts – with Dracula’s only real contribution to the ongoing arc is his suggestion to Buffy that her Slayer heritage is more primal and present than she had realised, which reiterated points made at the close of season 4 – and a great springboard for the appearance of Dawn.

0502 – Real Me takes the whole pretense of Dawn’s life one stage further, as she narrates the whole episode – a tricksy move on Whedon’s part, because it acts to concrete her place on the cast. Although there are a couple of sly references to Dawn’s otherness, having her relate the episode as being apparently oblivious to the oddness of her existence puts the audience in an odd position – it’s obvious that something is going on, but the fact that it’s something that she isn’t apparently in on immediately makes it a slightly more complex affair.

This is the first time that the text of the show hints that there’s something awry going on with Dawn, with an almost throwaway but disturbing moment when a crazy street person accosts her, and there is a hint at the end of the episode that the girl herself has some sinister secrets – a theme that is played up repeatedly in later episode 0505 – No Place Like Home, wherein Doug Petrie’s script plays up the “evil child” trope.

However, this is another piece of trickery on the show’s part. It seems, in fact, that Dawn is only manipulative and evil in the way that all younger siblings are. One can only assume that like me, Whedon had sisters.

0503 – The Replacement is another episode that didn’t really phase me on broadcast, despite some funny moments – it is, after all, another Xander-centric episode – because the conflict in the episode is dealt with a little neatly.

Now, it’s obvious that this is another episode that is saturated with the season’s themes, and is centered around another narrative trick – the neat ending I mentioned occurs because what we are lead to believe is an “evil impostor” story actually really isn’t, which in itself is a deceit within a deceit, storywise.

The episode isn’t just suspended on these themes, though, although they do do a lot of the heavy lifting. It also serves as the anchor story for Xander’s season, and he’s having a much better time of it, role-wise, since being largely incidental last season. He’s getting some good lines, and his role is being examined again. There are things that happen in this episode that make him – far from the loser who lamented always getting the “funny syphilis” in 0501 – a viable member of society, as well as an important member of the team.

This – and to a lesser extent the last episode, is also where Anya really became the character that I would start to love a little bit. Although her slightly odd quirks have gone into overdrive, her vulnerabilities and appeal are shining through, and she’s finally becoming the sort of partner to Xander who isn’t just a punchline to the joke of his odd taste in women…

In 0504 – Out Of My Mind, very little of what the characters intend to happen isn’t affected by either the writer’s or another character’s trickery, and this extends to the story itself. The episode begins with Joyce’s headache and collapse, that within the structure of the episode seems designed simply as a conceit to get the team into hospital, where a Riley story can be kicked off.

Though not forgotten, Joyce’s condition is quickly shifted to the periphery, as Buffy struggles to get Riley to a government doctor – something that he doesn’t want to do because he doesn’t trust the government not to lie.

(Although there’s the added undercurrent here that Riley would rather risk death than become useless to Buffy – something that comes up again and again with him and other characters this season.)

Buffy is forced to ask Spike for help… while Harmony cowers in a coffin nearby – in her reality, she is now Buffy’s arch-enemy, and Buffy is hunting her, which is an utterly false interpretation of what is going on – alternate versions of reality being a key theme of the season. Spike, of course, is pretending that he gives a damn about Harmony at this point, too.

And then Spike predictably decides to steal the doctor for himself, and once again an episode that we had thought was about Riley shifts, and becomes about Spike instead.

Spike gets the doctor to remove his chip, but the final trick – an actual act of sleight-of-hand on the part of a character – is that the doctor has only pretended to remove the chip, using a coin as a surrogate to fool Spike.

And in the next episode, things get more complicated again, but I didn’t watch those till this week, so they can wait!

CSI NY Season 05: 07-12

This continues to be the punchiest of the CSI’s, with the original iteration getting darker and harder each episode this season, and Miami being beyond ridiculous.

Not quite as science-fictioney this season as previously, mind, which isn’t a bad thing.

There are a couple of areas where the show falters. For example, this season has two or three subplots that aren’t really congealing or doing anything interesting at the moment, and I don’t know if they’re ramping up the redundant flashbacks to things that happened earlier in the episode – where a character says “the wife of the victim said that that morning he was wearing a hat” an event that we saw happening, and then we are shown a flashback of the wife of the victim saying “that morning he was wearing a hat” – or just that we’re getting a bit tired of them to the extent that we’re just noticing them more, but we could really live without them.

However, these characters – with the exception on some occassions of Stella – are likeable enough that it’s still fun to watch them solve the crimes, and there are still some nice flourishes, such as in 0510 – The Triangle, that is based around an urban myth or phenomenon that I hadn’t heard before, about the area immediately around the Empire State building since 2001.

Flack’s sister, and his relationship with Angel, continue to bubble under, and while they don’t necessarily do much more than Stella’s problems with the Greeks and their ancient coins, the fact that both Angel and Flack’s sister are scorching hot, and that the storylines don’t involve ancient coins, make them much more entertaining.

Though I’ve a worrying feeling that a scene where Flack and Angel are chasing a crook contained some worrying foreshadowing of something bad happening to Angel, which would suck.

The story of Lindsay’s pregnancy – and the way in which it brings her relationship with Danny to the forefront after a long time in limbo – is nicely handled by all concerned, and it’s nice that they’ve managed to find a way to make Anna Belknap’s pregnancy work for the show this time out, rather than having her conspiciously framed to avoid showing her bump like last time.

Actually, the episode where this comes out – 0509 – The Box – Does some nice things structurally, with Danny narrating the story, and also features a body found in a crushed car – a story element similarly explored in a current-season episode of Bones…

The L Word Season 1: 01-05

I just picked these up – Amazon have them remarkably cheap – after word of a particularly intriguing current season, and because, to be honest, it might be something that Girl One would like to watch while I spend stupid amounts of time on the PC.

However, I’ve ended up watching the first five episodes with her, quite despite myself, and will probably continue to do so.

It’s a complete soap-opera, of course. But it’s also a lot more sympathetically written than I was expecting. Gone are the broad caricatures of female characters of “Desperate Housewives”, and instead of opting to have a couple of nice, almost relatable characters in the shadows of more prominent and horrible attention seekers the way “Sex And The City” did, they’ve instead put together a large cast of Mirandas and Charlottes – by which I mean characters as likeable and textured as they are “quirky”, with only a couple of really self-absorbed, superficial nightmares.

It doesn’t hurt that two of the show’s cast are two of my favourite actresses of all time – at least from an attraction point of view – Jennifer Beals – who made an impact on me at a young age in “Flashdance”, and Mia Kirshner – perhaps best known as a recurring mercenary character in “24″, who I fell for in the first “The Crow” sequel and then fell in love with in “Exotica”.

Neither character is particularly charming in the first episode, but Beals as Bette shows considerable depth in subsequent episodes, while Kirshner’s Jenny is not nice, but is so convincingly bipolar and as such appealing roughly a third of the time, that she’s great to watch.

There aren’t really any weak links in the cast, and the stories are written consistently well. I’ll admit to normally finding screen and TV narratives about gay characters a little tedious, but thus far these women seem mostly women first, then lesbians, and I’m buying their characters.

Plus, you know, the show is a lot more explicit than I was expecting. There is absolutely no way in the world that I am going to look a gift horse like girl-on-girl action in the mouth.

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• SD/TV 29/08/2008 – World Without So Called Life, Xander Stroke Willow (0)
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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.

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(When did this start properly, by the way? My instinct says that the first CSI really kicked it off proper-style, but that just seems like it can’t be right, for some reason… enlighten me in the comments, wouldja?)

There are a whole bunch of lovely examples, but this is a small selection of tracks that I’ve been thinking about recently, so these are the ones that I’m posting:

Baba O Riley – The Who

Though I had no previous experience of this song before they used it on “CSI: New York”, and it took a while to grow on me at first because of it’s meandering opening, it has become my favourite of the trio of The Who songs that the CSI shows use as tradition. And no, I don’t know how I missed it, as it seems it’s well known – it’s in the original “Life On Mars”, too.
The initial version of the song that they used over the show’s opening credits was cut down pretty short – because this is a bit of an epic song – but it perfectly defines this branch of the franchise as being the on-the-street, shoulder-to-the-grindstone, heavy lifting team that you’d expect of New York cops. The musical scope of the tune belies the lyrics, which are working-man lyrics.
Around season three or four, they swapped out that more powerful version of the song for a musical stab heavy, lyric-light one, with punchier visuals to go along with them.
Girl One and I have not yet come to terms with this – singing along to the earlier version was a highlight of our TV watching experience. Still not sure why they did it, as the song seems redundant without the cool vocals.

We Used To Be Friends – The Dandy Warhols

“Veronica Mars” was one of the best shows that nobody ever saw. I’m still not sure how well known this song was before the show started, but it’s a perfect fit – punchy and youthful, and lyrically dealing with some of the high-school, fall-from-grace social-strata themes of the show.
There was even one of those awesome John Water’s “Yay!” moments during the first season, when Veronica spoke the main chorus lyric as part of the cold-open, just before the credits rolled.
They swapped the original theme out in the third season, for a woozier version of the same song, by the same band. But it didn’t feel as shrewd as the CSI decision in that case, as it was still a pretty – if abstract – version of the tune.

Once In A Lifetime – Talking Heads

This being used as the theme to “Numbers” is a lovely moment of closure for me. I’m a big Talking Heads fan, and the first time I heard them was when this song was used at the beginning of “Down And Out In Beverly Hills”.
There’s a questioning tone in the song, aimed at the listener’s expectations and understanding of their life so far, that worked well for that movie’s themes, and works equally well for the near-autistic attention to detail and use of maths and number theory to map human behaviour used in the show.
Plus, you know, David Byrne! The Talking Heads! Brilliant, brilliant stuff.

Little Boxes – Regina Spektor

One of many cover versions of the classic song used in the second season of “Weeds”. I’m including it here because it’s cute, but by definition it’s not really representative of the theme to the show – which was the same throughout the first season, and then was covered by disparate artists throughout the second one. And dropped altogether by the third.

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Prison Break Season 4: 03

You can tell that this season of “Prison Break” is a far cry from being as solid as previous ones – it’s taken us weeks to get round to watching just one more episode.

0403 – Shut Down: Still, though, this episode shows some glimmer of the series’ past brightness, though it goes to some lengths to create physical drama and tension out of nowhere, and the real strengths here are in some of the character moments.

The main focus of the episode is the fact that, with the team’s mission suddenly complicated, their handler Self struggles against his superiors to keep it active.

There is a diversion at a server farm, which puts Michael and new boy Roland in jeopardy and gives Lincoln a chance to show why his character’s impulsive and violent streak is useful. Otherwise, though, the scene is largely redundant.

There’s a bit of rushing about, a bit of the crew being chased around by feds, and a bit of Michael saving the day, but while that’s what takes up the time in this episode, the really memorable moments are all Mahone’s, as he tries to piece together who killed his son, and behave normally among the group. There are a few great scenes between him and a former colleague, and some lovely moments as Lincoln discovers and sympathises with Mahone’s loss.

It’s obvious that the writers are more into what’s going on with the Mahone character than they are with Michael and the rest of the team, and this is a shame – the production is still there, but the cohesion in the face of chaos of the show, which was part of what was so attractive about it before, is missing right now. Still, this episode was better than the last two, so we can hope for ongoing improvement…

Fringe Season 1: 03

0103 – The Ghost Network: I’m still a little nonplussed by “Fringe”. The pilot has thus far still been the best episode. The insistence on making the second episode so utterly conspiracy-plot heavy boggles my mind, though – it’s as if Abrams learnt nothing from “The X-Files” and his own show “Alias”.

However, this episode shows a lot more promise than the last.

It’s not that they’ve totally ditched their reliance on their central conspiracy plot, although this story widens that plot enough that I can see the potential for more self-contained stories – the Pilot and first episode proper seemed to be establishing “The Pattern” as a closed network or organisation, like a Bad Science version of Prison Break’s “Company”.

Events in this episode make it look a lot more like an ideological mindset than a secret society, though, which works well – parallels can be drawn between “The Pattern” and terrorism in general now, whereas previously it seemed obvious that “Massive Dynamic” were behind a lot of what was going on.

There’s also a little bit of intrigue for Lance Reddick’s Broyles to play with, and a small amount of back-story being filled in for Joshua Jackson’s Peter.

And I still love watching Anna Torv as Olivia.

Terminator – The Sarah Connor Chronicles: 02-09

We watched the pilot for this ages ago, and it just made too many leaps from the source material for me to really get that enthusiastic about it.

However, people seemed to like the rest of the season, so I decided to go back and give it another try. I remembered the first episode well enough that I didn’t feel the need to rewatch it – and as it happens, that was smart, because the feeling I get from the rest of the season is that the pilot was really just a bridge from “T2″ to where they wanted to start the show proper. What followed was much more accomplished action TV.

I’m not going to break down every episode, because the show is designed in such a way, and I watched them in such a rush, that the story flowed quite naturally throughout. The writing, acting and production were consistent enough that the quality of each episode doesn’t bear dissection.

Actually, the production values on this show are generally pretty damn good – and as such don’t need much dissection. The CGI and general effects are nifty considering the medium, reminding me of the miracles that the BSG people managed to pull off in the first few seasons of that show.

Narrative-wise, the whole thing pulls together pretty well, too. Lena Headey makes for a much more layered and sympathetic Sarah Connor then Linda Hamilton ever did, and Thomas Dekker does a more than adequate job on John Connor, considering he’s, you know, a young actor. Summer Glau is just a joy to watch, as well – although for her to be playing such an odd-ball and morally complex character again seems risky so soon after “Firefly”. I have to wonder what she’d be like playing someone just… ordinary.

The wonderful Garret Dillahunt is well-cast as the terminator Cromartie. I’m starting to really love this guy, after seeing him play the downbeat cowboy in both “Deadwood” and “The Assassination of Jesse James By The Coward Robert Ford”, as well as his decidedly more nuanced performance in “John From Cincinnati”.

The continuity and plot here is intriguing enough, as long as you don’t worry too much about it’s inconsistencies with the original source material. Very little of the actual action contradicts what has gone before – and in fact, the show pays homage and reflects back to the movies often, but not often enough that it gets in the way. But some of the key concepts from the movies, that must have required adjusting to fit this format, are wrenched in a new direction – the idea that there are multiple Terminators acting as sleeper agents on various missions is an interesting wrinkle, but the idea that travelling forward in time is viable in this universe seems to me to contradict the events of the movies.

Still, so far it’s been a one-time MacGuffin, and the whole time-travel aspect of the show has been handled well and inventively.

Course, the rumour is that the second season is already cancelled, so I picked a hell of a time to get into the thing, didn’t I?

Angel Season 1: 05-08/Buffy Season 4: 08
“Angel” continues to range from funny to dark to hip and not really settle on any one spot – an issue that didn’t really leave the show for most of it’s run. However, it’s still major fun to watch, and Girl One seems to be getting a kick out of it.

At this point in the series – which is around disc two of the boxset for anyone keeping count - the show hasn’t really got out from under the shadow of it’s predeccessor. The showrunners acknowledge this around the episode 7/8 mark with a story that offers a bit of closure to the poor miserable vampiric bugger.

0105 – RM w/a VU: Before we get to that fairly heavy crossover story, we get light relief. This episode is all about Cordy, and it’s probably the first really self-assured episode that the show has. We get a few insights into the team dynamic, but really, this is where the old Buffy Cordy and the new Angel Cordy are properly reconciled with each other. The transition from major bitch to sad, lost girl between the shows wasn’t as jarring as it could have been – mainly because we’d seen a softening of the character at the tail end of her time on “Buffy”.

There are some spooky moments, and a little bit of a closer look at Doyle, and one of the best “Star Wars” puns ever, that isn’t even directly referred to throughout the episode. Fun and scary and not bad at all.

0106 – Sense and Sensitivity: … And then we get an episode that should have been a bit of a misfire, focussing as it does on a character, and the titular character’s relationship with that character, that never really caught the audience’s imagination.

However, the episode works pretty well, thanks to a very funny script, and some great performances. As much as the story focusses on Kate, it’s also a bit of a gimmick or stunt episode – the premise is that a demon is hired to effectively brainwash the detective’s precinct into some very odd behaviour, but really it’s about seeing David Boreanaz playing Angel as spookily sensitive.

Episodes like this became stock in trade in later seasons of “Angel”, and “Buffy” features a perfect one in around three or four episodes.

0107 – The Bachelor Party: Doyle, apparently, was married.

Actually, this is the third episode in a row that takes one character and spins a story out of them. This is well and good, but it can knacker an action show if it persists – part of the appeal of a show like this over a soap is that it’s about the external situations that the characters get involved in, rather than the fuck-ups that they cause themselves.

I can’t remember whether “Angel” balances this out later on, but at least these first few episodes of this show are a lot of fun, as well as rounding out Doyle’s character a lot, building on the implicit tragedy of his lifestyle that was highlighted in 0105.

The humour here comes largely from an excellent guest performance by Carlos Jacott – as Doyle’s ex-wife’s new fiance, a pleasant-natured demon whose family traditions are unfortunately quite brutal. Jacott’s is a face that turns up in a few shows, and in fact he previously played a demon in the season 3 opener of “Buffy”.

Speaking of – this episode ends with Doyle having one of his painful visions. The subject? Buffy.

Buffy 0408 – Pangs: A bit of an odd episode, this, because it’s more notable for what it sets up than it’s actual content. Although there’s the obvious factor of it being the first part of a crossover, and as such setting-up the following “Angel” episode, that particular connection seems largely arbitrary.

The driving force of the crossover aspect is that Angel has had a warning that Buffy is in extreme danger, and travels to Sunnydale to keep an eye on her. This makes for a couple of nice scenes – mainly between Willow and Angel and Giles and Angel – but it never really comes to much else. The threat that Buffy and co face in this episode is just another entry-level menace, and not even one that affects more than a handful of people. There is never any real sense that Buffy wouldn’t have been able to sort it out for herself, so Doyle’s vision seems a little arbitrary, as does the rest of the crossover element of the episode.

Luckily, not much of the running time is given over to that. There’s an ancient native American revenge spirit story going on, and some excellent Giles/Willow conflict over it, but the real meat of the episode is in what foreshadowed story elements come through properly here.

For the first time, we get to see Xander in his new job as construction man – a role which represents his first step to becoming a true adult, after seven episodes of trying to find a place. We also see his relationship with Anya finally move into a more formal phase, as well as his supernatural syphillis.

And this is also when Spike first comes to the Scoobys for help, and although he’s acted as an ally under sufferance before, this is the first time that he has been fully involved in the group, albeit as an unwelcome guest. Of course, he gets all the best lines… especially when he gives his very shrewd speech about white middle class guilt.

0108 – I Will Remember You: This episode is the only true active crossover of the three episode arc that it concludes.

Wow, sorry about that incredibly awkward sentence, but I couldn’t think of a more natural way to say it. Buffy, having discovered that Angel was in Sunnydale without her knowledge, travels to LA to berate him.

However, things get out of hand at the close of their argument, when a demon assassin enters the scene. One thing leads to another, and Angel gets infected with demon blood, which has the unusual effect of making him human. Of course, this changes the outcome of his and Buffy’s decision to stay apart – they can now finally have a chance at the normal relationship that has eluded them since they first met – but events conspire against them, and Angel has to make the sacrifice to become a vampire again to protect Buffy.

There’s a lot of melodrama in this episode, as you can imagine, and a smidge of overwriting, but ultimately it’s a potent episode – the emotion of the scenes in which the two are able to be together are convincing if a little over-the-top, but Boreanaz carries the subtle but terrible tragedy – that only Angel will ever know about – and makes it very real. And although I’m certain that it comes up again, this episode gives some emotional closure to the Angel/Buffy love affair, and allows this series to move on into it’s own territory.

True Blood Season 1: Pilot

0101 – Strange Love: We caught this pilot to the new HBO series in the week, and I have to say, it’s intriguing, well acted and of very high quality.

Based on a series of books, and created by Alan Ball, the writer of “American Beauty” and “Six Feet Under”, this show is a bit of a genre departure from those previous projects. Set in Louisiana, the series follows Sookie Stackhouse, the young psychic waitress who finds herself drawn to – and in this episode saving the life of – a charming vampire who has moved into her neighbourhood.

In this version of our world, vampires have recently outed themselves, now that they have found a way to synthesise blood. This hasn’t all gone smoothly, though – in this episode, the enigmatic Bill faces small-town anti-vampire bigotry, as well as being attacked for his blood – which has supernatural properties when consumed by humans – by a nasty redneck couple.

Thrown into this are some fairly fetishistic sexual practices, a lot of groundwork on the various colourful characters in the region, and the murder of a local goodtime girl by Sookie’s errant brother. It’s a full and involving first episode, that does a good job of making it’s bizarre physical and moral “world” seem real enough that you find your feet quickly, and can tell when characters are behaving out of synch with that world.

Instrumental in grounding the audience is Anna Paquin’s sympathetic performance as Sookie. It would have been so easy to oversell this character, or let her sink into a saccharine pool of cutesy or stereotypical characteristics, but the script and Paquin manage to find a strong and upright core to the character that allows her to take her place as the show’s anchor.

It’s also lovely to see William Sanderson in a supporting role here, though it remains to be seen if we’re going to get him at his best in this show.

But whatever, another great HBO show. I’m watching this one with great anticipation…

CSI NY Season 5: 01

So, the last season of “CSI:NY” ended with a great guest-spot by Elias Koteas – who is one of my favourite actors – and an exciting – if a little contrived – cliffhanger.

The new season opens with the second part of that story, and it’s not bad. Hang on… better do this bit:

0501 – Veritas: Season openers are a peculiar animal, in a show that deals with continuity, and that enjoys the cliffhanger. On the one hand, a season premiere is normally a good place to reassert the characters and show dynamics for any potential new viewers, and provide a fresh jumping on point. It’s also a good place to establish any new ideas that are going to run through the season, such as a theme or a long arc.

On the other hand, a really popular show will sometimes jump into a new season feet-first, assuming that the majority of it’s viewers are regulars, and that anyone else will be able to pick things up from the “previously on”.

As with the bluntly abbreviated “Prison Break” storyline, powered by the oddly paced premiere this season, “CSI NY” chose to do away with any dramatic tension built up by their tail-twisting season 4 cliffhanger, in this case removing the threat to Mac Taylor’s life even before the close of the cold-open. In “Prison Break”, this rushed opening served to utterly rearrange the format and environment of the show – in “CSI: NY” it’s done to make sure that the status quo is reasserted before the credits even roll.

It’s not a terrible episode, but it’s largely forgettable, which is a shame. All of the key players are present, though in many circumstances woefully underused – with Mac and Stella taking center stage throughout. The only real step in a new direction here was the introduction of a precocious wrong-side-of-the-tracks sister for Don Flack – and people familiar with the franchise will recognise this trope from “CSI: Regular”, and Jim Brass’s daughter.

Elias Koteas does okay, here, but there’s an attempt to build a rivalry and relationship between his character and Gary Sinise’s that is entirely in the dialogue and nowhere in the on-screen action.

Of all the “CSI” shows we’ve seen, this branch of the franchise has always been the furthest from science and the closest to science fiction, and that isn’t as unenjoyable as it might sound. But it does mean that the show relies more on it’s characters to administer the real draw for wider audiences, and this first episode lets those slide a little. I hope it gets better, but I’ll be content with it just not getting worse.

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