Archive | November, 2011

Show of the Day: Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego?

18 Nov

When I was young, though not so much anymore, geography was my bag.  I styled myself an expert, winning my elementary school geography bee in 5th grade, and I was captivated by both the Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego series of games, which I dominated (well, the Where in the USA version – the Europe version was still kind of a nightmare) as well as by the game show, which aired on PBS, a network I watched my fair share of a kid without cable.

The show was hosted by Greg Lee, whose main claim to fame aside for this job was voicing the principal on Doug.  The contestants were kids from 10-14, old enough to be familiar with geography but young enough for some answers not to be obvious (though who am I kidding, myself, and I’m sure many others, had their peak of geographic knowledge around those years).  At the beginning of an episode, the other primary recurring character, The Chief, would announce which one of Carmen’s gang did the stealing and what landmark they stole.  Carmen generally was hands off herself – she had removed herself from day-to-day theft operations and was simply masterminding, perhaps in an attempt to make it more difficult to tie her to the crime (though the RICO statute probably made it more difficult).  Unfortunately her talents for crime were not matched by her talents of picking out quality associates, with incompetents like Patty Larceny, Vic the Slick and twin team Double Trouble working for her.  There were also more out-there minions, such as Robocrook, which is pretty much exactly what it sounds like, and Kneemoi, a shape-shifting alien and space outlaw.  The Chief is portrayed by Lynn Thigpen, who tragically died in 2003.  She had a number of film and TV roles, but I knew her best outside Carmen for her role in The Warriors as the radio announcer (“Stay tuned boppers”) in which you don’t actually see anything other than her lips.  She was a regular on early ‘2000s show The District.

The show consists of several segments.  First, general questions which moved into a “lightning round.”  The contestants would then watch an animated “phone tap” sketch in which Carmen would talk with the episode’s thief, (the segment  seems to possibly violate some serious fourth amendment rights (it is not revealed whether there are warrants for these wiretaps)).  When contestants correctly answered questions they received not points, but “ACME crime bucks.”  I’m still unclear on exactly what those crime bucks are redeemable for, and why a detective agency would have its own currency.  Next is “The Chase” while contestants answer questions while trying to ascertain where the thief is hiding out.  After this, one contestant is knocked out and the remaining two play the next round which is Carmen Sandiego’s version of Clue – they most locate the loot, the warrant and the crook (loot and crook I get – I have no idea why the warrant would be hidden).  The first contestant to get all three wins, and moves on to the final round.

The final round is the map round, in which the winner is asked to place markers with sirens on the top in specific countries within a continent (or in the first two seasons states within the US).  For example, if the continent is Asia, Lee would name Indonesia, and the contestant would keep trying until he correctly placed the marker on Indonesia on the map or pass.  Unfortunately for some contestants, not all continents are created equal.  Getting the US was a relative slam dunk compared to getting saddled with Africa.  Could you point out Burkina Faso on a map?

Apparently a German version was produced with the far catchier title of agd um die Welt – Schnappt Carmen Sandiego! or “Chase Around the World: Catch Carmen Sandiego” which sounds far more action oriented.

The most enduring legacy of the show may be a capella group Rockapella’s theme song, which was played at the end of every episode.

Before the theme, Lee would always command – DO IT ROCKAPELLA! (skip to 6:40 for the song, but start earlier if you want to enjoy a rare Africa map win)

Ranking the Shows That I Watch – 4: Community

17 Nov

This show contrasts with Parks and Recreation in several ways, and they’re really neck and neck on this list, and could be swapped depending on the last episode I’ve seen of each.  Unlike Parks, which took a while for me to get into, I knew Community was a show I’d like even from the first Community I saw, even if it wasn’t yet it top form.  The show grew over its first season and the second season was even better than the first. Just the first season had already established it as the show I was most excited to watch each week when I watched NBC’s Thursday night line up, and that’s saying a lot, considering that probably consists of half of the comedies I watch on TV.

I think this was because every week there is a chance to get an absolute gem.  In contrast with Parks and Recreation, individual episodes stand out a lot more from the pack, which can be both good and bad.  It’s almost like comparing a great album band to a great singles band.  Community when it hits its absolute peak with particularly great episodes like the paintball episode “Modern Warfare”, this season’s parallel universe oriented “Remedial Chaos Theory,” or the episode I’ll choose below as my favorite, is simply as good as television gets.  Everything works and the episodes can be watched over and over.  The downside is when everything doesn’t completely come together there are episodes that end up slightly subpar.  Parks and Recreation has a hard time hitting the heights of the near-perfect Community episodes, but also has a significantly higher week to week consistency.  These are small concerns, as both are good enough that Parks and Recreations episodes have high ceilings and Community keeps the mini-clunkers to a minimum, but it does highlight the difference in the type of show (Venture Bros. is another show in the Community model in which certain episodes more clearly stand out).

About every fourth episode or so f Community is a massive style pastiche, like the western themed A Fistful of Painballs, or the zombie themed Epidemiology.  Not every one is perfect, but a large majority of the attempts hit their mark.   These  provide some of the best episodes of the series.  Still, the engine that really makes Community run, and that takes even the style homage episodes up a notch in their quality is the relationships between the study group characters.  Abed and Troy are particularly delightful in their camaraderie, but every combination of characters have their own unique relationship.  Over the course of the show, it’s gone from a set up where Jeff was the main character and Britta was maybe second to a full fledged ensemble where just about anyone (haven’t really been many Shirley led episodes) can take the lead.

Why It’s This High:  It’s vying for my favorite comedy on TV – the chemistry between the characters is great, and the homages are generally spot on, and the episodes that are as good

Why It’s Not Higher:  The only thing I can say against this show is, there’s not a perfect level of consistency, some are better than others – though what show non-Wire division doesn’t have that?  And sometimes there’s too much Ken Jeong – it often feels forced when he’s given more than a couple of lines and just doesn’t fit with the rest of the characters.

Best episode of the most recent season:  This is one of the few where I knew exactly which one I was picking before I even get to the category. “Conspiracy Theories and Interior Design” is my choice.  It’s a ’70s neo-noir homage involving a massive conspiracy theory which Jeff and Annie must unravel as Jeff makes up an independent study class taught by “Professor Professorson.”  The b-plot involves a massive blanket fort built by Troy and Abed, which is the site of a chase sequence for the A-plot.  I don’t want to say too much else, but I’ve seen the episode more than any other Community episode and it makes me smile every time.

I’d like to just put in a special ending note in reference to NBC’s decision to take Community off their schedule in the Spring.  Please watch Community!

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The Zeljko Ivanek Hall of Fame: Mark Feuerstein

16 Nov

(The Zeljko Ivanek Hall of Fame is where we turn the spotlight on a television actor or actress, and it is named after their patron saint, Zeljko Ivanek)

Today, it’s time to celebrate an actor who after fifteen years working in television and a reputation as someone whose presence predestined a show for failure is finally experiencing his biggest success of his career.

He first appeared towards the very end of daytime soap Loving in 1995, its last year, and then in eight episodes of the second season of Caroline in the City.  He played Joe DeStefano, a veterinarian who dated Lea Thompson’s Caroline (I originally wrote Tea Leoni – I have gotten The Naked Truth and Caroline and the City confused for years, but that doesn’t make it okay) and almost moved in with her before admitting to sleeping with an ex.  He appeared in a “unknown number” of Guiding Light episodes before getting his first shot as a main cast member in 1997’s Fired Up.  The series starred Sharon Lawrence and Leah Remini as a boss and assistant who, after getting fired, decide to start their own business as equals.  The show co-starred Breaking Bad’s Jonathan Banks, Thomas F. Wilson, better known as Biff from Back to the Future, Psych’s Timothy Osmundson and Feuerstein as Danny Reynolds, a bartender and Remini’s brother.  The show debuted in the prime post-Seinfeld 9:30 spot on Thursdays on NBC and lasted parts of two seasons before getting the ax.

He was back on NBC the very next TV season as part of the main cast of Conrad Bloom, a sitcom which although it aired on network TV doesn’t even have a wikipedia page.  Feuerstein starred as the titular Bloom, a New York ad man.  He co-starred with Lauren Graham of Gilmore Girls and Parenthood fame.  It lasted one season.  He appeared in an episode of Sex and the City, titled “They Shoot Single People, Don’t They,” where he played an opthomologist, Josh, who dates Miranda, but causes her to fake her orgasms.  At the turn of the century, he was in an episode of Ally McBeal and TV movies An American Daughter and The Heart Department.  He appeared in five episodes of Once and Again as Leo Fisher, Karen’s younger boyfriend (I don’t really know who Karen is either, but if it helps, she’s Billy Campbell’s ex in the show).

He was in seven episodes of The West Wing as Cliff Calley, a Republican, who nevertheless is talked into taking the Director of Legislative Affairs job for the Bartlett White House.  He got his next starring chance again on NBC with sitcom Good Morning, Miami.  Feuerstein played Jake Silver, a producer who takes on the challenge of moving to Miami to resurrect a low-rated morning show.  His main romantic lead is Ashley Williams, best otherwise known as Victoria the cupcake girl in How I Met Your Mother and Feuerstein’s mother is played by The Bob Newhart Show star Suzanne Pleshette.  Another berth on NBC’s must see TV lineup didn’t help, as the show was largely unpopular and lasted two seasons.  He appeared in an episode of The Closer and one of Law & Order, as a suspect in season 16’s “Bible Story.”

He was in an episode of Masters of Horror and then in his next main cast role, 3 lbs.  3 lbs was a medical drama co-starring Stanley Tucci.  Feuerstein played a brain surgeon who was Tucci’s protégé.  The show lasted all of eight episodes on CBS in the fall of 2006.  Finally, in 2009, Feuerstein hit upon major success as the star of USA’s Royal Pains.  He plays Dr. Hank Lawson, a burnt out surgeon who gets fired from his big time hospital job in New York City and moves out to the Hamptons with his brother to start a concierge medical practice, going to people’s homes to treat them. “Some doctors still make house calls” goes the slogan.  The show quickly became one of the highest rated shows on basic cable and was recently renewed for its fourth season.

Ranking the Shows That I Watch – 5: Parks and Recreation

15 Nov

While 30 Rock has been the critical darling for the past half decade of so, Parks and Recreation has moved up past 30 Rock on many a person’s rankings (including mine, obviously), and that’s quite understandable.   Parks and Recreation is still in its growing phase, or at leas near it. The show continued to get better and perfect itself over this past season, it’s third, and has been as strong as ever in the first few episodes of the fourth.

In reviewing some comedies in this new television season, I’ve talked about how difficult it is to be great from the beginning with a comedy.  The actors have to learn how to best portray the characters, and the writers have to learn what works in a way that can only be established in actual episodes.  Like in sports, unfortunately, not everything can be worked out during the preseason.  There are many, many examples of this phenomenon – comedies finding their footing and improving greatly over the first season or two – but Parks and Recreation may be the single most dramatic in recent history.

When the show first started, I had mixed emotions.  I was excited, because it was created by Michael Schur, who was largely responsible for firejoemorgan, the fantastic blog which made fun of dumb sports commentary, but I was wary because I’ve never liked Amy Poehler.  The premise of the show at the time was that Poehler’s parks and recreation department employee was determined to turn a hole in small Indiana town Pawnee into a playground after Rashida Jones’ character Ann Perkins’ boyfriend Andy Dwyer(Chris Pratt) fell in and broke his legs.  I watched the first couple of episodes, and it confirmed my biggest concerns.  It had plenty of good points but Poehler’s government do-gooder overachiever Leslie Knope was so over the top that it overshadowed everything else.  It was a poor Michael Scott impression at best, and although Scott’s never been my favorite character, Poehler certainly couldn’t pull it off like Carrell.  I stopped watching.

Mid-way through the second season, people and the internet kept trying to tell me to come back.  I was skeptical, after having seen part of the first season, but it was people and internet I trusted, and it was still a good creative team, so I relented.  I’m glad I did.  The show was well on its way in its transofrmation to one of the best comedies on television.  The biggest single difference may have been that the writers pulled the reins in on Leslie.  Instead of an overbearing Michael Scott like character, she was aggressively competent, and relentlessly well meaning, making her touch of crazy which still existed more endearing than obnoxious, generally.

Even better, the supporting cast had come out of its shell.  Andy, the deadbeat boyfriend in the first episode originally planned to only appear in a couple of episodes, changed completely into a lovable happy go lucky but delightfully a little bit slow witted character who has become one of the breakout characters of the show.  The other biggest breakout character was mustachioed boss Ron Swanson, played by Nick Offerman, whose anti-government libertarian positions meant he left all the work for Leslie, and who offers lines, which even completely out of context sound wonderful like “You had me at meat tornado,” and produces the Ron Swanson Pyramid of Greatness, shown below.  The fact tha these characters have broken out so successfully, has obscured who I thought would be the obvious breakout character, Aziz Ansari’s Tom Haverford, whose fantastic renaming of food quote (I cut some of it, but it’s so good I didn’t want to leave out too much)”Fried chicken is fry fry chicky chick. Chicken Parm is chickey chickey parm parm. Chicken Cacciatore chickey catch. I call eggs pre-birds or future birds. Root beer is super water. Tortillas are bean blankies. And I call forks food rakes.”  inspired a fantastic website, Tom Haverfoods.

This reorganization of the show left one odd man out, Paul Schneider, who played Mark Brendanawicz, another government worker who was friends with Leslie.  Originally designed as loosely the Jim Halpert character, Brendanawicz’s role kept getting squeezed as the show continued until he chose to leave, which was the best thing for the show.  He was replaced by Adam Scott and Rob Lowe joined the cast as well at the end of the second season.  Even as the third season started, it was hard to remember that Schneider was ever on the show.  I have had a man-crush on Adam Scott ever since Party Down, and he does a fantastic job portraying awkwardness as Ben Wyatt.

Why It’s This High:  Making Amy Poehller make me laugh is something I never thought would happen, and this does, and still not nearly as much as Ron or Tom or Andy.

Why It’s Not Higher:  We’re at the point where there really aren’t great reasons why it isn’t higher, it’s very good, though I suppose I still don’t totally love Amy Poehler – old annoyances die hard.  Still, these are quibbles.

Best episode of the most recent season: I’ll pick from the third season, since it’s the last fully completed (arbitrary explanation, granted) and there’s really no obvious top episode or even couple of episodes as there are with some shows.  Without spending too much time to parse every individual episode’s A, B and C plots, I’ll go with “Eagleton” where there are some fantastic depictions of Pawnee’s rival town, the much richer Eagleton.  Although there’s a risk of occasional overuse, Parks and Recreation has gotten a lot of mileage from its depiction of residents of Pawnee as largely idiots, and its less frequent depictions of everything regarding Eagleton as snooty and ostentatious.

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Power Rankings: The Practice

14 Nov

(Power Rankings sum up:  Each week, we’ll pick a television show and rank the actors/actresses/contestants/correspondents/etc. based on what they’ve done after the series ended (unless we’re ranking a current series, in which case we’ll have to bend the rules).  Preference will be given to more recent work, but if the work was a long time ago, but much more important/relevant, that will be factored in as well)

The Practice was one of a handful of shows I watched regularly with my parents, up until the last couple seasons when I was at college. I have a lot of fond memories of watching it, which maybe I’ll share later in another post.  Today though, power rankings.  James Spader and Rhona Mitra starred in the weird last season when much of the regular cast was dismissed, but they’re not here; that season was not much more than a set up for spin off Boston Legal.

8. Lara Flynn Boyle (as Helen Gamble) – She appeared in five episodes of Hank Azaria series Huff and in eight of NBC’s can’t-believe-it-was-on-as-long-as-it-was Las Vegas.  She was in a couple of TV movies and in Law & Order episode Submission in which she plays a devious reporter.

7.  Michael Badalucco (as Jimmy Berluti) – He’s been in episodes of Joan of Arcadia, Justice, Bones, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, Monk, Cold Case, In Plain Sight and Private Practice.  He was in two Boardwalk Empires, three of short-lived 2011 series Chaos, and eight of soap The Young and the Restless.  He had small roles in films Bewitched and The Departed.

6.  Marla Sokoloff (as Lucy Hatcher) – She was in three episodes of Desperate Housewives and co-starred in very short-lived CW show Modern Men in 2006.  Sokoloff starred as the bride in 12 episode ABC show Big Day, a sitcom which takes place entirely on the day of a wedding.  She showed up in episodes of Burn Notice, Drop Dead Diva and CSI:New York.

5.  Steve Harris (as Eugene Young) – After The Practice, Harris appeared in Tyler Perry’s Diary of a Mad Black Woman and co-starred in short-lived NBC series Heist about well, a crack team planning a massive jewelry store heist, starring Dougray Scott.  He appeared in a Grey’s Anatomy and as the voice of Clayface in 11 episodes of animated series The Batman.  He was in film Quarentine and three episodes of Eli Stone and in six in the last two seasons of Friday Night Lights as main character Jess’s father who owned a barbecue joint and played high school football growing up.  He was in Takers and will be a regular cast member of midseason series Awake set to debut next winter starring Jason Issacs.  He’s also the older brother of Wood Harris, best know as Avon Barksdale from The Wire.

4.  Lisa Gay Hamilton (as Rebecca Washington) – She was in episodes of The L Word, ER, Without a Trace, Numb3rs, and two of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit.  She appeared in films Deception, Beastly, The Soloist and Take Shelter.  She was a regular on two season critically acclaimed TNT show Men of a Certain Age as Andre Braugher’s character’s wife, Melissa.

3.  Kelli Williams (as Lindsay Dole) – She appeared on three episodes of Rob Lowe one season The Lyon’s Den and one of Hack and Third Watch each before co-starring in one season NBC drama Medical Investigation.  She was in six episodes of ABC’s two season Men in Trees.  She was in episodes of Law & Order; Criminal Intent, Criminal Minds and The Mentalist and she co-starred in all three seasons of Tim Roth Fox procedural Lie To Me.

2. Camryn Manheim (as Ellenor Frutt) – Manheim gets to be in the second position because she had a regular role on a non-Practice television show for longer than anyone else.  She was on a season longer than Williams in Lie to Me, and although I was tempted to rate that as better than Manheim’s show, Lie to Me suffered low ratings constantly even though Fox pushed it heavily its first year.  Manheim was in episodes of Strong Medicine and Two and a Half Men and four of The L Word.  She played Elvis’s mother Gladys in 2005 miniseries Elvis and she appeared in a How I Met Your Mother episode (as a woman who runs a company which matches up people with a computer program) and in two of Hannah Montana.  She was a regular in the last four seasons of the five season – can’t-believe-it-went-on-as-long-as-it-did Ghost Whisperer.  After that program ended in 2010, she appeared in three episodes of Harry’s Law.

1.  Dylan McDermott (as Bobby Donnell) – McDermott gets first because while Manheim had a more stable role on a TV show, McDermott has always been the main star of every show he’s been in, and though it will probably not last as long, the show he’s on now has already generated more buzz in 3 episodes than Ghost Whisperer did in its entire run.  Immediately after The Practice’s end, McDermott co-starred in TNT miniseries The Grid (my favorite all-time ridiculous T-shirt is a The Grid shirt my dad came upon somehow).  He appeared in a few minor movies and an unaired pilot called 3lbs, which aired for a mere three episodes, but featured Stanley Tucci in McDermott’s role.  He got his next shot on TV in Big Shots in the 2007-08 season which aired on ABC for 11 episodes and co-starred Michael Vartan, Joshua Molina and Christopher Titus.  He appeared for two seasons in TNT’s Dark Blue as the leader of an undercover unit of the LA police and now stars in FX’s American Horror Story as part of a family stuck in a haunted house in Los Angeles.

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Fall 2011 Review: Once Upon A Time

13 Nov

Once Upon A Time is the story of a group of fairy tale characters who have gotten trapped in our world in the town of Storybrooke, Maine by an evil witch and who have no idea that they’re fairytale characters.  They also can’t leave the town for some reason that was unclear in the first episode.  The first episode is told as two separate plots which are cross cut.  First, in the past, fairy tale characters led by Snow White and Prince Charming must deal with the curse of the evil witch and eventually learn that the only way to save themselves is to preserve their daughter who will save them from the cursed in 28 years. Second, Jennifer Morrison is a modern day independent, but friendless woman who is approached by a little boy who it turns out is her biological son who she gave up for adoption ten years ago.  The boy tells her that he’s her son, and convinces her to return him to his hometown of Storybrooke.  She has some either super power or sharp instinct to determine whether people are lying, and sees that he is telling the truth.  He tries to convince her that the town is made of fairytale characters, of which she is one, putting her in the classic this-is-ridiculous-but-she-has-to-eventually-believe-it-for-the-show-to-work scenario that we’ve already had in The Secret Circle and A Gifted Man.  She’s not all the way there by the end of the episode, but she agrees to stay in town a week and hang out with him, against his mother’s wishes, because she’s convinced the mother doesn’t love him.  Or something.

The word of the day for Once Upon A Time is a word I stray away from generally, because I’ve known people who have overused it in the past, but here I think it’s called for:  cheesy.  It’s not a sophisticated word, but it’s accurate for about everything about this show, and though I’m probably being slightly derisive about the show overall in this review, I mean cheesy in a simply descriptive way.  The plotlines are cheesy.  The show would have been better off leaving out the flashbacks entirely.  Snow White and Prince Charming in the past go downstairs to hear a prophecy from the prisoner Rumplestiltskin and the whole scene just seems like it should be from a children’s cartoon rather than a primetime drama.  The writing is cheesy – the dialogue is canned and corny.  The production values, which I’m usually willing to cut some slack to and aren’t my biggest concern, are cheesy as well.  The limited cgi.  The costumes for the dwarves.  Everything feels a little kiddy.  I’m not saying something has to be dark as night to interest me, but it could at least by a little bit complex.

It was hard for me to watch this and not mentally compare it to a comic series called Fables.  Fables, written by Bill Willingham, posits that a great evil (The Adversary) chased the fairy tale characters out of their homelands and they escaped to a part of New York called Fabletown.  His depictions of the characters and their interactions are clever, nuanced and funny.  Prince Charming, for example, is the same prince from Snow White, Cinderella and other stories, so instead of being a doe eyed eternally loving husband, he’s a handsome sleazy womanizer.  Anyway, this has pretty much just been a paragraph long advertisement for a comic series that I’ve only read half of the existing issues, but it was similar enough that it was hard to get out of my mind while watching the show, and I continued to compare Once Upon A Time to it, negatively.

Also, Howling for You by The Black Keys makes another pilot appearance.  It’s all over Prime Suspect, and now in Once Upon A Time also.

Will I watch it again? No, I don’t think so.  It’s certainly innocuous enough and if people told me it got really interesting from here on in I’d give it a chance, but it’s hard to get a feeling that it will from the first episode.  The whole thing isn’t very sophisticated, and maybe that’s too much to ask, especially from a show that bills itself as family friendly, but it could try a little harder.

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Fall 2011 Review: Man Up

12 Nov

Part 2 of the ABC Man Block, Man Up is the story of three men, a happily married husband and father of a son and daughter, a bitterly divorced man, brother in law to the first man, and their friend, who is still devastated by the loss of his long-term girlfriend.  Unlike Tim Allen in Last Man Standing who is an outdoorsman who does manly deeds all the time in a world devoid of them, the three main characters in Man Up, Will, Craig and Kenny, spend their time doing teenage-ish activities like playing video games (Will thinks that his wife’s present of a violent war game is for him, rather than for his son).  Over the course of the episode, which consists of a birthday party for Will’s son, the three band together and decide they want to act MANLY like their fathers who presumably fought in some sort of war and maybe worked in a factory for thirty years would have acted.  They’re tired of being emasculated; not in the same way Tim Allen is tired by living in a house full of women, but by emasculating themselves with their boyish attitudes.  It’s time to MAN UP.  This involves mostly, in this episode, getting into a fight with a bunch of hooligans who one of them (Craig?  Maybe?) pissed off (by barging on his wedding and serenading his finance) instead of calling the police when the hooligans barge onto the front lawn of Will’s house while the kids are having their party.  Apparently they don’t do a whole lot to win the fight, but they still feel appropriately manly afterwards, and Will’s wife seems to be surprisingly forgiving of what seems like an incredibly stupid action.

(Note:  I understand Man Up is not a very popular TV show.  Still is it more obscure than the third album by Danish blues-rock group The Blue Van which comes up ahead of it on wikipedia?)

Man Up is far less patently offensive than Last Man Standing.  There’s less overt sexism and homophobia (which is not saying a lot, to be fair) and very little makes you straight out cringe.  Unfortunately, it’s still not very good.  Forget the idea of manliness, which admittedly seems a little dated, and could distill into worse emasculated man stereotypes but certainly didn’t show any real signs of that yet.  The friends seemed like relatively normal people.  The show just was weak in the way that the vast majority of bad shows are weak.  The jokes aren’t funny, the characters aren’t very interesting, and there’s no aspect that is compelling and makes me want to come back for more or think that I’d want to come back for more in the future.

Will I watch it again?  Nope.  In some of these I talk about how it’s close or how I’m thinking about it or it could improve.  Not here.  It’s not truly offensive like Whitney or 2 Broke Girls or Last Man Standing – it’s just a straight up regular ol’ traditional type of bad show.  It could be good if it was another show entirely, but short of that it’s not high on signs of hope.

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Show of the Day: Sherlock

11 Nov

I do look forward to writing about some shows that I haven’t seen yet, but until then I’ll feel free to write some occasional glowing reviews for shows that I think everyone should give a chance.

In this case, it’s the BBC’s Sherlock, a modern day adaptation of Sherlock Holmes, taking Holmes and Watson to the 21st century without losing the feel of the original stories, which is no mean feat (though taking place a century before animated program Sherlock Holmes in the 22nd Century).  British TV is a whole treasure trove of television with which I’m not entirely familiar.  I’ve dipped my toe in occasionally (Extras, Peep Show) but there’s so much more (I’ve just watched the first episode of Dr. Who, and I hear great things about Luther and Spaced) that I haven’t even given a try yet because these British shows find their way out of mind since it’s hard to read about them unless you specifically look for them.

I’ve only seen a handful of the Jeremy Britt Sherlock Holmes (The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, technically) which was filmed from 1984 to 1994, but I’ve always liked them, and they were extremely straightforward attempts at capturing Arthur Conan Doyle’s stories.  Sherlock is a little bit more loose but I think bigger Holmes fans than I (and I’ve read a number of the stories) would still appreciate the adaptation.

Holmes is portrayed by an actor with the most British of names, Benedict Cumberbatch (his middle names are Timothy Carlton, which could be an extremely British person by itself).  Watson is portrayed by Martin Freeman who played Tim in the original The Office and Arthur Dent in the film version of A Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (and will star as Bildo Baggins in the 2012 Peter Jackson adapation of The Hobbit, giving him key roles in adaptations of three of Britain’s most treasured literary works of the last century or so).  Instead of typical dramatic hour long episodes, the BBC produced three 90 minute episodes each structured around one mystery.  These mysteries are not taken directl from Holmes stories, rather they’re combinations of stories modernized for the present time.  Watson, for example, is a veteran of the Afghanistan war.  Holmes constantly uses modern technology such as texting or GPS or other computer related help, keeping up with Holmes’ devotion to the latest technology, albeit a bit different than the latest technology in the early 20th century.

I watched all three episodes with bigger Sherlock Holmes fans than I and both of my friends noticed allusions and references everywhere to various events in various stories.  The mysteries in each were compelling and delightful, but importantly, for a show like this, they were enjoyable aside from just wanting to know what happened and who did it, adding replay value.  Both actors and the excellent writing foster a compelling relationship between Watson and Holmes.  Compared to the ongoing Guy Ritchie Sherlock Holmes franchise with a dashing action hero Holmes, Sherlock, though it takes place a hundred years in the future, is more faithful to the spirit of the original Holmes stories.  It does exactly what the best indirect adaptations do; modernize or put an interesting spin on beloved source material while keeping the elements of what people loved about it in the first place.

It’s a relatively small time commitment for a show of very high quality, a worthy investment of time all around.  It was so successful that it will be back for three more hour and a half episodes early next year.

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Ranking the Shows I Watch – 6: Childrens Hospital

10 Nov

I was about to write that at it’s heart Childrens Hospital is a stupid show, but that’s not really true.  Not that I don’t occasionally enjoy stupid humor, everyone does, even if it’s not my favorite variety.   That said, that’s not really what Childrens Hospital is, even if there are some parts that are pretty stupid.  What Childrens Hospital is based upon is rather silly humor (I actually hate the word silly which should let you know how much I like this show if I’m using it as priase here).  It’s not smart or witty or urbane or crackling with banter like other favorite shows of mine (Party Down, for example).  It’s ridiculous, it’s absurd, and it’s downright hilarious.

Childrens Hospital is an 11-minute long show which takes place in a fictional Children’s Hospital somewhere in Brazil and centers on a group of doctors who must deal with a different set of ridiculous circumstances each week.  Rob Corddry, the creator, plays a clown doctor who dispenses the healing power of laughter, a ploy, which every once in a while seems like it might be overused, but just before you get tired of it, they reel it back for a couple of episodes.  Other doctors are played by Ken Marino, Rob Huebel,Lake Bell, Erin Hayes and Malin Akerman. Megan Mullaly plays the handicapped head of doctors who for some reason everyone is sexually attracted to, and Henry Winkler plays the hospital administrator who everyone hates on.

One of my favorite sequences in Children’s Hospital occurs at the end of an episode themed as a documentary of what is supposed to be the show’s last episode.  Let’s step back a minute actually.  This is one of my favorite episodes of the show, and it’s a show that makes you actually laugh out loud.  The cast all have ridiculous fake names as they’re introducing themselves as the actors who play their character in this faux documentary, and Megan Mullaly comes out with an absolutely absurd british accent while Malin Akerman only speaks Swedish and has to read transliterations of English for the show which she doesn’t actually understand the meaning of.

Rob Corddry’s character – no, not his actual character, him playing the fake actor that plays his character, is the only one of the cast who wants the show to continue and he convinces a woman to create a campaign to save Childrens Hospital by convincing the woman that the show is an actual Children’s Hospital.

Okay, so the part I actually wanted to mention was just at the end of the episode when we see fake outtakes of the filming of Childrens Hospital.  The actors in turn pronounce a couple of words wrong over and over again.  Elbow and as rhyming with “Wow”, operation as if it were operacion and  Penicillin as “Penis” illin.  Writing it down doesn’t do it justice.  It’s a bit that really needs to be heard (as can be in the video below – the whole episode is great but skip to 9:58 for this part).  It’s silly.  There’s no great subtlety to it, there aren’t many levels to the joke.  But it’s utterly hilarious.  And that’s really hard to do, and yet it’s something Childrens Hospital has managed to do especially well.

It’s not mean comedy, like South Park.  It’s not awkward comedy like The Office.  It’s not even the newfound “comedy of nice” that Parks and Recreation is being proclaimed as.  It shares with Community the spirit of making style homages, but it does it in a very different way.  Community’s homages are far more sophisticated and layered, and that’s great. Childrens Hospital’s though are far more utterly ridiculous and over the top, and that’s great too.

Guest stars are aplenty as well.  Kurtwood Smith has a particularly hilarious turn as a representative of cancer – Ken Marino’s character cures cancer, and Smith tries to menace him into holding back the cure.

Why It’s This High:  It’s silly in a good way, and constantly zanily hilarious – a New York Magazine article compared it to Leslie Nielson’s old short-lived Police Files, and it’s an apt comparison

Why It’s not higher:  There’s not enough of it, it’s probably best in the Adult Swim 11 minute format, though that’s not really a knock against it.

Best Episode of the Most Recent Season:  (Note:  I made this choice before the third season aired – for the now most recent season, we’ll say “The Chet Episode” but there’s five or six in contention) It’s a tough call – “Hot Enough For You?” – the semi-Do the Right Thing parody episode is wonderful, and contains the Kurtwood Smith bit I referred to earlier, but considering I spent even more time talking about the faux documentary episode “End of the Middle” it will have to be that one.

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The Zeljko Ivanek Hall of Fame: Michael Hyatt

9 Nov

(The Zeljko Ivanek Hall of Fame is where we turn the spotlight on a television actor or actress, and it is named after their patron saint, Zeljko Ivanek)

For this category, Hyatt has a relatively short career, with her first appearance not being until 1998, but with over 35 titles in the thirteen yeas since then, she’s certainly a worthy entrant and one who will continue to build her resume.  We also have another cast member in The Wire, which is always a treat.

Her first role was in a Dharma and Greg episode in 1998, and her next was in an episode of Oz in 1999 in which she played inmate Hamid Khan’s wife, who suffers when Khan is put in a coma in the Oz boxing tournament by Cyrus O’Reilly (why they allow a boxing tourney in Oz I never understand).  She was in the pilot of Wonderland, an episode of Ally McBeal, and then in six episodes of The West Wing.  She portrayed Angela Blake, who had previously worked for Leo McGarry when he was Secretary of Labor and in Season 5 was hired to be Director of Legislative Affairs.  She played the wife of a man who drove himself to the funeral home to die there in Six Feet Under and appeared in episodes of Joan of Arcadia, Huff and 24.  She was in four separate episodes of Law & Order, each time as a different character, including as a defense attorney in season 15’s License to Kill.  She was in a two part episode of E-Ring and in a second season Veronica Mars episode where she plays a women’s studies professor.

Around this time period, she engaged in her biggest role to date as the villainous Brianna Barksdale in The Wire. Brianna is sister to Barksdale organization head Avon Barksdale, and mother to D’Angelo Barksdale.

(WIRE SPOILERS BEGIN)

Brianna plays a key role in the first season when she convinces D’Angelo, who had all but agreed to cooperate with the police in exchange for a plea bargain, to stand strong for the family and renege on his potential deal.  She makes her argument personal and promises D’Angelo, who now must take a long prison sentence, that he will be taken care of.  This begins the course of events which lead to D’Angelo’s death.  She is suspicious when McNulty tells her that D’Angelo was murdered rather than committed suicide, but eventually comes to believe it, and never gets on with Avon the same way again.

(WIRE SPOILERS END)

She was in an episode of Grey’s Anatomy and two of Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip.  She was in ones of ER and Shark, and two of Smith, and three of Drive.  She starred in Spike TV’s one season The Kill Point, about a group of Marines who come home from abroad and execute a bank heist.  Hyatt plays the head of the SWAT team determined to save the hostages who are being held as the heist progresses.  She was then in episodes of Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, The Big Bang Theory, NCIS, Criminal Minds and Bones.  She was in TV movies Operating Instructions and a pilot which did not get picked up known only as Untitled Wyoming Project.  She appeared in two episodes of Brothers & Sisters and single episodes of Glee, Southland, Harry’s Law, Mad Love and House of Payne.  She most recently appeared in an extremely brief role in the first episode of this season of Dexter, as an admissions director for a pre-school, which gave me the inspiration to honor her here.

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