Tag: house

The 2011-2012 Season

On By sulkyblueIn 11-12 Season, TV Lists2 Comments

I’ve been dragging my feet on my season round-up post as I’ve been trying to polish off a few more series. But all the new stuff is starting, so the time has come to just get on with it! I’ve watched 39 series this year, last year was 28 so that’s a pretty terrifying increase! A fair number of the series are only a handful of episodes though (for better or worse) so I figure the number of episodes is about the same, somewhere around the 600 mark.

American Horror Story – S1
Awake – S1 (In progress)
The Big Bang Theory – S5
The Big C – S2
Blue Bloods – S2
Bones – S7
Borgen – S1
The Bridge – S1
The Cafe – S1
Castle – S4
Criminal Minds – S7
CSI – S12
CSI:NY – S8 		Downton Abbey – S2
Forbrydelsen (The Killing): S2
Fringe – S4 (in progress)
Game of Thrones – S2
Glee – S3 (in progress)
The Good Wife – S3
Grey’s Anatomy – S8
Homeland – S1
House – S8
The Jury
Luck – S1
Luther – S2
Mad Men – S5 (In progress) 		Merlin – S4
NCIS – S9
NCIS: LA – S3
The Newsroom – S1
Once Upon a Time – S1 (in progress)
Outnumbered – S4
Sherlock – S2
Smash – S1
Sons of Anarchy – S4
Supernatural – S7
Terra Nova – S1
Veep – S1
The Walking Dead – S2
Warehouse 13 – S3

There are a few other bits and pieces that didn’t make the list, mostly documentaries, many of them really rather excellent – Inside Nature’s Giants, David Attenborough’s Kingdom of Plants filmed at Kew Gardens, Frozen Planet, Wonders of the Universe to name a few.

BEST SHOWS
Borgen. “The Danish West Wing” is an overused label, but it’s so accurate it’s hard to resist. It’s not just the subject matter that draws the comparison, but the quality of writing and production and, sadly, the ability for it to break your heart as characters realistically, but depressingly make the wrong decisions.

Fringe. For complicated housemate related reasons I still haven’t seen the final two episodes of this series, but I can’t see how they would do anything that would mean the series drops from this list. Fringe continues to evolve into a spectacularly complex, yet completely followable series while never forgeting to actually entertain its audience with self-aware nods to the ridiculousness of the situations.

The Good Wife. A brilliant cast, fascinating storylines, sure and steady character development all polished off with sparkling dialogue makes a package that’s just a complete and utter joy to watch. In a world of mediocre network procedurals, this one is so far ahead it’s clearly in a different league.

Homeland. Another show that’s complex yet accessible. The gradual reveal and development of characters is fascinating and I was on the edge of my seat all season not knowing which way anything was going to go.

Mad Men and Awake could potentially be added to this list, but I am less than half way through each.

FAVOURITE SHOWS
The Newsroom. This show was the one I’d been most looking forward to, and I’m slightly devastated that I can’t include it in the ‘best’ category. But despite massive flaws with the characters and a preachiness that even I find rather troublesome, it’s still one of my favourite shows of the year. That may be blind Aaron Sorkin obsession, but I don’t care.

American Horror Story. A huge collection of characters and stories intricately interwoven and elegantly revealed over the span of a carefully structured series. It felt both innovative and yet thoroughly grounded in the history of the genre. I’m especially happy that each season is completely self contained, so nothing is dragged out or has the chance to get dull.

Smash. It’s original and fun, balancing cheesiness and melodrama with engaging characters and a surprisingly real feeling storyline. I’m really looking forward to next season, particularly given they’re getting rid of all the annoying characters.

Once Upon a Time. Another new show that’s original and fun. The storyline is incredibly complex yet revealed so elegantly that there’s never any difficulty keeping up. It’s beautifully designed and just a lovely series to watch.

ACTORS
I sort of covered my thoughts on actors in my Emmy post, so here are some broader thoughts.

House . Hugh Laurie gets the most praise publicly, but the whole cast of the series are absolutely superb. Robert Sean Leonard as Wilson completely and utterly broke my heart, Peter Jacobson (Taub) cracked me up, Olivia Wilde (Thirteen) stole the very few scenes she was in, and Jesse Spencer (Chase) produced one of the most satisfying character developments I’ve seen in a long time.

Homeland . One of the few things that myself and those that vote for awards actually agree on, the superbness that are Claire Danes and Damian Lewis. I however would go a lot further and also heap praise on the supporting performances by Morena Baccarin and Mandy Patinkin.

Sons of Anarchy. Award voters clearly have some kind of blind spot when it comes to Sons of Anarchy, because year after year they completely fail to register the incredible performances throughout the cast, but in particular from the female leads Katey Sagal and Maggie Siff

Katharine McPhee (Karen) and Megan Hilty (Ivy), Smash – I loved the dance the characters went on, competing with each other but respecting each other’s talents; sometimes gracious, sometimes bitchy. And boy can they belt out tunes! Also Jack Davenport (Derek) had some of the funniest lines of the year!

Fringe . The cast are good as their primary characters, but what’s impressive is that most of them then go on to play the same person in the alternate universe, each of them the same person but with slight variations. It’s astonishing, they are the same person yet completely different, it’s mind twisting and fascinating. I can’t imagine a greater challenge as an actor. While Anna Torv and John Noble rightly get a lot of praise, the performances of Jasika Nicole (Astrid) and Seth Gabel (Lincoln Lee) are just as subtle. Poor Joshua Jackson must feel rather hard-done-by without an alternate version to play with. He is pretty though.

The Good Wife – so many great performances and characters that I love from both stars, supporting characters (I could watch Josh Charles and Christine Baranski do the Will and Diane show all day long) and a dream list of guest stars (Michael J. Fox, Martha Plimpton, Matthew Perry – all playing deliciously slimy characters).

GOOD THINGS
Booth and Bones getting together on Bones. I was completely against it, but cheerfully admit I was wrong. Having them jump from no relationship at all to living together and having a baby brought a breath of fresh air to the series. It was handled with such lightness and charm, with both characters bending to accommodate the other, but not making any fundamental changes… beautifully written and acted. Here’s hoping Castle can do the same.

The end of House. A series going out gracefully and winding everything up with a collection of satisfying resolutions for all the characters. House has never been about the medicine, but about the puzzles and about the people, while I may personally wish that Wilson had a different conclusion, it all fed in so perfectly and everyone ended up where they were supposed to be.

Creativity! It felt like there was some variation with what’s on TV, not just an endless stream of interchangeable procedurals. Shows like American Horror Story, Game of Thrones, Once Upon a Time and Walking Dead (finally) are investigating what it’s like to bring non-traditional genres to television, and shows like Smash, Luck and The Newsroom brought different subjects to the screen.

Female Characters! There are plenty of people out there who have and will write far more eloquently on the plight of women in television, but this year has felt like a relatively good year. Shows are full of strong women doing their jobs, raising their families and doing so as if it’s the most natural thing in the world. Shows like The Good Wife, Smash, Once Upon a Time and Grey’s Anatomy have dominantly female casts, and almost everything else has a nice balance. Even something like Downton Abbey with its period constraints provides some wonderful roles for female actors.

BAD THINGS
Lighten up! Supernatural is superb, but it really really needs to lighten up a bit! It’s turned into something I have to force myself to watch, rather than something I really look forward to. The same argument could be made for Sons of Anarchy. Relentless depression is just not entertaining to watch, I’m not saying they suddenly need to be all sunshine and puppies, but just every now and then, let them catch a break.

NCIS . After 9 seasons, I realised there’s no point in watching this any more. The plots are utterly disposable and the characters are disastrously erratic. The last two seasons I’ve relegated it to ‘ironing watching’, but I’m even giving up on that (the show, not the ironing sadly).

Glee. I still haven’t managed to get to the end of the season having realised that I’m increasingly just fast-fowarding episodes. I just got sick to death with the terrible writing which completely undermined the charm of the characters and the talents of the actors. It just stopped being fun.

Still no spaceships. Can no one make this work?

Too short! Sherlock and Luther both had only 3 episodes, each ‘double’ length. It’s not enough. There’s the obvious problem that like a small child if I like something I want more of it, but it also really hampers the ability to get invested in characters and stories, just as you’re settling in, it’s all over and the voice over man is saying “will return in 2014”.

PS
In preparing this article, I went back and looked at my summaries of last years shows and I have to highlight the following phrase in my summary of 2010-2011’s new shows:

Superheroes are out – there was a flurry of superhero shows and none of them were any good. People keep trying to find the magic of the early season of Heroes and the massive success that’s being found by Marvel and DC Comics at the cinema, but no one’s managed it yet. Here’s an idea, stop pissing off Joss Whedon and get him to do one, after he’s done making millions with The Avengers that is.

I rejoice in my ability to predict the future and can’t wait to see what Joss does with S.H.I.E.L.D.

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House: Season 8

On By sulkyblueIn 11-12 Season, Medical, Season Reviews1 Comment

The final season of House passed much the same as every other season of House – chunks of absolute brilliance separated by a blocks of mediocre filler. It’s not that most of the episodes are bad, they’re just so unremarkable that they border on the boring. One day I might actually work out which of the 177 episodes are worth watching, probably something in the order of two dozen, maybe another couple of hours compiled from individual scenes from scattered episodes. That would be a pretty rubbish percentage if not for the fact that the resulting couple of dozen hours would be some of the best television of recent years. There are spoilers for the whole series in this review, right up to the final episode.

On paper the show may be a medical procedural, but as House himself hilariously points out in the final episode – “nobody cares about the medicine”. The cases of the week fade into the background more than ever this season, maybe under the pressure of trying to round out all the characters storylines before the pre-defined end date. That’s great news, because in reality the show isn’t about solving mysterious medical cases, it’s about characters (as any great show really is in my opinion).

Gregory House is one of the most fascinating and unique characters I can remember seeing on television. The writers play up the Sherlock Holmes comparisons a lot, which resonate because House is (we are told over and over again) only interested in the puzzle. The feelings of his patients, colleagues and friends are mostly irrelevant to him; he is only drawn to people and situations which are not boring and can surprise him. It’s all a giant game to him, conducting experiments to find how far can he push people? I remember a sequence from several years back where he reveals that he’s been borrowing ever increasing amounts of money from Wilson to see what value Wilson puts on their friendship.

Season 8 however is an exploration of what happens when House is beaten at his own game – first by the law that sends him to jail and can keep him from the medical puzzles, then by a woman who he unexpectedly falls in love with (and is a far better fit for him than Cuddy ever was), and finally he is beaten by medicine itself which tries to take Wilson from him. Each of these problems is beyond his usual tactics of bluster and scheming and each situation forces him to actually address and admit his feelings. The beauty of the writing is that even after so much time in the character’s company, I was always uncertain what he would do and not because the writing was erratic, but just because the character was so believably complex.

Sadly the same cannot be said for quite all of the characters, Park and Adams, newly introduced for just this season were fighting a losing battle from the start. Their only real purpose was to occasionally shine a new perspective on the older characters, but in their own rights they never really worked. Adams was yet another variation on a theme of Cameron and couldn’t even begin to compare to the fascinating character that Thirteen had evolved into. Park, like Masters last season, never really felt like she belonged in the same show as everyone else – just a bit too weird and quirky.

If Adams and Park were the final wave of ‘ducklings’, Taub is the last standing of the second wave. It’s weird to think that relatively speaking he’s one of the older characters and has been on the show 4 years. While I enjoyed his character and the relationships he established, I never quite cared about him as much as the original fellows. His character never really went anywhere and didn’t get much to do this season, his big revelation this year appeared to be children, but he felt a bit short changed in the character development stakes.

At the other end of the spectrum is Chase, he’s always been my favourite of the original fellows and I think he’s the one that really actually learnt from House. Once again, it’s not about the medicine, what Chase learnt was how to manipulate people and get inside their heads, but without being as unfeeling as House. Chase is maybe who House would have been without the constant pain and drugs – still not always a pleasant person, but not a complete jerk . Chase’s character arc was gradual and satisfying and had some really great moments in season 8. His resolution when he finally took control, recognised his own abilities and made his own decisions about his career was immensely satisfying, and House appeared as close to proud as he ever has. The final shot of Chase’s name on House’s office door as his natural and rightful successor was the perfect resolution for the character.

From my favourite character to my least favourites. From the first season to the sixth my reviews always commented on how annoying I found Lisa Cuddy, and my opinion was completely justified by the fact her absence only made this season stronger. Dominica, House’s green card seeking wife was an infinitely better partner for House, accepting him without question. Foreman stepped into Cuddy’s shoes as House’s boss, and although his promotion was ludicrously unlikely and I’ve never much liked the character, he finally felt like he was in the right place. He made a much better foil for House, playing the game to the amusement and challenge of both sides without getting in the way of House’s ability to treat patients or getting caught up in overblown emotions that Cuddy endlessly did.

Wilson meanwhile continued to play his own version of the game. I’ve never been able to decide how I feel about his relationship with House, he fell into many of the same self-destructive emotional holes as Cuddy, but also managed to ‘win’ against House just often enough that he didn’t come across as ridiculous. With this being the final season the writers had to answer that question – has House been taking advantage of Wilson all these years, or are they really friends. I could cheerfully murder the writers for deciding that the way to answer that was to give Wilson terminal cancer and to see if House is still selfish. Robert Sean Leonard’s performance was incredible, managing to portray a man dealing with his own issues yet still (by his nature) being worried about his friend and (by nature of the friend) having to continue playing the game.

The storyline as a whole broken my heart, but when the final episode eventually reveals that all of Wilson’s loyalty has not been in vain it was all worth it. The season (the whole series in fact) was about showing that House really did care about the people around him. Characters like Wilson, Thirteen and Chase understood him well enough to recognise the tiny signs of caring and they in turn were the people to get the most out of their relationships with House; while people like Cuddy or Cameron who couldn’t see past the outer layer of jerk and tried to change him, ultimately were unrewarded by their relationships with him

Maybe House is like Mad Men, without so many episodes going by with nothing happening, you wouldn’t actually appreciate the moments of perfection. Without the previous 130 hours, the final 10 minutes where House gives up absolutely everything in his life just to be with Wilson during his final few months wouldn’t have anywhere near the impact. Every time I’ve come close to giving up on the series, it’s pulled something out of the bag and I came back, but it was a losing battle and I think it ended at the right point. In its final episodes it performed the ultimate achievement – pulling everything together in a satisfying ending with the perfect blend of happiness and sadness. The series feels finished, the ultimate question has been answered – House really does care.

House: Season 7

On By sulkyblueIn 10-11 Season, Season Reviews2 Comments

Oh House. Never have I been so frustrated by a show and yet kept endlessly coming back for more. Every season you manage to drag me back from the depths of apathy by dropping moments of television gold into the otherwise repetitive drivel you churn out in the place of actual plots. I guess I can only really blame myself for being lured back for more disappointment so many times. No, wait. I CAN blame you.

The centre point for all of my frustrations for the show would be one Lisa Cuddy. Nearly 6 years ago when I wrote about season 1 I described her as “ridiculously young and frequently pathetic” and nothing has changed beyond the fact that she now grumbles about how old she is more often. If I’m a fool for coming back to the series over and over she is by far the bigger fool for going back to House over and over, whether it be professionally or personally their relationship is horrendous. The previous season ended with them entering into a romantic relationship which had “doomed from the start” written all over it. Did Cuddy’s mother never tell her that you can’t go into a relationship expecting the other person to change? Actually given that we met Cuddy’s mother this year and the woman was a shrew, she probably never did.

Just to reinforce that House will never change, a new character is brought in to replace Thirteen while the actress was off making movies. Masters was young, brilliant and naive, and Cuddy sees a lot of herself in the girl (poor deluded Cuddy). But beyond being so irritating that she actually made me miss Thirteen, all Masters really did was highlight how idiotic Cuddy is. Masters saw all the things that House does wrong and rails against them, when she’s given the opportunity to move on, she realises that she’s not willing to follow him into his insanity and… SHE LEAVES. She walks out the door. Hear that Cuddy?

But no, Cuddy (and to a lesser, but no less self-destructive extent, Wilson), both just keep coming back for more and in the process just make the whole situation worse. As Cuddy and House try to forge a relationship, it’s not House that’s the problem, he’s just as he ever was (if not actually slightly better) it’s Cuddy that breaks things off and comes across as a cow because she expected him to change for her. Will big shock! THEN she’s pissed off that following the break up he reverts back to his previously erratic self.

On the plus side, thanks to Fox seemingly screwing up a contract negotiation, Cuddy will not be returning next season, and if the last we see of her is her appearance in the finale of this season – declaring that she’s had enough and wants House arrested, I think that will be the best ending the character could possibly have. It’s been seven years but she’s finally reached the conclusion we all did back in season 1, he’s never gonna be anything different, and why would you want him to be if he’s such a brilliant doctor because of it. Lisa Edelstein is a fine actress as evidenced by the way that she has managed to chew her way through some truly awful writing and I really hope she finds a role worthy of her.

Meanwhile it will hopefully leave House the show open to rediscovering the real strengths that it has demonstrated too infrequently (although just frequently enough to keep me hanging on). Even this season there have been episodes that are out of the box with creative storytelling, engaging medical mysteries and a number of interesting relationships that have grown amongst House’s team independent of the destructive ones hogging the limelight. The Bert and Ernie flatmate between Foreman and Taub, the surprising turns in Chase and Thirteen’s relationship, the understanding between House and Thirteen – each of these actually feel like proper interactions that have some sort of future. If this does turn out to be the last season, hopefully they will throw everything they have at it, bringing all the episodes up to the standard they’ve proved they can reach and cutting the repetitive drivel they’ve filled season 7 with.

The dvd will be released in September and is available from Amazon

The Upfronts: Fox

On By sulkyblueIn 11-12 Season1 Comment

Another year, another set of upfronts. Fox is a channel I approach with considerable nervousness, I’ve never forgiven them for cancelling some of my favourite shows (Wonderfalls and Firefly for example). But on the flipside, they’re also the channel that actually commissioned those series, and recently they’ve actually given shows like Dollhouse and Fringe more chances than maybe their ratings deserve.

What’s out
The Chicago Code – This never really got enough viewers for it to survive and another Shaun Ryan show bites the dust. I liked the pilot well enough, but am not sure if I’ll bother picking up the rest of the series now. I was more upset about the loss of his other show, the superb Terriers.
The Good Guys – Despite the dream pairing of Bradley Whitford and Colin Hanks, this wasn’t my kind of show, and the ratings would seem to indicate it wasn’t other people’s either.
Lie to Me – Now this one I am cross about. I feel this show never really got a fair shot with mucked about scheduling and minimal promotion. Tim Roth was superb in this, raising it up above other similar procedurals like The Mentalist. It could have been improved with more development of the supporting characters, but this is one of only very few cancellations that I have any kind of strong feelings about.
Also off are Human Target (not awful, but just a bit crappy), Breaking In (Christian Slater thing), Running Wilde and Traffic Light (comedies) and Lone Star which is probably the winner of this year’s “critics’ hero”to “ratings zero” award.

What’s back
There are no surprises that Bones and Glee are back, nor the animations that I have no real idea about but see people talking about a lot (American Dad, Bob’s Burgers, The Cleveland Show, Family Guy and The Simpsons). Also Raising Hope is back which I hear good things about.

Fringe’s renewal came a bit of a surprise to everyone, and I actually really appreciate Fox’s commitment to this show despite it’s not great ratings. I wouldn’t have thought there’ll be another chance next year, so I hope the writers take the opportunity to produce an amazing season that concludes the story.

House will also be back, but due to massive budget cuts it will be without Cuddy (news story) – which as far as I’m concerned may actually improve the show. It will almost certainly be the last season of the show and I’m not overly devastated about that, hopefully the writers will make the most of the opportunity to go out on a high.

What’s new
Terra Nova – The long anticipated and rather spectacular looking Stephen Spielberg action adventure thing. Looks like an extended Jurassic Park. I can’t wait.

Alcatraz – JJ Abrahms’ new mysteryish show. It’s starring Lost’s Jorge Garcia and Jurassic Park’s Sam Neill and the trailer efficiently hooked me in. Don’t get overly excited, it’s not on until mid-season.

The Finder – the Bones spinoff which was backdoor piloted got an official pickup. It’s got some potential, but also some really irritating tropes (bloody awful accents, know it all characters, intellectual tough guy) that will need toning down. Another midseason.

Plus a couple more animations (Napoleon Dynamite and Allen Gregory) and two utterly hideous looking comedies (The New Girl and I Hate My Teenage Daughter). And… The X Factor. Lucky Americans, no reason we should suffer alone I guess.

Links – The TV Addict (thanks for the youtube links), TV Squad, and The Futon Critic

End of year report card

On By sulkyblueIn 09-10 Season1 Comment

The start and end points for the television year is pretty fuzzy. Given that I watch mostly US shows, I tend to go by their year which runs roughly from September rather than the calendar year. So I decided that I’d count the start of the year as 1st September (and I go by American air dates, not the UK). BUT life isn’t that simple, because what do I do with shows that start in one year but end in another. For example Mad Men season 3 ran August-November 2009, running one year to the next. Then I looked at what the Emmys do and it turns out they run June 1st 2009-May 31st 2010. BUT they don’t strictly speaking pay attention to show seasons, it’s just whichever episodes ran in that time frame, which means from what I can tell – the last two episodes of the season of Glee weren’t eligible for entry as they aired in June 2010.

So after all that, I decided to hell with it and I’d count what I felt fit within 2009-2010 and be pretty much arbitrary about it.

Bones – Season 5
Brothers & Sisters – S4
Caprica – S1
Criminal Minds – S5
CSI – S10
CSI:NY – S6
Defying Gravity – S1
Dollhouse – S1
Doctor Who – 2010
FlashForward – S1 		Friday Night Lights – S4
Fringe – S2
The Good Wife – S1
Glee – S1
Grey’s Anatomy – S6
House – S6
Leverage – S2
Lie to Me – S2
Mad Men – S3
The Mentalist – S2 		Merlin – S2
NCIS: Los Angeles – S1
NCIS – S7
Outnumbered – S3
Sons of Anarchy – S2
Stargate Universe – S1
Supernatural – S5
Trauma – S1
Warehouse 13 – S1
White Collar – S1
V – S1

Top of the Class – Best Drama

  • Mad Men: For once, I’m in absolute agreement with the Emmys. Season 3 (season 4 has just started on BBC4) was a work of near perfection. The pacing, the way everything had been so carefully and subtly built up until the final episode which was one of the most satisfying hours of television I’ve ever seen. The detail of this show is incredible, it’s a slow burn, but it’s really worth it.
  • Friday Night Lights – I have a guilty relationship with this show, because despite the fact I have it ‘available’, I haven’t managed to bring myself to watch the second half of the season. This season has felt like really hard going, everybody’s’ lives really seem to suck and it’s just hard to watch. But that doesn’t make it any less superb or any less worthy of its position in the number 2 slot in the drama category.
  • Sons of Anarchy – There’s just something about this bunch of gun running, murdering, hells angels that just makes you forgive them everything they do. The closest thing I can think of to this show is Brothers & Sisters, it’s got the same sense of families fighting amongst themselves, but ultimately doing anything for each other – just with more Nazis.
  • Trauma – Maybe this show wouldn’t have made the cut if I didn’t feel bad for it being cancelled, but I really do think it was one of the better shows of the year. It’s not perfectly refined like Mad Men, but the heart and soul of it are true, the characters and relationships are interesting and different and I enjoyed every episode.
  • The Good Wife – Proving that ‘legal procedural’ doesn’t have to mean Law and Order or wanting to kill all the characters. The ensemble cast is amazing and contains some of my favourite actors, and seeing them together creating such complex characters is immensely satisfying.

Head Boy – Best Male Actor/Character (you don’t get to be a great actor without a well crafted/written character and great characters don’t survive great actors)

  • Tim Roth (Cal Lightman, Lie to Me) – I don’t understand why Tim Roth and Lie to Me don’t get more attention. In a world of dark, sober, troubled and angsty television detectives, Tim Roth lights up the room. He’s manipulative and arrogant, but he’s also a brilliant father, a caring friend and of all the investigators on television, he’s the one I’d want in my corner the most.
  • Matt Smith (The Doctor, Doctor Who) – I had my doubts, not because he was young or unknown or anything like that, but just because I thought David Tennant had created an un-equalable character. Matt Smith blew me away with his charm, his goofiness, his terrifying speeches and his ability to make a fez look cool.
  • Kyle Chandler (Coach Taylor, Friday Night Lights) – This man seems to do less acting than anyone else on television, he hardly says anything, sometimes he barely moves, but somehow you understand every single thing the character is thinking.
  • Jenson Ackles (Dean Winchester, Supernatural) – I was a bit disappointed by the season of Supernatural, but I was never disappointed with either of the lead performances. Part of what frustrated me about the season was that it was all over the range from slapstick to suicidal angst, via homicidal range and utter psychosis. Jenson Ackles nailed each of the emotions and how stubborn, but over-his-head Dean would approach each one.
  • Hugh Laurie (Dr House, House) – I didn’t like this series of House much, as per usual I think it spent too long coasting through the middle of the season and then made some dubious relationship choices. But Hugh Laurie was consistently great throughout, except for the bookending episodes, where he was absolutely amazing.

Head Girl – Best Female Actor/Character (is actress politically incorrect?)

  • Julianna Margulies (Alicia Florrick,The Good Wife) – A breath of fresh air on network television, a woman with kids, a career, issues and most importantly a personality of her own. I loved when she got drunk with Kalinda, or acted as a big sister to Cary, or didn’t quite know how to interact with Diane. But mostly I loved the way she fell back to being a college student falling for her friend and not knowing what to do about it.
  • Katey Segal (Gemma Taylor-Morrow, Sons of Anarchy) – Gemma had the epitome of a bad year on Sons of Anarchy, but through it all she was their Queen, she loves all the members of her family and fights to protect them, whether with a gun, her fists, or just by keeping a secret. Katey Segal was amazing.
  • Connie Britton (Tammy Taylor, Friday Night Lights) – The other half of the best couple on television, Tammy’s not had a great year either. But like her husband, she doesn’t have to say anything for you to understand the multiple faces the character presents to everyone, including herself. When she steals her little victories wherever she can, and fights for her kids (the whole school load of them) it makes me want to hug her.
  • Ellen Pompeo (Meredith Grey, Grey’s Anatomy) – Meredith grew up and got happy and made me love her. Last year I put her on this list partially out of pity, this year she’s there on merit, actually taking her position as ‘lead’ actress more than just being a ‘prominent female member of the ensemble’. She’s completely settled into her position as the mother of the group – her reaction to her marriage and the loss of her friends was really mature. Whiny Meredith is hopefully gone for good.
  • Sally Field (Nora Walker, Brothers and Sisters) – When Sally Field cries, I cry. When she screams, I hid under a cushion. Whether herding her unruly brood, or causing chaos all by herself, I love her to pieces.

Prefects: Boys (Supporting actors)

  • John Noble (Walter Bishop, Fringe) – Walter is crazy. Utterly and completely, self-medicatingly, one-too-many-magic-mushrooms, bucket loads of crazy. But then in alternate world Walter is utterly sane and calm and scary and slimy. Noble bounces around between Walters multiple personalities and bodies with amazing talent.
  • Chris Colfer (Kurt Hummel, Glee) – The best thing in Glee. He’s completely over the top and ridiculous to the point you almost want to throw him in a dumpster yourself, but then he does something heartbreaking. Also, he can belt out a tune like the best divas out there.
  • David Blue (Eli Wallace, Stargate Universe) – He’s exactly what the stereotypical Stargate fan would be like if they found themselves inside a Stargate series. He’s got no clue about the military, or really people at all. He’s a massive geek who breaks tension by making Star Wars jokes. He brings a bit of reality to the otherwise slightly highly strung Stargate team.
  • Cliff Curtis (Rabbit Palchuk, Trauma) – Cliff Curtis became one of my favourite actors this year playing the deeply troubled, but utterly charming Rabbit. A really fascinating character and a slightly unlikely leading man, but he was the heart of this show.
  • Enver Gjokaj (Victor, Dollhouse) – I ummed and erred between Victor and Fran Kranz’s Topher, but eventually the Doll edged out the geek because he got to play a different role (and accent) every week and nailed them all, even managing to play Topher to perfection.

Prefects: Girls (Supporting Actresses)

  • Chandra Wilson (Miranda Bailey, Grey’s Anatomy) – She wasn’t even nominated for an Emmy this year, which I was so astonished by I had to check multiple times. Bailey follows the Sally Field rules – she cries I cry, she shouts, I actually cheer out loud. Her final scene of the final episode just destroyed me.
  • Elisabeth Moss (Peggy Olson, Mad Men) – “I’m Peggy Olson. And I want to smoke some marijuana” and “Beg me? You didn’t even ASK me”. Nuff said.
  • Christine Baranski (Diane Lockheart, The Good Wife) – Although her colleague Archie Panjabi (Kalinda) got the Emmy, I think Christine Baranski was far superior if for no other reason than she seemed to be having so much FUN with the role. Not afraid to flirt with a colleague or laugh out loud at the ridiculousness of a situation.
  • Allison Scagliotti (Claudia, Warehouse 13) – like Eli in Stargate, Claudia is the voice of the fan. She’s a geek who loves a gadget and points out the idiocy of all the plans. She, and her ever changing hair colours, brings life to the show.
  • Linda Hunt (Hetty Lange, NCIS:LA) – A breath of fresh air, a bizarre mix of motherly and drill sergent that manages to make even LL Cool J quake in his boots.

Team Players (Best pairings/ensembles)

  • Callen and Hanna (NCIS:Los Angeles) – A perfect yin and yang thing of hot headedness and cool, all bundled up in a caring (but not out loud!) partnership. Who’d’ve thought it.
  • Team Free Will, Supernatural
    “This is it… Team Free Will. One ex-blood-junkie, one drop-out with six bucks to his name and Mr Comatose over there. Awesome.”
    “It’s not funny”
    “I’m not laughing”
  • Christina and Meredith (Grey’s Anatomy) – When Meredith revealed the plans for her and Derek’s dream house and pointed out Christina’s Room I burst into tears yet again. I love these two sisters.
  • The Walker Clan (Brothers and Sisters) – You can’t really break this group up. They squabble and occasionally even fight, but the group of them together and the complex relationships between all of them are amazing.

Points for effort – The home of the things that are solidly doing their job, are entertaining, and occasionally verging into brilliant, but are generally just really solidly plugging away doing what they do.

  • CSI:Original had a really solid season, settling down after the changes of recent years and just turning in an entertaining, reliable and interesting season, there’s not many shows that can say that moving in to their 11th season they’ve still got some spark.
  • Grey’s Anatomy deserves a lot of praise for bouncing back from the previous terrible season, I nearly gave up on the show, but I’m glad I didn’t.
  • Brothers & Sisters – cheesy, melodramatic, sappy and utterly sentimental – it embraces these things with such enthusiasm and does them so well, it’s hard not to love.
  • Glee – If only the quality of the plots were more consistent, this would be worthy of considerably more praise. As it is, I enjoyed most of the episodes, but ended up frustrated that it wasn’t just slightly better.

Must Try Harder

  • The Mentalist – A nice idea, a charismatic lead character… but ultimately the character development isn’t, ‘mysteries’ aren’t, and the novelty wore off.
  • Outnumbered – It was still funny, but it just wasn’t as good as previous seasons. Not least because it seemed to spontaneously stop dead, to such an extent that I completely failed to note it had finished and never got round to writing a review.
  • Science fiction – it’s not been a good year for science fiction imho. V, Caprica and Flashforward were all disappointing.
  • NCIS – Still flipflopping all over the place with a lack of consistency and character development. Maybe it’s time for this one to retire.
  • Criminal Minds – I praised the show for finally having the team come together and having an impressive group of strong female characters… then they sacked two of them.

House: Season 6

On By sulkyblueIn 09-10 Season, Medical, Season Reviews4 Comments

House - Season 6I continue to be frustrated by House. Another season of 20+ episodes have gone past and maybe 60 minutes of footage made an impact on me. The problem is that those 60 minutes are breathtaking, beautiful writing, amazing acting and gorgeous storytelling. It’s the same every year, a few great episodes at the start, then by mid-season I’m tempted to give up, but just before I do the end of the season gets superb again. I feel all used and manipulated.

I’m not sure whether it’s because my criteria for ‘memorable’ are getting harsher, but I can probably remember as many cases this season as I can from the first season, and that was 6 years ago! It’s not even that they’re interesting while on screen, but not terribly memorable, I’ve been struggling to care and pay attention even when they’re gushing blood or screaming their heads off. The lack of subtlety when it comes to matching the patient with the personal issues House and his team are dealing with that week is getting increasingly hilarious; as is the repeated structure of how many times they’ll make the wrong diagnosis before a last minute save.

On the other hand, sometimes the slow burn stuff is a good thing, the way the characters very very slowly develop makes their little moments even more satisfying. They don’t change over night, or constantly go around talking about their feelings so that we all know what’s going on. The ways that the characters and their relationships develop, sometimes coming together, sometimes drifting apart is fascinating. The dynamics of something like the Cameron-Chase relationship was really carefully developed, as Chase became more certain of himself and embraced a lot of what House had been teaching, his relationship with Cameron had to change. Meanwhile whether it was the therapy, or the lack of drugs, House seemed more open to developing friendships – being more obvious in the small acts of kindness to Wilson, occasionally treating Taub as more of an equal in age, if not medical skill and even singing karaoke with Foreman and Chase. All the characters and relationships made sense, you could look back on the previous five seasons and see how they’d very slowly got to where they are.

For all those positives though there is one character and relationship that I’ve been against from pretty much the start. I have never understood how Lisa Cuddy is supposed to be a credible character. While she occasionally shows signs of manipulative brilliance, she more often appears an emotional mess, with a destructive obsession with a member of her staff that causes her to constantly overcompensate back and forth both privately and professionally. The balance of power has always bugged me, when she continually questions his treatments and then gives in after a suitably melodramatic scene, while also defending his medical genius against his critics she looks like an idiot. Gradually the personal issues have also intruded and come to a head this season. I’ve always felt they had good chemistry for fighting, but zero chemistry for romance and in a season where Cuddy is shown to be happy, with a baby, a boyfriend and a life… the way she allowed the shadow of House to still impact her life just made her look like a silly teenager.

When House is good, it’s absolutely superb. The opening trilogy was magnificent, the final episode emotionally devastating (until the last scene which was devastating for other reasons). It’s not that there are particularly ‘bad’ episodes, almost every episode has a scene, or even just a few lines that are delivered so beautifully I would rewind them, it’s just that the surrounding stuff is so unremarkable that it sometimes feels like a bit of a slog to get to the genius. But then, without the slog, maybe I wouldn’t appreciate the genius.

I’ll leave you, with some karaoke:

Top 25 Characters

On By sulkyblueIn TV Lists1 Comment

Four years ago I came up with a list of my top 25 characters. I couldn’t resist updating the list.

1Gaius Baltar (Battlestar Galactica)
A fascinating character, weaving from hero to villain and back again often within the space of a sentence. The religious stuff was laid on a little heavy towards the end, but the character managed to pull it off.

2President Bartlet (The West Wing)
Martin Sheen was so amazing, and the character so inspiring it’s hard to believe that he never won an Emmy. These days we may have Obama, but for a long time President Bartlet was the best hope we had.

3Sam Beckett (Quantum Leap)
Bumbling through history playing a variety of parts, but always being Sam. The only connection he had to his old life was his weird friend Al, but despite not remembering it, he desperately wanted to go home.

4Chandler Bing (Friends)
The only character in the series that managed to feel like a real person all the time (well, almost all) probably because it’s basically Matthew Perry playing himself.

John Crichton (Farscape)
Hilarious and heart-breaking, just your average astronaut (!) having a weird life.
“I try to save a life a day. Usually it’s my own…”

6The Doctor (David Tennant’s Dr Who)
Tennant’s Doctor was such a wonderful character covering the full spectrum from depression through anger to pure childish joy, that I decided he was eligible all by himself without needing his other versions.

7Michael Garibaldi (Babylon 5)
Garibaldi was always my favourite character on Babylon 5. He was the human element, he fought, he drank, he mocked everyone and the universe seemed to have some kind of grudge against him.

8Jethro Gibbs (NCIS)
I love Mark Harmon and his ex-marine is brilliant. Outwardly gruff and hard, but not so inhuman that he doesn’t show his affection to his team with a kiss on the cheek for Abby or a slap on the head for DiNozzo.

9Harper (Andromeda)
Andromeda had some epic problems with plots and writing, but it had some amazing characters and Harper was my favourite. He’s a scrounger, desperately trying to get through life as unscathed as possible while his friends seem weirdly obsessed with dragging him on suicide missions to save the universe.
Abel: You must be the engineer.
Harper: Why? Because I’m the short guy with the sense of humour, the wry wit? Huh? Because I’m so freakin’ amiable with the careless demeanor? Is that it?
Abel: Well, that – and the tools.

10Gregory House (House M.D.)
Most of the time he’s a complete and utter bastard, and yet he’s also generally right. Every now and then he shows that he might, just about care about his colleagues.

11Susan Ivanova (Babylon 5)
No one from B5 made the first list and now I’ve got two. I had decided on Garibaldi over Ivanova, but then when I started reading through quotes I remembered just how many brilliant lines she had and managed to squeeze her in.
“No boom today. Boom tomorrow. There’s always a boom tomorrow. What? Look, somebody’s got to have some damn perspective around here. Boom, sooner or later. BOOM!”

12Josh Lyman (The West Wing)
He’s a political genius who can’t keep track of time zones or find his luggage without his assistant. Sometimes he’s brilliant, sometimes he’s embarrassingly poor, but he always tries so hard.

13Rodney McKay (Stargate Atlantis)
Another character that says all the things normal people never would (I’m spotting a theme). He’s arrogant, obnoxious and rude… he’s also a geek, a genius and occasionally very sweet.

14George O’Malley (Grey’s Anatomy)
Poor George. He always means so well, and tries so hard and yet his colleagues are always the ones getting the glory. Except, just possibly, the last thing he does on the show, makes him the greatest success of all of them. His absence almost made me stop watching the show and there’s not much higher compliment can be paid a character.

15Veronica Mars (Veronica Mars)
Teenager with attitude. She’s the kid that’s so amazingly cool, the cool kids at school don’t even realise that she’s light years ahead of them. So she tells them. Except that occasionally she also has a bit of a cry, falls in love with the wrong people and needs her dad.

16Peggy Olson (Mad Men)
From a historical point of view her character is fascinating, a woman making the leap from being an object, to being an individual. As a character though she’s so compelling because she’s not making a statement about women at work in the sixties, she’s just doing what she wants to do.

17Hawkeye Pierce (M*A*S*H)
“I will not carry a gun…. I’ll carry your books, I’ll carry a torch, I’ll carry a tune, I’ll carry on, carry over, carry forward, Cary Grant, cash and carry, carry me back to Old Virginia, I’ll even hari-kari if you show me how, but I will not carry a gun!”

18Mal Reynolds (Firefly)
The hero who doesn’t want to be a hero, it never goes smooth for poor Mal. Some people are at their best when they’re having yet another bad day.

19Doug Ross (ER)
There are reasons why George Clooney is a star and they’re all demonstrated in Doug Ross. Mark Greene may have been the soul of ER but Ross brought some character to it. He drank too much, womanised, looked great in a tux, looked great in scrubs, said what he thought and even rescued drowning children!

20Nick Stokes (CSI)
Nick is a straight swap for his boss Gil. This is partly because Gil is gone and got a little irritating towards the end. But Nick deserves this place because he’s the little engine that could, never the smartest or most heroic of theCSIs, he’s just been quietly plugging along with his Texas twang and concerned looks until someone finally realised the department couldn’t run without him.

21Buffy Summers (Buffy the Vampire Slayer)
Almost all the characters in this show are great, and it’s rare for me to chose a hero over a witty sidekick, but I had to go for Buffy over the others. She does occasionally wallow, but then if your teenage years were commandeered by destiny, wouldn’t you whine?

22Malcolm Tucker (The Thick of It)
He’s loud and obnoxious and rude beyond words. But he’s also generally the only one talking sense. Also I will forgive absolutely everything he’s ever done wrong, because while he was having the worst day of his career, he ran to his secretary’s defence because people were badgering her.

23Nora Walker (Brothers and Sisters)
The very definition of matriarch. Always ready with several bottles of wine, a shoulder to cry on, a rallying call, or even just a perfectly delivered cake. Nora not only rules her dysfuntional family, but is also trying to work out what a sixty year old woman does when her kids have all left home and her husband dies leaving her alone for the first time ever.

24Dean Winchester (Supernatural)
Amongst Supernatural fans there are Dean-girls and Sam-girls, I’m a (only slightly ashamed) Dean girl. He’s a simple guy wanting to kill monsters, drink, eat pie, sleep around, drive his car and above all keep his family safe. He pretty much never gets what he wants, but always has a witty comeback.

25Wesley Wyndam-Pryce (Buffy and Angel)
In terms of character development you don’t get much more extensive than Wesley, turning from the annoying twit in Buffy to the scary hero in Angel. He does what needs to be done, regardless of the costs.

2008-09 – The Glittering Awards Show

On By sulkyblueIn TV ListsLeave a comment

It’s been a while since I’ve had much respect for the people who have power over the likes of Emmy and Golden Globe nominations. The last couple of years in particular have frustrated me with the same shows and people getting nominated over and over with very worthy candidates overlooked in a way that even critics don’t seem to understand. This year is no exception. So here’s a shamelessly long list of my favourites from the year.

Lead Actor in a Drama Series

  • Hugh Laurie (House) – the show might be mediocre, but the character and acting is superb. He’s got a fourth Emmy nomination and maybe this will be the year he actually wins
  • Kyle Chandler (Friday Night Lights) – his character is extremely private trying to keep his emotions hidden, and yet you always know exactly what he’s thinking through subtle and careful acting
  • Edward Olmos (Battlestar Galactica) – another very strong season in Battlestar Galactica, portraying a man who is tired, and old and very close to being overcome, yet still has so much pride.
  • Jensen Ackles (Supernatural) – I doubt he’d appear on anyone else’s list, but if not for the fact he’s in a show about ghosties and it’s on The CW I think he’d get a lot of attention. His character has a hell of a lot of stuff thrown at him this season (literally) and he does everything from pratt-falls to full on emotional breakdown impressively.
  • Simon Baker (The Mentalist) – I originally sniffed at his Emmy nomination, but to fill out the category he’s not a bad choice. It’s an interesting character and pulls it off with charm and grace and occasional scary darkness, but I suspect if I’d seen this season of Dexter, Michael C. Hall would have taken this place.

Supporting Actor in a Drama Series
It’s tough taking this down to just five people, so I cheated a bit!

  • James Callis (Baltar, Battlestar Galactica) – the character and actor steal every scene they’re in
  • Kevin McKidd (Owen Hunt, Grey’s Anatomy) – a really great addition to the cast, bringing both strength and vulnerability and instantly slotting into the ensemble.
  • Zachary Quinto (Sylar, Heroes) – about the only stand out thing in Heroes at the moment, his character has developed depth this season but he’s still utterly chilling.
  • Zach Gilford (Matt Saracen), Taylor Kitsch (Tim Riggins) and Gaius Charles (Smash Williams) – I couldn’t just pick one of the guys from Friday Night Lights. Each had a superb season as their characters really grow up.
  • Jon Hamm (Mad Men) – Despite the fact that the Emmy’s put him in the lead actor category, I think he actually belongs in here more. Lead actors should carry the show, Mad Men could easily continue without him. That said he is extremely good.

Lead Actress in a Drama Series
I actually struggled to find 5 actresses I consider ‘leads’!

  • Sally Field (Nora, Brothers and Sisters) – a well deserved nomination. Whether she’s being the matriarch to the unruly siblings, or getting a storyline of her own about continuing to live your life at 60+, she is wonderful.
  • Mary McDonald (Laura Rosslyn, Battlestar Galactica) – she brought such dignity and passion to her final episodes as the ailing president it was heartbreaking. The relationship with Adama was perfectly played.
  • Connie Britton (Tammy Taylor, Friday Night Lights) – a character which could so easily be swept into the background in the testosterone driven town, Tammy stands up for both her own kids and those she represents as school principal while still maintaining her relationship with the Coach.
  • Emily Deschenal (Brennan, Bones) – the character of Brennan hovers at the edge of ridiculous, but with talented acting (and great chemistry with her partner) manages to stay just on the right side.
  • Ellen Pompeo (Meredith Grey, Grey’s Anatomy) – this is partly a pity vote to be honest, I feel bad that she’s always overlooked for awards, but actually she’s doing a really superb job. I might not like the character much, but whether she’s using her excellent comic timing or wide eyed teariness, Pompeo always nails it.

Supporting Actress in a Drama

  • Chandra Wilson (Miranda Bailey, Grey’s Anatomy) – I want to have “What Would Bailey Do?” embroidered on cushions! I adore her character and like Pompeo she does a great job whether shouting or crying. Hopefully with her fourth Emmy nomination she’ll finally win.
  • Katherine Heigl (Izzie Stevens, Grey’s Anatomy) – Heigl was never going to get an Emmy nomination this year thanks to some dubious outbursts to the press, but she did excellent work with a difficult (and occasionally ridiculous) storyline.
  • Tricia Helfer (Six, Battlestar Galactica) – I’m not sure it’s fair that someone so pretty is so talented, but each of the multitude of characters she played on Battlestar was amazing.
  • Adrianne Palicki (Tyra, Friday Night Lights) – the writers didn’t do her character any favours this season with some wildly flip flopping choices, but Palicki was excellent throughout.
  • Taylor Momsen (Jenny Humphrey) and Leighton Meester (Blair Waldorf), Gossip Girl – Both young actresses managed to make their characters more than just bitchy little drama queens. Ok they’re mostly still drama queens, but they were funny and passionate ones.

Outstanding Drama

  • Friday Night Lights – hands down the best overall show on television at the moment, it’s consistently superb throughout the season with exceptional acting and stylish direction
  • Battlestar Galactica – I’ll be the first to admit I thought ‘reimagining’ the 70s series was a stupid idea, doomed to fail. While it occasionally faltered, what this show managed to do was extraordinary. I’m so glad it got to tell its whole story.
  • Mad Men – This isn’t a show that I get really passionate about, but it is one that impresses me a great deal with its consistent quality and polish
  • Torchwood – Maybe at just five episodes it’s not a proper series, but it was so good I couldn’t leave it out.
  • Supernatural – this show is my latest obsession, but after three seasons of enjoyable fun I was really impressed at the way everything was taken to the next level for the fourth season. Characters, writing, directing and plots all shift up a gear.

Best Ensemble
A good ensemble is not just about having a group of individually talented actors and a couple of good relationships between them. It’s about being able to put any two characters from the ensemble on screen together and having it work. For all the many faults of Grey’s Anatomy, it doesn’t matter which characters end up on screen together they always have a spark. Brothers and Sisters also manages an impressive ensemble with the siblings and their extended family wonderful in just about any combination.

Best Pairings
On screen chemistry is far from easy to come by, sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t, sometimes in the same show. One of the big mistakes of House this year was trying to push House and Cuddy together, a couple with no chemistry and no sensible reason to be together. But at the same time the show succeeds brilliantly with the relationship between House and Wilson! Likewise, Booth and Brennan on Bones make a wonderful platonic partnership and a truly awful romantic one. Tammy and Eric Taylor on Friday Night Lights make a such a lovely and believable couple because they make sense both in a relationship and as friends.

WTF?
The most startling moment of “you what now?” came not onscreen, but over the internet with the news that Fox had renewed a Joss Whedon show. I’m not sure who was more surprised, the fans or Joss himself.

Shark Jumping for Beginners
Supernatural made me laugh a lot by having an episode breaking one of the cardinal rules of shark jumping and then calling the episode “Jumping the Shark”. That’s the way you do it.
The way you don’t do it is have a character have sex with a ghost (Grey’s Anatomy) or have your main characters sleep together and then declare it all to be a dream (House, Bones).

“I only get 3 lines an episode but I really nail them”
I missed T.R. Knight on Grey’s Anatomy this season! Jesse Spencer (Chase) on House hasn’t had much to do (including cut his hair) all season and then when he and Cameron finally had a storyline he completely blew me away. I’ve got a soft spot for Scotty on Brothers and Sisters, possibly the only character who always talks sense, even if it’s only one scene every three episodes.

Most anticipated returning show
There are a number of cliffhangers that I’m eagerly awaiting the resolve of –Criminal Minds, Supernatural, NCIS and CSI:NY all ended with a bang. I’m looking forward to seeing what Dollhouse, Lie to Me and The Mentalist do with their second seasons, if they go somewhere or just bumble along. It’s an important season for Friday Night Lights, with lots of the original cast graduating and a new team to introduce. And I’m really hoping that Supernatural manages to pull off it’s potentially final season and everything its been building to.

Least anticipated returning shows
I’m not sure I’m going to bother with Grey’s Anatomy, knowing what happens in the first episode back I’m not sure I can bring myself to watch it. I’m still struggling towards the end of Heroes and am not sure I’ll bother with that unless someone tells me it gets a lot better. Ditto for House.

Most anticipated new shows
There’s some interesting scifi heading to the air this year, I’m really hoping V will manage to follow in Battlestar Galactica’s footsteps, Flash Forward will succeed where Lost failed and that Stargate Universe manages to walk the narrow line of fitting in with the franchise while still bringing something new. Eastwick has a good cast (including Paul Gross from Due South!) and will hopefully fall in the guilty pleasure category, while NCIS:Los Angeles has a good pedigree and line up staring Chris O’Donnell and LL Cool J. The wildcard of everything is Glee which could be cheesy fantastic fun, or cringe inducing awfulness.

Cop Shows and Medical Mysteries

On By sulkyblueIn Crime Procedural, Medical, TV ListsLeave a comment

Quick note – I should have mentioned in yesterday’s post that I’ll be avoiding specific spoilers as much as possible, vague ones might spill out, but hopefully nothing the BBC wouldn’t happily post on their site without warning ;0)

Most of the procedurals ticked along as they do, if you asked me to describe what distinguished this season from the last for Criminal Minds, Bones or NCIS I’d really struggle. That’s not to say they’re not fun and interesting to watch with the occasional flash of brilliance, but mostly they’re pretty unremarkable. I’m not asking that they have giant world changing events every episode, but it’s possible to spread character development more evenly through the season. With half a dozen or so big episodes during the financially important sweeps weeks, the rest of the season can feel like padding.

It’s the old guard that tried to shake things up a bit this season with both CSI original flavour and New York making some big cast and character changes. For CSI it all came a bit too fast for me, you have mostly the same characters for 8 years (!) and then in half a season you lose 3 of them. I’m only half way through season 9 but so far I like that the lead actor’s replacement is not a direct replacement for the character – Laurence Fishburne brings gravitas and big-name-ness to the cast, but his character is lowest on the totem pole, shaking things up quite interestingly. The changes with CSI:NY, with Lindsay and Danny’s relationship adds something new to the show, but I’m not convinced it’s anything good – they need to be very careful not to turn it into CSI:Couples Counciling.

When I wrote the first draft of this article, it was pretty harsh towards House. Up to episode 19 things were pretty dull and repetitive. The new and old minions still seemed to be in limbo nearly two seasons after the original shake up. I like the new minions a lot, but they can never stand on their own while Foreman is sitting at the end of the table frowning at them and Chase and Cameron are popping up for their obligatory one scene a week and reveal just how much smarter they are and how much better they understand House. Also I continue to find Cuddy the most frustrating character on the planet, for a supposedly smart woman she really is dumb as hammers sometimes. The ‘relationship’ between her and House is the most unlikely, ill-advised, blind stupid idea ever. Meanwhile the medical mysteries were getting less interesting and I struggled to remember them over the advert breaks. Then suddenly someone woke up and things got good again. Three episodes in a row had fascinating stories, character growth and spark. House seems to do this every season, have a few great episodes at the beginning, a few amazing episodes at the end and absolute drivel in between. They really need to smooth this out if they don’t want me to just tune in for those 6 episodes and skip the other twenty.

Then we have Grey’s Anatomy and I don’t really know where to start. The large plots continue to be a pretty daft, the Izzie storyline having a new record number of wtf moments. I still get irritated at just how many life changing things can happen to each of these people every year, but I guess if you accept that this is more soap opera than realistic drama then it’s all ok. The dialogue and acting however continues to impress, each episode is a roller-coaster of sobbing and laughing leaving me a quietly gibbering mess if I try to watch too much at once. It’s a show that comes so close to delight that the frustrations drive me absolutely mad.

Up tomorrow – Sci-fi

House: Season 4

On By sulkyblueIn MedicalLeave a comment

I wasn’t as frustrated and annoyed by this season as I thought I would be, which isn’t to say that I wasn’t irritated, but I still enjoyed the show.

Having fired his three assistants at the end of the previous series I knew that House was going to engage in a kind of reality contest to recruit their replacements, starting with a large pool and gradually whittling it down. I wasn’t expecting to actually like the new people as much as I did. It was actually quite fun to see them compete and satisfying to watch their journeys come to an end. The competition gave House new toys to play with and allowed us to re-evaluate his personality as seen by new people. I loved the two new male characters, but found Thirteen a little too like Cameron.

But that raises the irritation factor – if you’re going to replace Chase, Cameron and Foreman, they have to actually leave. Foreman gets a little more screentime, but frankly he’s just sitting there oozing bitterness which is pretty boring. Cameron and Chase meanwhile pop up for three lines an episode and then disappear again. The thing is – those three lines are usually great lines, ether through interaction with House or with his new minions they show they understand exactly how House works and why it’s best to just go with it. I love it when they appear, but it really shows up what idiots Wilson and Cuddy are being – the three juniors learnt, accepted and moved on, Cuddy and Wilson are just saying the same things every week and looking like idiots.

I really don’t remember much about the actual medical plots, that’s completely not why I watch House. The highpoint of the season was (as per usual) the final couple of episodes which showcase some really amazing writing. The first part had me completely engrossed in the mystery (even though I’d been spoilered) and the second part had me in absolute floods of tears. It was definitely an interesting season, but I worry that the following season will show the same lack of commitment and falter.