Saying Goodbye to the Year in Television

It's the holiday season, a time of cheer, good tidings, eggnog, and gift-giving and gift-getting. We should be finding solace and joy in our fellow men and women, but let me tell you, I'm dreading December 10th. This day represents, in some ways, the end of television in 2010. Of course, I don't mean this literally, but on December 10th, pretty much all of the good shows on TV will be on a winter break or will have ended their seasons. Only a few weeks ago, my TiVo was positively overloaded with shows to watch: Real Time with Bill Maher, Boardwalk Empire, Mad Men, Rubicon, The Walking Dead, Bored to Death, In Treatment, Sons of Anarchy, Terriers, Community, Fringe, The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, Chuck, Parenthood, and more. By next Friday, all of these shows will be gone from the air for a while, with the exception of Jon Stewart's satirical news show, and that's only because the show's on all year long.

As of right now, one of these shows is permanently finished. Rubicon was a good show, a slow-boil of a conspiracy drama that wasn't able to hook in audiences who wanted to watch something akin to a two-hour thriller every week, as opposed to watching a two-hour thriller expand into 13 hours. I'm not thrilled that it's gone, but I'm also not surprised or sad. The show's ratings weren't great, and as soon as The Walking Dead came onto the airwaves and got huge ratings, it was clear that AMC wants to be seen as more dominant with its newer, less established programs. What's more, the finale was mildly disappointing; I don't demand all of the serialized shows I watch to end with cliffhangers, but some of the most exciting and compelling characters were left off to the sidelines in the finale for no good reason. What's more, one of the two conspiracy threads throughout the season just petered out. While the demise of Miranda Richardson's character was creepy and evocative, it was also a wasted opportunity. All of the build-up over 13 episodes for that? No thanks.

AMC has had stronger stuff this fall from Mad Men and The Walking Dead, two very different shows that have managed to both feel right for the same network. As is the case these days, when Mad Men is on the air, there's nothing stopping it from the being the best TV has to offer. The season's driving force was exactly what it always is: pushing Don Draper forward even as he pushes back, hoping to regress to childhood. Jon Hamm, Elisabeth Moss, John Slattery, and the rest of the sterling ensemble cast continued to impress this year, especially Hamm and Moss in the episode titled "The Suitcase," wherein they spend nearly the entire episode hashing out the past three-plus seasons' worth of drama between Don Draper and Peggy Olson. What else can you say about a show that now joins such dramas as The Wire and Deadwood, where a bad episode of the show is still equal to one of the best episodes of any drama of the year?

There are a few shows that I'll be most sad about as they head off into a break or their finales. First on the list is NBC's comedy Community, which has become easily the funniest show of the new season, what with Parks and Recreation being held on the bench until January 20. Sidebar: Why did Parks and Recreation not just air after The Office to begin with? Why wasn't it on at the beginning of the season, at that? I'm glad that the show will eventually find its way there, but the road's been unnecessarily long. Back to Community. The first season of this show took about 10 episodes or so--a relatively natural amount of time for most freshman programs--to find its solid footing; if you watch the DVD of the first season, you'd be surprised at how the writers assumed that Chevy Chase's character, Pierce, would best be paired with Troy, played by Donald Glover. Within only a few episodes--with the "Biblioteca" rap--it became clear that Troy and Abed, portrayed by Danny Pudi, were a dynamite duo.

Nowadays, Community continues to be another show on NBC that manages to stay alive simply because NBC is so damned screwed. Take, for example, Chuck, a show that's ended each of its first three seasons with ardent fans mounting "Save Our Show" campaigns of various types. Such campaigns may be pointless this year. Is the show being canceled? No. Has it been renewed? No. Have its ratings gone up or down? No. The answer is simple: Chuck has stayed constantly mediocre in the ratings, but for NBC, mediocre is amazing. When NBC announced its massively overhauled winter schedule, only a handful of shows remained in the same timeslot and day; among those shows are The Office, Community (the best sign for the show as of now), and Chuck. Ratings aside, Community has grown in its second season into the sharpest, fastest, and wittiest show on television. I've already waxed on and on about how great the show is; if you need further reasons to watch, its Christmas episode comes up on December 9th (though it has a new episode this Thursday), done in stop-motion animation a la the Rankin-Bass specials of the 1960s. High hopes abound.

The other show I want to highlight here is FX's freshman detective show Terriers. Title and marketing aside (no, it's not about dogs), this is genuinely the most successful detective series since Veronica Mars (which ended too early, but at least got 3 years out of the deal) and it's dying in the ratings. I've always wondered why the show just didn't air directly after Sons of Anarchy, and for a number of reasons. Both shows are run by former writers of The Shield, both shows are probably well-targeted at men ages 18-34 (a demographic which, as a note to the many advertisers reading this, I am part of), and both shows have somewhat similar sensibilities. The former is the highest-rated show on FX, so it would seem logical to pair the two, yes? Whatever the case, the season finale--and I do hope it's just that--of Terriers airs tomorrow on FX at 10 p.m. Eastern. What do you need to know? This show is about Hank and Britt, a private-detective duo who usually work small cases but have recently been roped into cases way bigger than they are. In particular, they've stumbled upon a massive crime perpetrated to destroy the town of Ocean Beach so a new airport can be built. Shades of Chinatown, to be sure. Hank and Britt's personal lives have been slowly fraying at the edges, and both men have been pushed away and towards each other throughout. I can't get into the details without it sounding boring (which the show is not; it's often raw and painfully emotional, in the best ways possible), but you need to watch. Fingers crossed that FX keeps it around.

I'll have a best of the year list in the coming month, but it's going to be hard this year, especially since I'm not counting shows like Lost (yes, I liked the finale), and I've not gone on and on about some of my new favorite shows like Bored to Death yet. Point being: I love TV, and the creative minds behind the best shows on TV have justified my love for the medium this year. I can't wait for 2011 to come, so we can get even more greatness on the boob tube.

Young People Do Not Care About The Oscars

Running with the lead is the best idea, no? If not, I'll repeat it. Young people do not care about the Oscars, and they certainly do not care about who hosts the Oscars. Anyone who thinks otherwise is an idiot. The Oscars, in this respect, are like the Harry Potter film series. If you're going into the seventh film of the now eight-film saga and you've never seen a single movie or read a chapter in any of the books, you are a rare bird indeed. You're either in or you're out. By and large, the people who watch the Oscars are the people who always watch the Oscars, or awards shows in general.

All of this is to say that, yeah, announcing that James Franco and Anne Hathaway will be the next ceremony's hosts is nothing more or less than curious. We can all, I'm sure, give the Academy points for thinking outside of the box. My problem is that me congratulating them for this is also the biggest flaw, Congratulations, Academy, for choosing two people who no one would have considered to be Oscar hosts. Two people who no one thought should be or would be the hosts. Good job. Outside-the-box thinking, I guess. Now, sure, not every Oscar ceremony is presided over by someone who's either a real comedian or is trying to be one (as much as I like Alec Baldwin, he's a funny actor, not a comedian, no matter how many jokes he cracked last year). Last time that happened, though, Rob Lowe and Snow White sang "Proud Mary." And the last time a nominee hosted (as we all assume that Franco, at least, will get a Best Actor nod) was when Paul Hogan hosted. Because, as you know, Crocodile Dundee got nominated, for Best Original Screenplay.

I'm not saying that either Franco or Hathaway will be bad. I expect them to be...well, fine, at most. Hathaway, in particular, strikes me as the type of person who's going to be in complete control on stage. So, good for them. As it goes with many truly baffling choices these days in entertainment, I would do exactly what Franco and Hathaway have done. "Wait, you want me to host the Oscars? Really? You're sure? OK." Why not? More than likely, whatever happens on Oscar night this time around won't be as embarrassing as the Rob Lowe number. But the idea that's being posited by the Academy producers--that these two young actors will attract young viewers--is idiotic. James Franco, of course, has starred in three wildly popular films. Those films are the original Spider-Man trilogy, in which he's a supporting player. Anne Hathaway is a bigger star; it could be argued that she has legitimately opened movies, or come close to it. Neither are sure things. You want young viewers to watch? Hire Justin Bieber. Anyone else is nothing close to definite.

The Newest Member of the Family

"Daddy/Mommy, can we keep him?" I don't have kids yet, but I'm currently the person being asked that question, and since I'm a sucker for a cute face, I've said yes. For about three months, Elyse and I had three cats, once Hermione passed on at the end of August. On Tuesday, after work, I got a call from Elyse, informing me that we had a new cat. The short story is that a tabby kitten of--as we found out on Friday at the vet--just under five weeks was being hounded by a group of dumb-ass teenagers who thought that kicking the kitten would calm it down. To quote Steve Martin in All of Me, "Ah. Good plan!"

There was the short, nebulous period where we didn't know if the kitten was healthy enough to keep--we do not know how long the kitten was outdoors, considering that it's not feral, it knows to use the litter box, and seemed immediately appreciative of being indoors--but all seems well. We'll have more pictures in the days to come, but I wanted to share at least one of our little baby Britta (named after the character from Community), as you see at the top of the post. Enjoy.

Grab Bag

First of all, let's get the cheap pleasantries out of the way: happy Thanksgiving, safe times, family, friends, blah blah blah. I don't have a problem with hearing people give thanks, but I feel like it's disingenuous for a person to wax rhapsodic about the various things and people they are thankful this one day of the year. In the same way that some people use Valentine's Day as an excuse to be really, extra-special sweet to his or her significant other, this just seems like an excuse to congratulate yourself on being awful nice for this one day. Having said that, Thanksgiving equals turkey, stuffing, gravy, mashed potatoes, and pumpkin pie. For that, I am forever thankful.

Over the last few days, I read Bill Carter's latest entry in the seemingly endless late-night talk-show saga, The War For Late Night. As you may have guessed--if only by the fact that, yes, I am under the age of 50--I'm always going to be on Team Coco, but for the most part, I'd say Carter does a fair and evenhanded job of portraying all the main players, and even a few supporting members of the book's cast. Not much about Jay Leno, Conan O'Brien, David Letterman, and others will shock you; Leno is a joke machine, Conan has bouts of depression, Letterman is self-loathing, etc. What frustrated me--aside from Carter's decision to get into the more public information in the final 100 pages, as opposed to spreading it out--is Dick Ebersol. Based on what I've read about him in other books, Carter's either one of a cadre of journalists who have created this weird image of him, or he's just an arrogant jerk.

Ebersol credits himself, more than others, if memory serves, as one of the guiding lights of Saturday Night Live. Certainly, Ebersol was involved, but I think he decided, after also being the show's executive producers for 4 years while Lorne Michaels was off the show, that he was as much a comedy guru as Michaels is or was. Ebersol, in the book and in public, thinks ill of Conan O'Brien for his conduct during the whole debacle in 2009 and 2010. Why, where does he get off thinking that Conan has the 11:35 show? It's not like he was promised it in writing, and Jay Leno said he would quit. Yeah, there's logical justification (at least none provided by Ebersol) for this kind of narrowminded behavior, which is what rankles me. Ebersol knew nothing of comedy; while the decisions are strictly business, I'm still baffled by how surprised the NBC executives were when Conan wasn't just going to go along with their plan. Final point: Conan was kicked out of the 11:35 timeslot because his ratings were not great. Just about 9 months since Leno took over the position, his ratings are as bad or worse than Conan's. And yet he stays. Sigh.

We are apparently the owners of a new cat. A kitten, really. Elyse was alerted to the kitten's presence yesterday at her school, where it was being chased around by teenagers trying to kick it. Ah, to be young, stupid, and have no future at all, as the line goes. We're bringing the kitten to the vet on Black Friday, just to make sure it's healthy (it is frighteningly thin, not just light), but it looks as though, yeah, we're back to four cats. I kind of liked having just the three for a few months, but I'll take the four. The kitten--still not officially sure of the sex, surprisingly--is very cute and scared, so I'm going to come around. But I'm not there yet.

Have movie studios decided that opening movies on Wednesdays is like moving TV shows to Fridays? This month, five movies will have had their opening days on a Wednesday. Can you name them without looking anywhere else online? The movies are, in chronological order, Morning Glory, Tangled, Love and Other Drugs, Burlesque, and Faster. Only Tangled seems like a sure thing, and that's partly because it's a Disney movie, but none of these movies have hit the radar big time. Had Tron: Legacy opened on a Wednesday, maybe it'd be big. But this year, studios have just dumped movies on Wednesdays, and act shocked. I do not know why. No one is aware of these films existing.

Finally, even though it's the night before Thanksgiving, watch Terriers. It's on FX, it's at 10 p.m., it's a dark yet funny buddy-detective show, and it needs to be watched by everyone. Do it.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 1

Like pretty much everybody else in the world (relatively speaking), I saw the latest chapter in the ever-expanding Harry Potter saga this evening. I've been a huge fan of the book series since about 1999, so have always taken in the movies when they come out. This time, though, things were a little different, as my wife and I decided to check out a new theater that opened in Scottsdale, the UltraStar Scottsdale 11. We live about 45 minutes away, so what drew us to this particular theater was its Star Class Cinemas. Five of the screens at the multiplex were for people age 21 or over. No kids. Bliss, right? And, hey, you can also food and beverages--including beer and wine--at your seat in the theater, and a waiter will bring it to you. For those of us who've been unlucky to not go to the Arclight in Hollywood or the Alamo Drafthouse in Austin, it's heaven, yes?

Well, it should be. I still want to go to the Arclight and the Alamo Drafthouse, because they're purportedly awesome. But I'm very wary about going to the Star Class again; while I understand that the opening weekend of any movie theater, especially one with such a unique selling point, is going to have its fair share of kinks, there's something fundamentally wrong about the layout of the theater as it stands. Whatever issues I had, mind you, had nothing to do with the quality of the food. Though we didn't order any of the paninis that were offered, my wife and I shared a plate of loaded nachos that were very good. But a lot of the aesthetic and physical design choices just don't make sense.

Apparently, a couple of the Star Class screens are called VIP lounges, as they only have about 40 seats. We were not in one of those screens. At first blush, the theater we saw Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 1 in was no different than any stadium-seating theater in just about every cinema in the country: about six or seven rows closest to the screen that aren't stadium-seating, and about 12 rows of stadium-seating behind them. Each of the rows were marked by letter and the amount of seats; as an example, we sat in row F,though I didn't get our seat numbers. Our show was at 5, and we were ready to go into the theater at around 4:40. We figured that the movie was just finishing up, seeing as the movie is 150 minutes long and had started previously at 2. With what I figured were a load of previews, the credits were probably still rolling. However, a few minutes later, a couple went in with a supervisor to check and see if they could sit down. We found out that, well, no one had cleaned the theater after the previous show. By the time we sat down, it was getting close to 4:55, and the sole waitress was just beginning to take orders from the first few rows. What's more, when she addressed us, she addressed us in her big-girl voice, and never lowered it.

I wanted to make sure I ordered something, because that was the point, right? Sure, on the one hand, I can be glad that I'm seeing a movie without any kids in the audience, but if you're serving food during a movie--something that seems potentially very convenient--I want to know how disruptive you're going to be. While she could have been worse, I don't know how much worse the waitress could have been. She was, on the one hand, exceedingly friendly and polite. I would imagine that the theater is, at the present time, understaffed; as one of our friends who joined us pointed out, had the theater been full (there were only about 40 people in the audience), ordering and getting food without leaving would have been impossible. However, the waitress was out a flashlight, as it had died on her; she spilled, loudly, a plate of food; she would often mix orders up; and, as I said already, she was loud.

I've heard enough stories about the Alamo Drafthouse to know, or assume, that the people serving know exactly how to do it without being distracting. I hope that, with proper training, the staff at UltraStar are going to do the same. For now, I felt like a guinea pig. It's for that reason that, I'll be honest, I want to see this new Harry Potter film again and not just because I liked it a lot. I did like it a lot, and I'm tempted to call it the best in the series, at least since 2004's Prisoner of Azkaban. But the first 30 minutes of this movie were in and out for me. Every time I'd begin to get sucked in, or want to get sucked in, I'd have to take that plate of nachos, or give my order, or pay (though, being fair, the waitress was jumping around so much that I probably didn't pay for nearly an hour after the film began).

What was immediate in this first viewing is that David Yates, with a whole lot of help from superlative cinematography from Eduardo Serra, has provided the most strikingly beautiful film of the series. For reasons that are clear simply because of the books by J.K. Rowling, but for some directorial choices, this is the first Harry Potter film where...hey, it looks like it was shot in England! Much of the second half of this part takes place completely outside of the world of magic as we know it, and all it does is give Yates reasons to layer in shot after shot after shot of the rolling hills, valleys, and countrysides of England. As always, of course, the technical aspects of the film are beyond reproach (though an early car chase does look a bit too fake). A few critics have pointed out the true change between this film and the preceding six: not only is Hogwarts never seen--though that will change in the final part--but this is the first time the movie's about acting. Whether it's good or not, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 1 depends very much on Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson, and Rupert Grint.

Harry, Ron, and Hermione have to find the remaining pieces of Voldemort's soul--called Horcruxes--and destroy them so they can kill him for once and for all. Voldemort has grown more and more powerful after Dumbledore was killed at the end of the sixth book/film, and has taken over the Ministry of Magic and Hogwarts, but still wants more to top off his insane quest for dominance. As you may have noted by the Part 1 in the title, Voldemort's doing just fine at the end of this movie, and the Horcrux destruction is not complete. But the characters grow a lot closer, and there are truly compelling setpieces and scenes here, from the book and otherwise. Of the three young performers, while none are slouches (and all have grown immensely from the first film, which is really embarrassing to watch these days), Grint is most impressive here.

In the first few films, Ron Weasley was around to pull stupid faces and look silly. In Deathly Hallows, he's jealous and for good reason; the movie does an even better job than the book of making him actively and sensibly get paranoid about how close Harry and Hermione are. Conversely, Radcliffe and Watson have an easy, believable chemistry as friends who could easily be much closer; Ron abandons the group as they're stranded in various forests throughout the country in hiding from Voldemort, and when he does, it gives Harry and Hermione time to bond. The book tells this part of the story slightly differently, but I think the movie makes enough right moves to draw the two together without hammering the point home. Some of the dialogue, again by Steve Kloves, is a bit ham-fisted or overly explanatory, but in general, I think that this film continues the streak of improving on the predecessor. But I want to see it again. I want to get sucked back into this world again.

The Snobbery Of Animation and Navel-Gazing

You may or may not have heard the story, but thanks to a nice old puff piece on Deadline.com by Pete Hammond, an obvious bit of awards-season news has been confirmed: Walt Disney Studios is dedicated to blanketing Los Angeles with For Your Consideration ads for Toy Story 3. The logic behind the idea makes sense--here we have what is likely going to be the highest-grossing film of 2010, one of the best-reviewed films of the year (and depending on what you read, it's the highest-reviewed film of the year), and the final chapter in what is arguably one of the best film trilogies ever. So far, so good, yes? Because of this story, some awards pundits have taken to analyzing whether or not this plan is actually going to bear fruit.

Before I go further, I'll make this clear: I love Toy Story 3. I love Pixar movies. I will be so thrilled if Toy Story 3 wins the Best Picture award (the first that would go to Walt Disney Pictures, actually). Since we're not actually talking on Oscar night, I can't say it definitively, but to say Toy Story 3 winning Best Picture is doubtful is something of an understatement. The most important reason isn't that there are equally strong contenders; there are, including The Social Network, The King's Speech, and Inception. No, the reason is bias. Even before they had a category to use as evidence, a vocal group of pundits and voters don't want to side with animation at the Academy Awards.

Remember, only one animated film got nominated for Best Picture prior to the inception of the Best Animated Feature category--Beauty and the Beast--and Disney animation hadn't been slouching beforehand. So what pisses me off about the bias? It's the idea that animation could be--GASP!--as good as, if not better than, live-action movies. See, to some folks, live-action movies are always going to be the best, no matter what. I was set off today by a post on Awards Daily that basically scoffs at the notion of Toy Story 3 being victorious for a number of ridiculous reasons, and a bare minimum of discussion about those reasons that spell doom for the film's chances. Instead of discussing the bias against animation, specifically among the actors' branch (short explanation: actors don't appear in animated movies, so they wouldn't be predisposed to vote for such films), the post itself is biased.

Among the arguments against Toy Story 3 winning are that it's not as good as Ratatouille or WALL-E. Whether or not this is true is superfluous, first because a film's quality is opinion, not fact. It's an idiotic reason because, as you may have noted, Toy Story 3 was released in 2010, while Rataouille came out in 2007 and WALL-E came out in 2008. Thus, these films are not competing. If anything, Toy Story 3 is potentially squaring off with How To Train Your Dragon, an equally lauded animated film from 2010. But no, what matters is that other Pixar movies were great, so Toy Story 3 flops. The article then states that if Toy Story 3 won, it would degrade the film (which is interesting, because usually a Best Picture Oscar does, you know, the opposite, what with it being the BEST PICTURE OSCAR), and that it would be an embarrassing Oscar decision.

The main issue I have here is that people who have no voice or vote seem to think that their opinions are right, because...well, look, it just is, OK? They've been around the block, they know these things, and you should just shut up. Clearly, these people know what they're talking about. What really frustrates me is that the discussion should be about the bias. Let's not discuss whether Toy Story 3 has a chance or not. Let's discuss why it may be doomed even though it may have enough quality to merit the top honor. The people who vote for the Oscars are allowed to be biased, even if those biases speak against them, such as when some notable older voters didn't vote for Brokeback Mountain because it was about gay people. But there's room for a discussion, as opposed to what amounts to a condescending tsking.

See, at times like these, I wonder what the point is of caring about something so trivial. Now, I love TV and movies, and discussions about them, and all of these things are inherently trivial. But the awards-season chatter has become navel-gazing, and it's annoying because I'm tired of looking at these people's navels, especially when it turns out that all of their concern trolling and whining amounts to nothing. If there has become such a thing as hot, dead air on the Internet, look no further than the awards circuit.

WTF

The scenario: I am at the grocery store picking up some food for dinner. As you do, my eyes drift over to the magazine rack next to the self-service cash register. On the cover of one of the mildly trashy tabloids (not that tabloids aren't trashy, mind you, but some are less so than others) is reality star Kim Kardashian, looking as vapid and bland as ever. The way she's posed, though, and the angle at which the camera faces her is meant to make me feel bad for her, or to make her look pitiful. The headline accompanying the photo reads "I Thought I'd Be Married By Now", mentioning that she is 30 years old. The question I have, genuinely, is this: who the hell is Kim Kardashian and why should I give a rat's ass whether or not she thought she'd be married?

Now, mind you, I don't care. But it was looking at this magazine cover for only a few seconds that I had to wonder: who is this woman? I know her now because she's in the spotlight, and I get a weekly dose of her whenever a clip of her is featured on The Soup. But why is she in the spotlight? This isn't meant to be a "if she's famous, why not me?" post; I seriously don't know who this woman is or why anyone cares about her. According to Wikipedia--I mean it, I kind of want to know who the hell this woman is--her show on E! started in 2007. And she had a sex tape. And her mom is the ex-wife...I think...of a former Olympian.

There are horrible atrocities being committed every day in this world. Aside from the obvious ones, I'm sure terrifying occurrences go by each passing hour without us realizing it. But I know, by sight, who Kim Kardashian is. Most of us do. Why are we so lazy--and believe me, I'm lumping myself in there--to care even a whit about the most vacuous, empty-headed people? Some of you might say, "Oh, well, it makes me feel better that there are idiots out there", or something to that effect. But, a) those idiots make money and b) why would it make you feel better? Each of us probably does something every day that's worth more attention than any Kardashian ever will do. Probably a more pointless post than usual, but I'm just blown away that anyone should care that Kim Kardashian thought she'd be married by now, or that a person could be so transparently selfish. To her, I say, simply, screw you.