TV Series On The Television

[beatbandito]

I think What We Do in the Shadows is... not a very good show? Season 1 carried the basic premise of the movie well enough into a wider world and longer story, but only barely. By season 2 not just the world building, but character motivations also feel lazily conformed to for the sake of a greater story outside of the episode vignettes they seem to wish they were doing. Then by season 3 the realization that most of the jokes are relying on the out-of-date vampires to get away with casual racism was a bit too pronounced. I am compelled to not start season 4.

It is still better than the average of TV that I actually see, never mind whatever shit is in primetime these days. I just think Taika Waititi may have forgotten what it's like to be in a room not full of his own farts.

[Thad]

You're probably right about season 4. I'm 7 episodes in and only one of them was good (the hunting trip one).

[Mongrel]

I just think Taika Waititi may have forgotten what it's like to be in a room not full of his own farts.

It's also that he's a movie guy not a TV guy.

Multi-year episodic stuff may simply be something he's just not all that good with. Maybe he gets distracted or bored, maybe he relies on a writers room more than he ought to (and is bad at hiring show writers), maybe he just needs the tighter leash a 1-2 hour total runtime imposes on him.

Or maybe it is fart huffing. But there's a bunch of possibilities.

[Niku]

I don't actually know how involved he is with the show; I know Jemaine Clement isn't writing for it anymore after season 2.

Also Our Flag Means Death is real good on the Taika-TV spectrum.

[Niku]

also wwdits still has my favorite joke in the jackie daytona episode where lazlo thinks that a borat "my wife" impression is about henry the viii

[Thad]

I just think Taika Waititi may have forgotten what it's like to be in a room not full of his own farts.

It's also that he's a movie guy not a TV guy.

Multi-year episodic stuff may simply be something he's just not all that good with. Maybe he gets distracted or bored, maybe he relies on a writers room more than he ought to (and is bad at hiring show writers), maybe he just needs the tighter leash a 1-2 hour total runtime imposes on him.

Or maybe it is fart huffing. But there's a bunch of possibilities.

He's been doing TV at least since Flight of the Conchords. Which was a good show but that's partly because they knew when to pack it in.

Also Our Flag Means Death is real good on the Taika-TV spectrum.

Wellington Paranormal was great. And Reservation Dogs is good stuff too, though I don't know how much he's involved in that creatively.

And yeah I don't think he's that involved in the TV version of WWDitS either. The credits are something like "Based on the film by Taika Waititi and Jemaine Clement, developed for television by Jemaine Clement."

[Thad]

One more post about Lance Reddick's passing: I've never seen The Wire but keep meaning to give it a watch.

I'd heard some flap a few years ago about how they'd changed the aspect ratio for the Blu-Ray/streaming release. I looked into it and here's a blog post by David Simon himself on the subject. He thinks it's better in some ways, worse in others, not the show he made but an acceptable alternate version. So I guess that's okay, then.

I'm kind of surprised nobody's done a fan edit that crops the HD version to 4:3. From that blog post it sounds like most shots could be fixed just by cropping the edges off, though some would require some more extensive editing to make them look like they did in the original run.

[Thad]

I'm not quite done with X-Files yet, but got to thinking about what I should watch next when I am.

And then I realized that, after watching X-Men and X-Files, the next show on the list is obvious.

(The "X" in "winning bid by thad_x_boyd" is for "I am watching '90s TV series that start with X in reverse alphabetical order.")

[Mothra]

Legion might be a good one to jump to next.

[nosimpleway]

Xegion

[Thad]

Legion might be a good one to jump to next.

I did watch the first two seasons. Never got around to the third.

IIRC its runtime was a little inconsistent for my morning workout. Like some episodes are 45 minutes and some are 70, which is cool, Noah Hawley should take exactly the amount of time he feels is appropriate for a given episode, but I've gotta get to work at 8:30, y'know? Maybe I'll get around to season 3 eventually, but it might not be one of those things I watch on the elliptical.

[Thad]

Got my DVDs in the mail and my wife was like "hey let's watch the first Xena" and so I put on her first appearance on Hercules and man, it is clear *right away* why Xena is the breakout character on that show and would soon lead a more-popular spinoff.

And mostly it's Lucy Lawless.

It's not just that she's beautiful, though she is. And it's not just that she's talented, though that's a huge part of it. It's that she gets it. Her performance is pitched at exactly the right level. I won't say she's perfect for the material because frankly the script for her first appearance is a competent mediocrity at best. She's much better than the material. But she's perfect for what the material aspires to be. It's not straight fantasy-adventure, but it's not high camp, either; it's somewhere in-between. It's a little bit silly, and that's what makes it so much fun, and Lawless doesn't just get it, she has a gift for hitting exactly that note. She's as perfect a Sam Raimi protagonist as Bruce Campbell. (Which reminds me, I really should finish Ash vs. Evil Dead one of these days.)

That said, while I'll give Lawless most of the credit, I'd be remiss if I didn't mention the costuming and the fight choreography. I'm not sure who her stunt double is at this point -- a glance at Wikipedia suggests that Zoe Bell did stunt work on Hercules but didn't become Lawless's double until a few years later -- but whoever it is puts in solid work.

And also on the design side, the chakram is a great choice. She only uses it once in this episode, so I'm not sure if they intended for it to be her signature weapon yet or if it was originally intended as a one-off, but it's exactly the right combination of unusual and visually interesting to stand out and be memorable. I haven't even watched much Xena, but it's my first association any time I see a chakram in anything.

It really is something of a perfect storm. Even if the script and the performances by the leads are Just Okay, every time Xena's onscreen it's electric. I'm excited for more!

But, y'know, I'm still going to finish X-Files.

[Mongrel]

But, y'know, I'm still going to finish X-Files.

[Thad]

Hey, there's still one Vince Gilligan episode and one Darin Morgan episode I've never seen. It's not all doom and gloom and 9/11 conspiracy theories and gross retcons ahead.

Just mostly doom and gloom and 9/11 conspiracy theories and gross retcons.

[Thad]

I think What We Do in the Shadows is... not a very good show? Season 1 carried the basic premise of the movie well enough into a wider world and longer story, but only barely. By season 2 not just the world building, but character motivations also feel lazily conformed to for the sake of a greater story outside of the episode vignettes they seem to wish they were doing. Then by season 3 the realization that most of the jokes are relying on the out-of-date vampires to get away with casual racism was a bit too pronounced. I am compelled to not start season 4.

It is still better than the average of TV that I actually see, never mind whatever shit is in primetime these days. I just think Taika Waititi may have forgotten what it's like to be in a room not full of his own farts.

You're probably right about season 4. I'm 7 episodes in and only one of them was good (the hunting trip one).

It did not get better in the last 3. And the writers clearly know it and are as frustrated by it as we are.

As the last two episodes reset-button everything back to status quo, Guillermo has a monologue where he vents his frustration that nothing ever changes in this house. This is intercut with scenes of Colin Robinson finding a secret room, which seems for a minute like it might be an ironic counterpoint to what Guillermo's saying, like maybe he's going to find something that really does shake things up -- but nope, what's in the secret room is the biggest reset button yet. It's not undercutting Guillermo's point, it's reinforcing it.

It speaks to the dilemma every sitcom has, if it runs long enough: you want to keep things fresh, but you're constrained by the conventions of the format and by the groundwork you've laid in the previous seasons. That goes double for a show whose characters' defining personality trait is that they are resistant to change.

Season 4 tried to shake up the status quo, and the results were not good. You've got two long, meandering season arcs that just don't work -- Nadja opens a vampire night club and Nandor gets married. And while I think the other three leads' arcs were actually emotionally and dramatically satisfying -- Laszlo becomes a father to Baby Colin and Guillermo comes out and starts dating -- they're not funny.

You can feel that frustration in Guillermo's monologue -- they tried to shake things up, it didn't work, now everything's back to normal again. That's also not funny, exactly, but it's at least got some layers of irony and postmodernism to it that make it interesting in a way most of the season isn't.

I think the willingness to try something different, and the self-aware frustration that it didn't work out, at least elevates season 4 to the level of interesting failure. But it's still not good, and it doesn't make me eager to give the show another chance come season 5.

[Thad]

This is as good an opening scene as you're ever going to find on any TV series. Here's who Xena is, here's what she does, and here's some absolutely bonkers fight choreography. It's perfect (although this clip cuts off a little early). You know right away what kind of show this is going to be and whether you're going to dig it or not.

And the episode gets even more ludicrous from there, climaxing in a stick fight where they stand on top of people's heads. It's Robert Howard by way of Curly Howard and if your reaction to that is something other than "this fucking rules" then you and I will never understand each other.

It's not entirely fair to judge the first episode of a spinoff on the same terms as the first episode of a series that's starting from scratch; Xena's already had three episodes' worth of backdoor pilot at this point, and that goes a long way toward explaining how assured and confident a "first" effort this is.

But it's not just that. This episode works because it's focused and doesn't try to introduce too much at once. It doesn't try to introduce Callisto or work in a guest appearance by Hercules or otherwise overstuff itself; it focuses squarely on reintroducing Xena and introducing Gabrielle and everything else that happens in the episode is in service of those goals. The script is lean and does everything right.

I liked it, is what I'm saying.

[Thad]

(Okay so the villain's plan doesn't make any sense. He frames Xena so the people in her village will think she's responsible for the nearby raids, and then as soon as he gets to the village he's like "I'm looking for Xena, who is not with me and has nothing to do with any of the nearby raids." That probably could have used another pass. So I guess it's an overstatement to say the script does everything right. But almost! And really, this is basically a live-action cartoon, and I am very used to cartoons where the villain's plan doesn't make any sense.)

[Thad]

The biggest problem with early Xena is that the formula involves separating Xena and Gabrielle for most of the episode and reuniting them at the end. This is a good way to develop each of them individually, but not really ideal as far as building the relationship between them. We see how far Xena's willing to go to protect Gabrielle, but we don't really see much of the why in the early days; we know Xena's on a redemptive arc and trying to help people, but there's not much yet to show us why she's got a rapport with Gabrielle in particular.

But, y'know, it takes shows time to develop and figure out what they're about, too. At this point the writers and cast hadn't even figured out that the two of them are a couple yet. (And of course, this being the 1990s, even once that becomes a central part of the show, they still can't actually say it; it remains subtext. Not very subtle subtext, but subtext nonetheless.)

[KingRoyal]

[Destynova]

Picked up the first season of Mad Men and I am going to have to keep a flowchart of who is cheating on who.

Don, you have no fucking class.