New Drama Showdown: "Last Resort" vs "Revolution"

As we all know, the networks have been searching for the next Lost for some time.  There was The Event, Persons Unknown, V, Alcatraz, and a whole bunch of other short-lived shows I can't even remember that failed to hook and capture the public in the immediate, visceral way that Lost did.  I was reading an interview with Zeljko Ivanek where he was talking about being bummed he didn't get to work with Blair Underwood more on The Event, and while I love Zeljko and I love Blair Underwood, the sad truth is that The Event was terrible.  Just really, really bad.

My love of Lost got me into a quandary with some of my best friends when the sixth season aired.  I had been pretty obsessed with Lost since about mid-way through the second season, when I watched the first season DVDs and then went off to a new college and realized I could buy episodes on iTunes.  That shit hooked me pretty hard.  After I graduated and moved back home, I made a bunch of people start watching. I swore to them that the writers knew what they were doing and all the loose ends would be neatly tied up if they would just be patient.  Now, I still maintain that Lost was, for the most part, a great show, and after careful consideration, I even became a fan of the finale.  But fuck, the writers really dropped the ball during season six.  The episodes aren't all terrible and we do get some satisfying answers, but they spent WAY too much time introducing unnecessary new characters, faffing around with Charles Widmore, and getting to the heart of the Jacob/Smoke Monster thing and not enough time wrapping things up satisfactorily with the original cast and some of the mysteries they'd been developing for years.  Don't even get me started on the alternate reality/limbo thing - while I do like the finale, the build-up to it was frustratingly dumb.  Anyway, this is all to say that Carlton Cuse and Damon Lindelof robbed me of some of my well-earned reviewer credentials and to this day, my friends still give me shit when I recommend a mysterious drama.

Well, I'm hoping that I can redeem myself now.  There are two new dramas this year that have already found some success with the Lost style of a large, diverse ensemble cast and gradually-revealed mysteries, and it turns out that they're both pretty good.  One is already pulling ahead of the other in my book, though.

Alcatraz!

I feel like Alcatraz should always be pronounced the way that Gob Bluth pronounces Michael's name when he thinks he's escaping to Portugal down ol' South America way: "Michael!"

"We are trying to help you!"

This is gonna be one huge post wherein we discuss the four new shows I managed to watch this week. If I was Zooey Deschanel's character on New Girl, I would probably take this space to sing an annoying little song going all *it's gonna be awesome* in a random squeaky voice. Thankfully, I am not. I am me. So we will proceed with dignity.

New Girl

I did not come to this show expecting it to be anything other than an obnoxious vehicle for Zooey Deschanel's particular Etsy-store-non-brand of obnoxiousness. And it definitely did not disappoint. I mean, even that cast photo just screams, "I AM THE MOST ANNOYING!" I will admit that I found myself laughing a couple times (though I can't remember those times and I didn't take notes and lo siento, I'm not going back to watch it again). But I'm pretty sure those times were all in the first five minutes. From then on it was just your average look-at-the-differences-between-men-and-women-isn't-that-hilarious bullshit. Not even the presence of Hot Cop Leo from Veronica Mars could forgive how dumb and tired this show is. And the singing! OH DEAR LORD STOP SINGING. I don't care if you like her band, the fucking little "I'm awkward" songs are not cute stop singing this show is turning into a Mandy Moore movie circa 2004 except with worse singing just STOP. Also I know exactly where it is going because clearly she's going to fall for the romantic one and then sleep with the sexy one and eff it up and the black one will yell but never really be a romantic interest because it seems like Fox and CBS are reluctant to do interracial relationships, at least between black people and the vast hoardes of white people that populate their scripted shows (Tell me I'm wrong. Mercedes and Sam the white boy were together for about half a second before he had to leave so she could date a big, fat, black dude (nothing against those types of dudes, I am actually really into them, call me, Ruben Studdard!) because we should all only date our own kind. I am literally begging someone to tell me I'm wrong about this). And along the way there will be so much bad singing and so many terrible girls-in-glasses jokes. So, I gave this show a chance and now I am done because heterosexism and racism and just yuck. It really does prove to me how dumb Zooey Deschanel must be IRL because I can't believe she would read this pilot script and be like, "This is definitely going to be my next career move and it will be the best career move anyone has ever made." To sum up: this show should not exist, and you can blame Zooey Deschanel for the fact that it does.

Okay, fine, one Quote

"Boobies Johnson. Two Boobs Johnson. ....Tiger Boobs!"

My Love For Fringe...

...is like a red, red, rose? Or perhaps it's more like an aquamarine rose that only exists in an alternate universe.

Fringe is a tough show to write about. Yes, part of that is because of the mystery aspect of the show, and my reticence to not give anything away to those who may not have discovered its greatness yet. But it's also because, the way the show is structured, events don't unfold the way they did with, say, Lost. And as the show has matured (and improved), the structure itself has changed.

Fringe started off a little weak. Most of the first season is basically just a paranormal crime procedural, with each episode centering around a different "fringe" event that may or may not have anything to do with the larger story of the season. I know it lost some people around the middle there, but the end of season 1 is definitely worth watching, if only to see the superb Jared Harris (Lane Pryce on Mad Men) being superbly creepy. So, if you're new to Fringe and don't feel like slogging through some of the weaker episodes, my advice is this: watch the first two and the last two episodes of the season. That's all you really need. I do think any show is better if you watch all of it, but here, it's not completely necessary.

The second season of Fringe took the awesomeness of the end of season 1 and ran with it. The strength of the show really lies with the characters at the heart of it and the myriad relationships between Olivia, Peter, and Walter. Given material with more depth and an expectation of growth, Anna Torv, Joshua Jackson, and John Noble consistently deliver performances that are strong, endearing, realistic, and often funny. Humor was another concept that season 2 embraced whole-heartedly, going as far as naming an episode "Brown Betty" after a particularly potent strain of Walter's marijuana. I really love the embracing of weed and hallucinogenics as part of the mythology of Fringe; it's awesome to be able to say, "We're going to pump this character - and ourselves - full of acid and then take a journey through her brain", and have that be a normal day on Fringe.

"How's the blog going?"

I spent a good portion of yesterday watching the BBC's Sherlock miniseries (I'm sorry, but three episodes does not a season make, even in Britain. I was annoyed but resigned to the fact that Kingdom was only six episodes and Skins only nine or ten, but three episodes totaling four hours of television is a miniseries if I ever saw one. So.) and was unsurprised to find it to be absolutely awesome.

This incarnation of Sherlock is set in the 21st century, where Watson (played with delicate brilliance by Martin Freeman) is still an army doctor, but his war was Afghanistan, and Sherlock (played deftly by Benedict Cumberbatch, whose name has Americans all in a titter over its mind-blowing Britishness) is a self-described "high-functioning sociopath". Their mutual love of danger, excitement, and puzzles draw them together after a chance encounter leads Watson to share the flat at 221B Baker Street.

And that's really all the background you need to get sucked in to this rollicking romp. Watson, who has been in therapy with a psychosomatic limp after returning from the war, was encouraged by his therapist to write a blog detailing his life. That expository scene ends with Watson saying, "But nothing ever happens to me." Enter: Holmes! Later we discover that Watson has been writing in his blog...all about his escapades with Sherlock. The artful way that the writers make Watson a modern-day narrator through his blog feels like an unforced and satisfyingly natural development, and leads to some comedy when characters like DI Lestrat begin reading it - "Did you really not know the earth goes around the sun?".

Since Sherlock is a mystery show (it's worth checking out PBS' Masterpiece Mystery if only for the fabulous Edward Gorey-animated intro), I don't want to give too much away about the plots. So let's talk a little about the characters.