Other TV 28 March - 3 April

Posted by The TV Critic on 29 March 2010 | 6 Comments

Tags: Spartacus, Breaking Bad, Modern Family

Spartacus Blood and Sand - 110 - Party Favors

I can not heap enough praise onto this show. As Spartacus raised his sword jovially over Varro's head the true horror of what was about to happen dawned on me. It's not the first time that this show has produced a twist ending as clever and as meaningful as this. The show goes from strength to strength, building its characters and their emotional journeys one step at a time.

When Varro patched things up with his wife we should have known misery was coming. When Illithyia suddenly seemed to perk up we should have known she was up to no good. But such a twist was wonderfully horrific. The meaningful looks between Spartacus and Batiatus were all the more tragic for the bonding they had shared earlier in the episode. It was a seminal moment too in building that boiling hatred which will lead Spartacus away from the path of gladiator to that of rebel. It's interesting to note that he and Crixus both now have a slave lover too. The pieces are falling into place for them to throw off their oppressive masters with someone by their side to protect.

The treatment of Batiatus has been excellent. Here he not only expresses his deep gratitude to Spartacus for his rising fortune but also sees him as a similar man. One who has risen from humble origins into something far greater. In schooling Batiatus on strategy we are seeing the skills which Spartacus learnt while fighting in Thrace and will one day use on the battlefield against Rome. His bubbling feud with Illithyia looks set to continue once he breaks free and has an army, presumably to send against her husband and bring the show back to its first episode. I really enjoyed the scene where Spartacus attacks a guard and is immediately disciplined by Batiatus. The show makes the hierarchy and social strata very clear. And of course Batiatus is then similarly humbled by the Magistrate with Salonius gleefully watching. The writing has done a clever job in making Batiatus sympathetic but I can't see him surviving the seasons end at this stage.

If you are still holding your nose because the show is so graphic, cartoonish and simple then I would suggest you take another look. This episode's characterization, pacing and plotting were as good as any mainstream network drama. I understand if it's not your style of show but technically it is doing fine work.

Breaking Bad - 302 - Caballo Sin Nombre

The lesson which this show teaches other dramas is how real life consequences can be very dramatic. It isn't necessary to point guns at everyone and scream or betray. You can just point out the simple human misery which will come from lying and breaking the law.

I really liked the way Walt's family are reacting to the situation. Hank jumps to the obvious conclusion (that Walt had an affair), Marie suspects there is something more and Walter Jr just wants to be told the truth. Then you have Skyler reluctantly helping Ted to cover up his financial misdemeanours. The analogy is very on the nose but she is beginning to understand Walt's more selfless motivations by seeing another trusted man breaking the law. Similarly Saul points out all the legal and emotional trauma that she would go through if she turned Walt in. One of those consequences is how Hank would be humiliated to have been fooled by his own brother in law. You wonder if that will turn out to be a key moment down the line.

Jesse's story was particularly interesting, his rehab having given him a new calm air. But his admission that he is the bad guy doesn't seem to have made him want to be a better person straight away. Instead he takes out a cunning revenge on his parents in order to get his childhood home back. It will be fascinating to see what happens to him now.

The brothers tracking down Tio was good stuff and made it clear why they are stalking Walter. Their Tarrantino\Cohen Brothers silent entry into Walt's house was dramatic stuff. Though there is still an edge of silliness to it which wasn't present with the psychotic Tuco. Certainly the fact that Saul's PI was able to reach Saul who called Frings who knew the brothers was all a little too convenient.

Modern Family - 119 - Game Changer

I readily accept Alan Sepinwall's critique of the shameless plugging for the Ipad http://sepinwall.blogspot.com/2010/04/modern-family-game-changer-book-of-jobs.html. But it didn't really occur to me that this was product placement. Phil's love of gadgets is well established and pretty much everyone I know would "oooh" and "ahhh" if someone pulled one out of their bag. I disagree strongly with the suggestion that this was a weaker episode.

I think this story cottoned on to the right pace of a sit com to generate consistent laughs. The culmination where Phil phased out, just assuming no one cared about his birthday was really enjoyable to me. Each set of characters had their own reasons for ignoring him or letting him down and it all wrapped up in the perfect happy ending. That's partly a result of Phil being so well characterised as the lovable goof that he is. I wanted to see him get a happy birthday because the show has worked hard to make me like him and his performance has matched it. He was one of the worrying characters for me early on in the show's run so credit to the writing and acting for turning that around completely.

Along the way I laughed or smiled more than I have done in a while. Cameron getting excited and involved in his neighbours business was predictably amusing. But I loved the ending where they naturally wanted to know where this creepy guy had come from and how he knew all about their secrets. Manny was probably had the two best jokes as he shamelessly flaunted Jay's watch which didn't fit him and then later when he asks if he had time to take a steam before getting ready. But I also liked Phil sharing his marital woes with a kid at the batting cages and reminiscing about a joke he told when he was eleven and how proud he was of it. Jay realising that Manny hustled him while accidentally choking Mitchell out was fun too.

Great work all round and I think Sepinwall is right when he says that episodes which bring the whole family together tend to be the funniest. 

V - 105 - Welcome to the War

I don't have a lot to say about this episode of V. But I have plenty to say about the show overall and why it doesn't work for me.

1) The first problem is the same one which afflicts so many shows drama shows including Heroes, Lost, Dollhouse and Prison Break. Each show presents an evil and powerful organization who are supposed to be deeply threatening. The narrative is then built around a small band of characters who avoid capture or lead some kind of resistance. So immediately the viewer is left to conclude that the big scary organization isn't really that scary after all. If they were so powerful then why don't they catch this resistance or kill them off quickly? Here we have a V security guard trying to kill off the rebels on his own. If he had told Anna where the rebels lived then the show would have ended then and there. They cover this with the suggestion that Anna would kill him for his failure anyway. It's an understandable excuse but it makes the V look pretty dumb.

2) V of course shares with FlashForward the unenviable distinction of following in Lost's wake and failing to learn the important lessons. Can you imagine if Lost had featured no flashbacks? Imagine if Kate and Jack spent entire episodes on the island asking what the smoke monster was, discussing the possibilities, fretting about it and exploring every inch of jungle. Now I might have enjoyed the logic of that a bit! But we would never have grown to like the characters. The key to good characterization is to see a character's full emotional palette. We need to see them at home, at work, at play, having fun, being sad, being alone, being in love. Only when we can see them as a fully rounded person can we truly suspend our disbelief and feel that they are on some level "real." That's when we bond with a character and begin to empathize with them and in most cases wish for good things to happen to them. In both V and FlashForward we barely ever see these characters playing a note which isn't heavily influenced by the super natural developments going on around them. But to stick with the Lost analogy it is the golf games, fake peanut butter and fishing which helped us fall for those characters, not their obsession with their plight.

3) Finally we have the fact that the V are so evil and manipulative. The lack of subtlety is difficult to enjoy. The V are divided very strictly into Anna and company (evil) and the fifth columnists (good). There's no Battlestar Galactica style grey areas which we could relate to. Having a simply cold and evil enemy makes the show less interesting. It makes the blind adoration of some humans irritating to watch because our view of the V is frustratingly simple. They are evil, can't you see it?! The lack of grey leaves it hard to relate to the V, there unemotional immorality is inhuman. And there inhumanity is presented in a dull fashion rather than a fascinating one. Now we have Anna mating with and then eating one of her own. It's difficult under those circumstances to see the V as anything more than the giant bugs in Spaceship Troopers. They are inhuman and unlikeable, except for the good ones of course who behave just like moral humans.

Like FlashForward I am left to conclude sadly that the show is unfixable. Depending on quality I may or may not continue to include it in the blog. As I am committed to cover FlashForward it may become redundant to replicate my criticism each week.