Other TV 5 - 11 April

Posted by The TV Critic on 5 April 2010 | 2 Comments

Tags: True Blood, Breaking Bad, Spartacus

True Blood Season 2

After twelve episodes of relentless mayhem I feel the need to split up my thoughts as if I were writing a review.

The Good

I'll admit that there is something addictive about watching True Blood. This season was far more plot oriented than the first and focused heavily on clearly defined bad guys. The action packed march toward Maryann's downfall and the failure of the Fellowship of the Sun certainly made me want to watch the next episode just to see what craziness was going to ensue next. And the way that the Stackhouses and Bill were kept out of Bon Temps as Maryann began to infect everyone made a lot of sense. It allowed for them to return and save the day as you would expect.

Sam was the big winner of the season. His never smiling broodiness was fleshed out to the point where his performance matched his lonely back-story very well. The tragedy for him was not restricted to being Maryann's target either, his love affair with Daphne was also sad. He had never met another shape shifter before and was so happy to have done so that her betrayal was actually pretty brutal. Seeing him fool Maryann and rip out her heart was definitely a satisfying end to the story and his tears when he spotted a deer nearby were fitting.

Bill continues to be the glue which holds the whole show together. His relentless morality and upright behavior make him the real hero of the show. His deep affection for Sookie also helps to mask the more grating aspects of her presentation. Eric grew in stature too; his moral compass was well defined throughout. He believes in justice and peace, always punishing those who have done vampires wrong but leaving others alone. The writing also gave him a more varied emotional context with his manipulative desire for Sookie and his unflinching loyalty to his maker Godric. Godric was actually the most intriguing and enjoyable character in the whole season. A vampire now two thousand years old who had grown beyond petty lusts and desires and could see that peace was preferable to any kind of conflict. His decision to die because he had lived for too long could have been a whole season in itself. I also appreciate the consistency shown in how vampires' strength and various powers operate. It definitely adds a new dimension to the vampire mythology to have an older vampire always able to subdue a younger one.

Lafayette continued his fine performance from season one and got to add a new side to his character. His genuine trauma at what happened to him during his imprisonment was consistently and believably played. Elements like that do add something to the True Blood universe. Lafayette's fear didn't really influence the story much. He didn't confront and defeat it yet it didn't hold him back for too long. True Blood does come across sometimes as a self contained universe where things happen, which just are. They don't necessarily all need to be a part of the plot and that's not bad for creating a sense that what you are watching has depth to it.

Jason Stackhouse's morality flip flopped around at times but he was entertaining to watch. He plays his role with conviction and was occasionally furnished with a fun line or decent scene to play.

The Bad

A lot of what made True Blood addictive to watch is the DVDisation of television shows. As an HBO show, not forced to adapt to network TV commercial breaks and scheduling, the season felt like it was made for DVD. Plot threads weren't really built around the hour of time given to them, they would just sort of run into one another. Most episodes didn't end on an appreciable cliffhanger, they just sort of paused for a moment before the action resumed in the next episode. While that might sound like a nice change from the predictable pattern of network TV it can also be a pain. True Blood does feel relentless, there doesn't ever seem to be a pause or a chance to catch your breath. Yes there was never a dull moment but so much sex, violence and blood all ran into one another that not many incidents from the season have stayed with me. Indeed the season began in a rush continuing the murder set up in the season finale of season one. But by the end of Maryann's orgy of violence I was hoping for a pause at the end of this season. A chance to take a break, for these characters to heal and forget a little of what they just went through. I rather groaned when Bill was abducted and Jason shot Eggs. It suggests we are in for ever more churning and misery and relentless developments in season three.

The relentless structure of the show also means that character development is not its highest priority. I complained about this in season one and it began to bite here (no pun intended) when it felt like I was supposed to care deeply about Sookie, Tara and Jason but I didn't feel I had a strong reason too. As I have said elsewhere the key to good development is to show us a full emotional palette for each character. As the characters in True Blood are always rushing from one sexual encounter to a life threatening situation and back again, this doesn't really take place.

Sookie suffers from this particularly as the central character. She and Bill have argued and made up so many times that it becomes difficult to see much consistency in her decisions. Her propensity to get angry and be rude swiftly rather jars with the assumption that she is sweet and kind, which sometimes she is. It's difficult to tell also whether the acting is not up to giving Sookie and soft and warm disposition or whether the writing is inconsistent. But in general I find her shrill and irritating at key moments where she ought to be the sympathetic figure.

The show also followed a pattern of character introduction which I am not a fan of. In shows like The O.C., Dawson's Creek, Desperate Housewives and even 24 this same pattern has been repeated again and again. A character is introduced who has no real back-story, apparently no friends or family and not much in the way of defining characteristics beyond the surface layer. They immediately begin a romantic relationship with one of our characters and then eventually leave or are killed. Here we had that exact pattern with both Daphne and Eggs. The signal sent to viewers with the empty characterization is not to care about the character because the show is not investing the time in them necessary to make us care. Yet their deaths or exits are meant to carry huge emotional weight for the central characters they leave behind. They do not of course and the drama falls flat.

I'm also left confused as to who True Blood's target demographic is. The show is filled with explicit sex, drugs and violence. Yet the show also dabbles in some of the dumbest, most obvious humour you are likely to see on TV. Andy and Jason's partnership was particularly stupid with some of the gags scraping the very bottom of the barrel. There were plenty of asinine sequences of action too with Tara's mother holding up Lafayette and Sookie just to fill some time, Hoyt's mother embarrassing herself and everyone else, Jason and Andy wandering into a crowd of possessed people with no plan at all. Sarah (from the Fellowship of the Sun) was just a bizarre character too, falling in and out of love with Jason at the drop of a hat. There was one slow-mo sequence of her frolicking to indicate Jason's growing interest in her which was about as shameless and unnecessary as anything this side of season two of Rome. I wasn't entirely satisfied with the way the residents of Bon Temps went back to life as normal despite the utter chaos and in some cases serious wounds they had inflicted on each other.

The Unknown

Jessica's development as a vampire was fairly intriguing though seeing her act rebellious to "daddy" Bill got tiresome pretty quickly. But her vacillating morals actually fit the story rather well. So recently turned and with Bill's guidance her human morality was still present. Yet her new vampire instincts kept coming to the surface leaving her future uncertain. The concept of her eternal virginity is one of the most original, unpleasant and tragic ideas I have seen in a show like this. But I very much doubt anyone could write a satisfying conclusion to it.

The Bottom Line

I think True Blood has made it clear that like the Twilight saga, there is a big market for supernatural franchises in our culture right now. I believe it also suggests a lot of the people watching are looking for a DVD box set that they can pop in and just watch all in one go. This show is much better at stimulating you to click to the next episode rather than invest and care about its characters. In that sense True Blood is far more like Gossip Girl than Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

I will keep watching. I am a fan of the genre and I like to stay informed but this is a show which won't deliver the emotional punch I look for from my TV shows. In its present state it will always deliver more "Bad" than "Good."

Breaking Bad - 303 - I.F.T.

The complete and utter contrast to True Blood in every way imaginable! This episode was all about characters not saying anything but letting their smouldering emotions tell the story. I can understand a viewer who felt this was too slow and prefers mind numbing developments. I think that comes down to what you watch TV for. Do you watch it for stimulation of one kind or another or do you want to see stories and characters presented with all the reality that they would receive in a book or movie?

I like both for the record but would take Breaking Bad over True Blood almost any day. Seeing Jesse call Jane's voicemail over and over again was so simple and sad. I imagine anyone can relate to that kind of clinging on behaviour even if not for someone who has passed away.

Meanwhile Walt's refusal to accept that what he's done has ruined his marriage became ever sadder to watch. The breakdown in trust between him and Skyler is probably the most impressive thing about the whole show. You just don't see that on other TV shows. What I loved about this was that he laid it all out for her. He told her that he did it all for the family, he listed all the things his children would need money for. He made his case in a way which you can imagine in any other TV show might have started winning her back. But no! The fascinating part is that it's not just the broken trust which bothers Skyler. It's the fact that he crossed a moral line which she was not prepared to. He has shown a willingness to do something illegal which she just can't have in the man she loves. To her he has become a different person to the one she agreed to marry.

Walter Junior is the one you feel most sorry for. He is being used somewhat like a pawn by Walt and you can't help but feel he is going to feel horribly betrayed when the truth comes out. It seemed like Hank was trying to avoid getting his promotion so he wouldn't have to face up to his post-traumatic stress. Again the consequences of one episode last season are still playing out now and that's great to see.

Spartacus Blood and Sand - 111 - Old Wounds

Another strong episode moving us toward a presumably blood soaked finale to this surprisingly good drama. 

Once more the story builds itself around simple but easy to follow changes in fortune and dynamic. Batiatus and Spartacus reach the height of their mutual respect as Batiatus offers to give his own money to Varro's widow. At the same time Batiatus' fortunes outside the ludus reach their highest point as well. He manages to slay the magistrate Calavius and pin the murder on his rival Solonius. But at this moment of triumph for Batiatus his undoing begins to appear.

I really liked Spartacus' delirious visions. Again the show does a good job of showing the consequences of the various wounds suffered by Gladiators, as Spartacus slips in and out of fever. The mystical, mythical element was present of course but it was not overbearing. Viewers can look at Spartacus discovery of the truth about his wife's murder as either divine intervention or his subconscious supplying him with information he already knew. The fact that Spartacus worked out the lie he was fed through simple deduction was an object lesson to other dramas in simple and clever narrative structure. 

I was also very pleased to see Lucretia drunk at the games. With all the wine they sipped you would imagine this happened more often than not. The fact that she was downning too much because of her nerves over Crixus was even better. Batiatus can't be too far away from discovering the truth. They've done such a good job with his mixed morality that I could quite imagine him blaming Crixus for the situation. Better that than admit his wife wanted something which he couldn't supply.

Ashur's betrayal of Solonius was a tiny misstep, though even that maybe overstating it. Ashur has of course been conspiring with Solonius for some time and this turn of events implied it had all been a long con. It may be that Ashur's dissension was legitimate and he just decided to stick with the devil he knew when the plan was suggested to him. But if it was a con all along then it was a bit of a TV trick more than a clever twist. We saw Ashur genuinley disgruntled with not being able to return to the arena. We saw him having his verbal doubts about the plan here. So the twist didn't really allow for viewers to guess what was going on - we were deliberately mislead. That's a very different twist to the cleverly plotted ones we have seen so far.

However it may be that Ashur was genuinley conflicted and hopefully that will be explored a little further. Two episodes left and I am excited to see what's in store.