lunchtable TV talk

Lunchtable TV Talk: The Leftovers

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You know how it is when you get all fired up to do something, and if you don’t strike while the iron is hot, the impetus to act dissipates or entirely disappears? Specific topics in writing are like that for me. I can’t count the times I have collected notes and links to articles that inspired or informed my thinking but then don’t write what I want to write immediately. Soon the inspiration is gone, and anything I would write later on the subject is devoid of the passion and sometimes entirely of the point I wanted to make.

(This is a different problem from being inspired and researching and drawing in a lot of information from a lot of sources, only to lose all the gathered information in one horrible technology crash. This also happened recently. Rest assured, I don’t think any of us is suffering or losing sleep over these articles I won’t be writing!)

I have already admitted to being a TV addict, half-watching copious amounts of the stuff while doing other things. Only giving it half my attention means that unless something is truly remarkable, I am not taking much away. I still, though, feel compelled to chronicle all this multitask erstwhile viewing, and if I don’t do it right away (either after watching a particular episode or finishing a season), I might as well not do it.

But here I am a few days after someone recommended the show The Leftovers to me. Usually I have already seen everything there is to see, so recommendations, while welcome, greet me as old news. The Leftovers is no exception. I watched it during its original run and was sometimes confounded, sometimes disturbed. I have no argument with the mostly powerful performances delivered by a large ensemble cast. But the fact that I almost remember nothing about the show, and a lot of its themes have been jumbled in my head with what I’ve seen in the disappointing US version of The Returned, makes me less than enthusiastic about recommending The Leftovers, even though I was drawn in at the time and will watch season two. Perhaps my TV addiction amounts to “too much of a good thing…”.

Lunchtable TV Talk – Nurse Jackie: The walking dead

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Addiction is a hard thing to face for addicts – and even more for those who love them.

Science on addiction is evolving – Dr Carl Hart at the forefront of publicizing it, but many voices and study results are showing that addiction is not all about chemistry. Addiction is, in fact, not what we think it is.

Of course I’m all for discoveries that help us better understand the nature of addiction but would also appreciate knowing on an individual level: if addicts lack connections and relationships and a sense of community and connectivity – and that partially explains what they are doing – how can an individual help? How does an individual, the non-addict in the addict’s life, cope? Every study in the world, every book in the world that explains what addiction is does not change the day-to-day challenges of living with, loving or trusting an addict.

In the many seasons of Nurse Jackie, at once dramatic and comedic, we have seen a flawed but high-functioning addict in the form of Jackie Peyton (Edie Falco). Other than her hidden identity as an addict, we only know Jackie as a nurse, a wife and a mother – but mostly a nurse, and as we go into this final season, we can see her struggling against losing this key piece of her identity. She is willing to fight for it – harder and stronger than she ever fought for her family or her sobriety.

I have written before about Nurse Jackie, first with regard to the increasing difficulty of relating to or sympathizing with Jackie.

“I used to have a lot more sympathy for and interest in Jackie, but like most users – users of drugs and of people – Jackie has become extremely hard to like. Some of the antics in the hospital where she works are still interesting enough, and the cast is still a joy to watch, but it is painful to watch how people are affected by and duped by her lying (which grows worse and worse, despite a brief moment of sobriety). It’s hard to say where this will go in its next season, as last season ended with an unexpected revelation from her husband.”

At the time I had very little direct experience with this sort of thing. This changed last year. As someone who loved and cared for an addict, it was not like anything I imagined. But, as a recent article about Nurse Jackie described, the show is one of the few accurate portrayals of addiction. It’s rough, somehow unpredictably painful even if the pain and challenges are predictable, and it opens a door to caring unconditionally for the recovering addict even if never quite being able to trust them again. Addicts sometimes feel a bit like the walking dead.

And where the early seasons of Jackie offered a bit more comedy (the show was never necessarily designed as a comedy, even if it had its moments), showing unbelievable events with few, if any, consequences, each subsequent season has escalated with its drama and equally escalated consequences.

Taken as a whole, the earlier parts, where Jackie is managing the balancing act of nurse, wife, mother along with addict and girlfriend/affair partner with her hospital’s pharmacist (direct source to her poisons), show the “good part” where the addict thinks they can and will manage flawlessly. Every season, she takes bigger risks to maintain her high and continue to conceal her growing addiction. And things inevitably spiral out of control. In the background of Jackie’s personal travails, we also see the challenges of the American healthcare system, its understaffing problems, its bureaucratic problems, humanity versus automation and the general frailty of human relationships when strained by outside forces. I am sorry this is the last season, even if it feels like the right time for it to go.

Lunchtable TV Talk – Bates Motel

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At first I avoided Bates Motel – for no real reason. I had no expectations going in, and I did not realize until I started watching that the formidable Vera Farmiga is one of the main players. This makes Bates Motel automatically worth at least trying out. Then realizing that Nestor Carbonell is the town sheriff seals the deal.

While I could spread on thick layers of superlatives about Farmiga’s range and talent, I would rather write a brief love letter to Carbonell. I love how he pops up frequently and, of course, is very different in each role – as quality acting requires. Whether he is hero, villain or somewhere in between (as is the case in Bates Motel), he delivers. But what I love about him most of all is looking back on his comedic role in the gone and mostly forgotten Suddenly Susan in the 1990s. A starring vehicle for Brooke Shields (and also starring Judd Nelson and Kathy Griffin), the show was usually stolen out from under Shields and the rest of the cast by Carbonell as Luis Rivera and the late David Strickland as Todd Stities. Together, this duo stole many scenes and kept me watching even when the show was annoying (and believe me – it grew increasingly so). (Interestingly the show also humanized Shields a bit for me – and I had never really cared much for her work before.)

Sadly, Strickland committed suicide at the age of 29 in 1999 (RIP) – but Carbonell, happily, was just getting started. He has turned up everywhere – both in one-time guest roles in popular TV shows and in longer-term appearances, such as a role in one-time network ratings juggernaut, Lost.

With Farmiga and Carbonell at the helm, Bates Motel really seems to work and stand out. Even the sometimes overly dramatic tone and plot are deftly managed in these actors’ hands. Many of the other actors are all right – kind of a go-to list of every non-descript Canadian actor who turns up in every Canadian or Canadian-produced show (for example, Ian Tracey as “Remo” – I stared at him for ages before realizing he was one of the stars of the Canadian legal drama Da Vinci’s Inquest – something that was never shown any time that I lived in the US but did turn up on late-night TV in Iceland). While the actor who plays Norman Bates, Freddie Highmore, should attract more accolades, there are times that his character’s awkwardness and mental illness feels a bit too ham-handed and overacted, making me think that while the part is well-cast, there is a bit too much “putting it on” that does not feel authentic. Highmore manages to balance innocent, sheltered, overprotected son with increasingly unstable, mentally ill “psycho” quite well – he is fantastic at “creepy” – but nevertheless isn’t really the star of the show.

Without the main cast working well together, though, the show would not be nearly as addictive as it is (and it has been addictive). Once I started the first season of ten episodes two days ago, I could not stop and am already caught up (we’re nearing the end of season three).

Lunchtable TV Talk – Fresh Off the Boat: Really fresh?

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Each week,I get a few laughs from Fresh Off the Boat and like a lot of people have given a lot of thought to how it’s possible that this is only the second sitcom in the past 25 years to focus on an Asian American family. The first, All American Girl, fronted by comedienne/actress Margaret Cho, did not last long and was probably the victim of the wrong timing. Many shows don’t find an audience, a voice or popularity – not because of their themes but because they just don’t find their footing in the right place or time. All American Girl was that show.

Fresh Off the Boat, focusing on a family of Taiwanese immigrants who move from Washington D.C. to Orlando, is the first show to try to take the Asian American immigrant experience mainstream on network TV. It’s got its stereotypes and sometimes falls back on racial/immigration-related tropes, which could be mined for cheap laughs or could serve a bigger purpose of highlighting those tropes in order to make fun of the stereotypes. Either way, the show usually transcends the awkwardness that could come of the stereotypes and if it gets the chance to have a second season, it might grow into something much more genuine. As an introduction to the kinds of things immigrants may face when they move and adapt to the United States, the show offers a glimpse into what it might be like. It being a half-hour comedy, it will look for laughs more than in-depth understanding or insight into immigrant life or integration. But the issues highlighted begin to show some key points – how immigrant parents struggle with how their children are more products of their new environment than the culture from which they came, how cultural clashes are inevitable, how an immigrant’s own perspective, habits and taste change.

Inspired by a memoir written by Eddie Huang, who has been highly critical of how the show handled the source material, it is hard to tell, if given the chance, whether the show will redirect itself to address some of Huang’s concerns. I wonder, reading some of Huang’s ire about the show, whether it is more a matter of the process and creative stifling from the network – what else could one expect from one of the big three? Can the show and the network come to a place where creativity does not clash with buttoned-down network demands? When you sell off the rights to your work, you can criticize but you have signed away creative rights. Right?

I think Huang could be right – not only that the show does not follow his own memoir closely (in which case maybe the show shouldn’t claim to be based on it) but also that the show isn’t really representative of the immigrant experience. But does that mean it is not valid? That it is not in fact fresh? Is it enough to start with just to get more diversity on the screen, even if the stories are more an overbaked caricature of that diversity? Could it be a stepping stone to something better to come?

Lunchtable TV Talk – Community: Magic is gone

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In the beginning, I loved, recommended and defended the beloved but difficult TV show Community to anyone who would listen. I bought the DVDs and sent the boxsets to people I thought would like it. My advocacy grew louder and more vociferous the more the show was threatened. But after the controversial departure of original show creator, Dan Harmon, the one season made without him completely lost it. It was already a show that many would argue had “lost the plot” because it was so complex and strange – but it had been, until Harmon’s contentious exit, beautifully, creatively messy – or at least seemed messy. It was always well thought out and tightly executed with intricate in-stories, meta humor and extensive pop culture references, which meant that deeper understanding could be possible but even on the surface it could be enjoyed. There is not much point trying to describe it in its glory days – you just have to watch it yourself.

Without Harmon, though, the show lost its vision and became increasingly boring and tiresome. I continued to watch, but I was relieved when it was canceled. Honestly, though, by the end of that dreadful season, I was not even excited to see that the show had been resurrected from cancellation by Yahoo! Screen (yet another non-TV channel coming along to offer original content as an original distribution method). Dan Harmon was brought back to run the show, and I have been watching, but the magic is gone. I actually hate it now and dread watching, but I keep doing it out of habit hoping I might see some of the magic again. But it’s just not there.

For a truly enriching viewing experience, watch seasons one through four and skip the rest.

Lunchtable TV Talk – Daredevil

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There is already a lot of press about the murky, dark, dramatic, gloomy, moody and brooding Netflix offering, Daredevil. I won’t add much to it. I loved the lead, Charlie Cox, in his ill-fated role in Boardwalk Empire, and he’s almost as great here. It speaks to his abilities that I did not recognize him at first – he seemed that different from his role as Owen Sleater in Boardwalk. I can say I have never liked Rosario Dawson better. I can’t explain it, but I really liked her in this. I don’t like Deborah Ann Woll – from Jessica in True Blood onwards, she is just not a very good actress, and if anything, seems to be getting worse. Everything else occupied me to the degree that I could not stop watching until I was done with all 13 episodes.

I was ready to go to sleep at one point, but the transition between episodes five and six shows the masterful level of suspense this show can creates, which forces the whole binge-watching phenomenon (“Just to see what happens, then I will stop” or “Just one more episode”. Famous last words.)

I liked it, but maybe my enjoyment has been tempered by the fact that my USB thumb drive died – and I only managed to extract about a quarter of the data it contained. Oh, it hurts.

Lunchtable TV Talk – Battle Creek: Embattled

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Even if Battle Creek gets the axe (which seems pretty likely right now), the first half of its one and probably only season has been entertaining. I recognize that I pull out the “entertaining” word an awful lot. It suffices often enough for these shows that don’t knock it out of the park but pass the time reasonably and pleasantly. But average adjectives are just about all that distinguish TV shows that fail to distinguish themselves.

Battle Creek’s cast should have done half the work by virtue of its experience and talent. The cast, anchored by comeback kid of sorts Dean Winters (best known for playing “Dennis”, Tina Fey’s on-off, loser boyfriend in 30 Rock, “Mayhem” in a long-running series of ads for Allstate Insurance, Ryan O’Reilly in the disturbing HBO prison drama, Oz as well as Rescue Me and Law & Order SVU) as Detective Russ Agnew, comes together within the beleaguered Battle Creek, Michigan police department. They’re led by the multitalented Janet McTeer as their commander, and the police department has basically no resources with which to work. In comes Josh Duhamel as dapper, charming FBI agent, Milt Chamberlain.

The story, with this group of actors, should gel better. The premise pits two very different detectives with two different perspectives on investigative work and on life against each other, but forces them to partner up. Agnew is cynical and distrustful (and his reasons for being this way become clear in the course of the show); Chamberlain, at least from what we have seen in the few episodes we’ve seen, is cheerful and trusting (but we don’t get a very good look at what motivates him or is behind his actions). They work together, improbably, to solve crimes, and the acting should complement the story – but I don’t feel like the show has unfolded a compelling enough story for us to care or to make people watch.

It’s unfortunate because there is potential. Its DNA has a little bit of Vince Gilligan (creator of Breaking Bad, Better Call Saul); guest casting has been clever and fun (a superb and hilarious as well as topical guest appearance from the great Patton Oswalt as Battle Creek’s mayor – a terrific comedic send-up of Toronto’s former mayor Rob Ford; Candice Bergen as Detective Agnew’s con-woman mother).

The actors – both regulars and guest stars – have done their part with the material they have, but the show itself, so far, has not been tight enough, has not been more than middling. If given a chance, I imagine that the show could hit its stride (many shows have surprised us after slow starts in their first seasons). Now it’s just a matter of Battle Creek getting that chance.

Lunchtable TV Talk – Togetherness: The ark of the ache of it

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The ache of marriage
-Denise Levertov

The ache of marriage:

thigh and tongue, beloved,
are heavy with it,
it throbs in the teeth

We look for communion
and are turned away, beloved,
each and each

It is leviathan and we
in its belly
looking for joy, some joy
not to be known outside it

two by two in the ark of
the ache of it.

Today is my parents’ wedding anniversary. I spend a lot of time thinking about marriage as an institution. It is not something I ever really wanted, and as I have become older, it seems less than desirable and more of the “ball and chain” that it’s classically described as. Not being a religious person or in need of some kind of monetary or tax benefits that might come from legal marriage – and not being particularly sentimental – marriage is not a priority. That said, I also think a lot about marriage and the equality of access to it. If someone – anyone – wants to marry, s/he should be legally permitted to.

Fie on Love
-James Shirley

Now, fie on foolish love! it not befits
Or man or woman know it:
Love was not meant for people in their wits;
And they that fondly show it,
Betray the straw and feathers in their brain,
And shall have Bedlam for their pain.
If single love be such a curse,
To marry, is to make it ten times worse.

But then, I see a nuanced TV show like HBO’s Togetherness and wonder why anyone would want to sign up for marriage. The ache of marriage is fully alive here. I wasn’t totally into the idea of Togetherness when I read about it. It sounded like an unfolding tableau of overprivileged ennui, as middle-class midlife boredom clashes with midlife identity crisis. People stop being individuals, give up on their dreams, are stuck in the humdrum of daily life. This is at the heart of Togetherness, and could easily have been either as dull as HBO’s Looking or as self-indulgent and preachy as the recent miniseries The Slap. But Togetherness walks the tightrope and avoids conventional appearances – largely because of its cast, and the handling of its creators, the seemingly ubiquitous Duplass brothers, Mark and Jay, and Steve Zissis. It could easily sink to a whiny, pretentious semi-sitcom focused on a 30-something married couple with two small children. They seem to have everything a young couple, Brett and Michelle (Mark Duplass and a transcendent Melanie Lynskey) could want – the marriage, the happy family, the house and the white picket fence. Against this “stable background”, Brett’s best friend (an out-of-work, down-on-his luck actor, Alex, played by Steve Zissis) and Michelle’s sister (Tina, an event planner, played by Amanda Peet) both move into Brett and Michelle’s place temporarily, and this change seemingly upends the bored equilibrium Brett and Michelle have settled into.

Both “sides” see the beauty of the other side. Alex and Tina, who have a really powerful chemistry but keep denying it, represent the initial spark we all recognize that comes from the beginning of a relationship and envy what Brett and Michelle have – but only because they are not trapped by the constraints. Brett and Michelle envy the freedom Alex and Tina have, and start to search outside the relationship for diversions – not necessarily diversions that lead them to infidelity. But just other entertainment, other sparks, ways to find their way back to who they used to be before middle-aged family life.

The bottom line, what I took away, what Togetherness imparts, with some humor and humanity, is that whether or not we are “together” with someone, we are still alone. We swallow so much of ourselves, not because someone else forces us to, but because we let some of ourselves go naturally with the march of daily responsibility and priorities. In following this path, sometimes when we are together with someone, we are more alone than ever.

“Together Alone” – Crowded House

Lunchtable TV Talk – Wolf Hall: “You’ve made a mistake threatening me, sir”

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Any history buff is well and truly familiar with the story of Henry VIII and his many wives. There have been many books written and movies and TV shows made about his reign. Most recently The Tudors provided a sexed-up look at Henry and all his wives. The latest to take a new tack with much of the story is Wolf Hall, which is told more or less from the perspective of historical figure Thomas Cromwell.

Cromwell is portrayed as perfectly dull and unassuming – and Mark Rylance looks exactly like these historical portraits of the real guy. It is something of a revelation when this modest man saunters in and so politely threatens people, such as when Harry Percy claims he has a binding marriage contract with Anne Boleyn, which would prevent her marrying King Henry.

Yes, politeness and decorum mixed with menacing threat: Cromwell will get someone to “bite the bollocks off” Percy if he refuses to quit his claim to Anne.

It is Rylance as “the ruffian” and cunning lawyer Cromwell that keeps the story moving forward and keeps me interested. Despite the brilliance of his wielding the law and persuasive powers, Cromwell appears fair, even if King Henry calls him out at one point, threatening, “Do I keep you for what’s easy? Do you think I’ve promoted you for the charm of your presence? I keep you on because you are a serpent. Do not be a viper in my person.” The balance is struck as well as it is thanks to Rylance’s subtle performance. Damian Lewis as Henry VIII seems a bit miscast – and it is rather a small role. I tend to think he has worked well with what he has here, but despite the story revolving around him, it is not really about him. Lewis is always excellent as a sniveling tyrant, much as he showed in the miniseries, The Forsyte Saga. He even showed us some of this indecision in his conflicted self-destruction as Nicholas Brody in Homeland.

Rylance’s performance, combined with writing that projects modernity onto an age-old story, bringing intrigues and political machinations to life, make Wolf Hall one of, if not, the best fictionalized pieces on this era. It would not seem logical that something like this would garner high viewer numbers, but in fact, Wolf Hall appears to speak for itself in that regard. A persuasive aspect of Wolf Hall that initially draws one in is its attention to historical detail, which is no accident. But it is the rich and refined performances that elevate this show to greatness (such as those of Joanne Whalley as the cast-aside Catherine of Aragon, Claire Foy as Anne Boleyn), none more so than Rylance’s performance. (It may be more surprising to viewers because Rylance is not well-known outside of theater work, although I remember him from the small-scale but somewhat controversial film from Patrice Chéreau, RIP, Intimacy (2001), which featured actual sexual acts between the actors. It raised a lot of eyebrows, as if it were pornography or just lasciviousness for the sake of raising the film’s profile. The film, though, showed exactly the tawdriness and neediness of this sexual affair between the two main characters – again, elevated by Rylance’s performance alongside New Zealand actress Kerry Fox, who as recently as 2012 was still defending her performing a real sex act in a film from more than a decade earlier.)

Rylance is a respected stage actor, and as I felt – and later read – his being virtually unknown to television audiences created a double blindside. We the viewers don’t expect this committed, understated yet powerhouse performance – and most of the characters that Cromwell comes up against underestimate his cunning and influence… but definitely should not.

Lunchtable TV Talk – Nashville: Music pulls you in

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I am happy when a same-sex couple shares some kind of intimacy on television. On the most recent episode of Nashville, closeted and conflicted character Will Lexington (Chris Carmack) kisses a man in whom he has interest. Will’s journey to self-acceptance has maybe only just begun (he does not want to jeopardize his career by coming out) but at least he is not trying to throw himself in front of trains, acting out in homophobic self-hate or getting married to women to conceal his true self. He seems to be moving slowly toward coming out, which required a lot of self-searching and bad decisions – and most of all, coming to accept himself as a gay man. Maybe coming out is coming next.

I like seeing these personal evolutions of all kinds on tv, and I am especially happy when “minority” storylines play out alongside the rest of the stories. Will’s reluctance to come out has a lot to do with believing his doing so will jeopardize his burgeoning country music career. A somewhat similar story unfolds in Empire, in which one of the characters, Jamal (Jussie Smollett), is proudly gay and out to his family, but his father – the head of an entertainment empire, doesn’t want Jamal to come out publicly (Jamal is a musician), and the father holds this over Jamal’s head (along the lines of, “If you come out, I will cut you off…”). These experiences share similarities and differences, and seeing them on television will further the case for equality – and for letting people be who they are (and see representations of that on TV).

I saw a quote from Ellen DeGeneres today that summed up my thinking exactly: “Whenever people act like gay images in the media will influence kids to be gay I want to remind them that gay children grew up with only straight people on television.” The important thing – what we need to move toward – is showing representations of all kinds of people so that all kinds of viewers can relate.

ellen

In many ways Nashville is an annoying soap opera, but I keep watching because I like Connie Britton, because I mostly like the positive changes that Hayden Panettiere’s character has undergone, because I sometimes hope there will be some kind of semi-redemptive qualities in characters like Oliver Hudson’s Jeff Fordham, and mostly because I really enjoy the music. It’s the music that has always pulled me in and kept me coming back.