Dexter Season Two (Spoiler Free)

The FWB (I’ll let you figure out what that stands for) and I are taking the night off, and instead of dedicating my free time to some lofty goal, like my thesis or my continuing cinematic education, I’m walking around restlessly, cursing how many clothes I have (the hanging part of my closet collapsed and I had to find new spots for each and every one of my two dozen vests), and watching In Plain Sight, which really isn’t one of the strongest things TV has to offer nowadays.

Call it procrastination, something I’m so good at that continuing my studies with a PhD probably wouldn’t be the brightest idea. But I’ve decided to at least turn it into slightly useful procrastination, and seeing how I finished season two of Dexter, I present: the review. After all, I also wrote one for Season One.

I’m drifting. I finally get a chance to kill and I can’t do it. I get a second chance and he gets away. And now all my secrets are floating to the surface. Where is the orderly controlled effective Dexter? Where did I lose him? How do I find him again? I’m drifting. But not to sleep. Dexter

Dexter - Season 1 (spoiler-free)

I don’t blame my foster parents for that. Harry and Doris Morgan did a wonderful job raising me. But, they’re both dead now. I didn’t kill them. Honest. Dexter.

As a general rule, for movies but especially also for TV shows, voice-overs should be on the “to avoid” list. Show, don’t tell, after all: it’s a difficult rule to follow, but that doesn’t mean you should give up and resort to a cheap trick. Sex and the City, Desperate Housewives, Grey’s Anatomy… All of these shows use prominent voice-overs, and all of them would be better of without them. After all, the only use the voice-overs serve is to make themes -that usually worked perfectly well as an undercurrent- dreadfully explicit and unevocative.

However, there are exceptions to every rule. And when your show revolves around a main character who fakes all his emotions, who lives his entire life hiding who he is and what he’s thinking… a voice-over starts sounding like a reasonable thing. And luckily, in Dexter, not only is the voice-over pretty essential, but it’s also really well executed. For instance, it’s not particularly literary: it doesn’t have the pat, too rounded style many TV-voiceovers do, and it isn’t filled with cringe-worthy puns. It’s just a man talking to himself, to an audience he sort-of wished he had (and which, of course, he in fact does have in us).

Of course, I let my original thought take me on a wild rant, so let me get back to the basics: a plot synopsis (spoiler-free, as promised).

Blogging Buffy: 2.06-2.08

2.06 Halloween

Those wacky vampires! That’s why I love ‘em! They just keep you guessing! Xander

This episode is Joss Whedon at his expectation-subverting best. Some of the subversions are mostly funny: in the Buffyverse, as it turns out, Halloween is traditionally the night vampires stay in and do nothing. But the funniest thing is that in this world, confirming to gender roles is the subversion. All of a sudden, Buffy is a damsel in distress and Xander is the tough guy who has to defend here, and… it feels strange. Out of whack.

That’s why this episode had to be in the second season, after the show was established. After we’ve come to accept the show’s tenets, after we’ve accepted that in this show, girls can beat guys up. So that when it goes back to how things are in most movies and shows, it feels wrong.

2.07 Lie to Me

Yes, it’s terribly simple. The good guys are always stalwart and true, the bad guys are easily distinguished by their pointy horns or black hats, and, uh, we always defeat them and save the day. No one ever dies, and everybody lives happily ever after. Giles

Guilty Pleasures: Gossip Girl

One of the reasons posting had been slower here of late, is that the writer’s strike has been resolved. And apparently, all those writers came back hungry for work, and eager to show off. As a result, I’ve often been neglecting movies in favor of scripted television. It’s partly because television is lighter, requiring the investment of a mere 45 minutes. It’s partly that television is easier, not requiring as much thought and analysis - I like to be challenged, but prepackaged entertainment is nice when you’ve been challenged by #$(*$@) integrals all day. And mostly: a lot of television series have been very, very good lately, and grabbing me like they haven’t in a while.

Only last week, for instance, I watched an episode of Bones, followed by House M.D, followed by an older one of Gossip Girl. Bones had a lighthearted episode, but it ended in a totally unexpected way, leaving me with my mouth open, vaguely articulating “wha?”. House had one of the craziest episodes ever, akin to Three Stories and the season 2 finale No Reason. It was called House’s Head, and it indeed took place largely in the head of a House who was trying to remember the 4 hours he’d forgotten before a bus crash. And what’s in House’s head? Bickering with Wilson, beautiful girls with soulful gazes, his superior Dr. Lisa Cuddy doing a striptease while rattling off medical terms… He almost killed himself in the process of course, leading to a last 5 minutes with a) a death scare and b)the revelation that another major character could be dying. I love House mostly because of it’s rigid procedural structure with all its fixed elements, and the quips in between, but when they stray from the template they sometimes produce amazing episodes.

But if I thought that was it for the night…. Gossip Girl had one of its wildest episodes yet - and that’s saying something. Not only was there plenty of bitchiness going on between Blair and Jenny, but two guys were outed, and in the end, Serena confessed she killed someone! OMG!

Ok. So, if you don’t watch GG, you’re bored right now, and wondering what prompts a usually fairly rational and feminist girl like me to dissolve into a puddle of OMFG!s. Wondering whether, perhaps, all those integrals might have made me go off the deep end. Worry not, and I’ll explain my fascination below the fold.

Blogging Buffy: 2.01 - 2.05

Let’s dive right in!

2.01 When She Was Bad

You’re a vampire. Oh, I’m sorry, was that an offensive term? Should I say “undead American”? Buffy

Blogging Buffy - Wrapping up Season 1

Season 1 had Buffy (the series, as well as the character) finding its/her footing, bit by bit. The show at this point is still pretty much monster-of-the-week, but what’s admirable is how consistent and tangible the Buffy-verse itself already is. Pretty much everything can happen, but the world these characters live in is not without rules, and fairly consistent - which is more than can be said for many new shows, which undermine their own mythology at every turn. Also, characters who will play a part later (Harmony, Amy, Ms. Calendar) are set up in a natural, unobtrusive way, so that they don’t just appear out of this air later. Then: episode by episode.

1.09 The Puppet Show

“I know Principal Flutie would have said, “Kids need understanding. Kids are human beings.” That’s the kind of wooly-headed liberal thinking that leads to being eaten.” Principal Snyder

Blogging Buffy - Intro & 1.01-1.08

For my birthday, faithful commenter & colleague Kaj gave me the first season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer on DVD. Whedon fan as I am, I was delighted, and have since watched the first 8 with a friend, who was up until now a Buffy-virgin. We’re planning to continue, 2 episodes at the time, until the end of season seven or until we get sick of it - whichever comes first. And here, I will be blogging along.

(Truth be told, I was planning a post on the pleasures of pulp TV, especially that involving immortal men (with recent examples Moonlight and New Amsterdam), going on into a diatribe about the lack of female immortals in lead roles, complaining that those who did seem to have an extended lifespan never for everlasting youth like their male counterparts… but following my post about not-getting an intellectual film like Caché with that seemed a tad too embarrassing. At least it’s more or less intellectually accepted to love Buffy.)

Don’t expect recaps - that’s what Wikipedia, imdb, TWOP or one of the countless other sites are for. Nor will I engage on a regular basis in thorough analysis, though I can’t promise I won’t get carried away every once in a while. I’ll simple offer a few observations about each episode, and try to look at how single episodes fit into the series as a whole, how they illustrate the concept. That, and I’ll of course remind you of some cool quotes. There will be spoilers, but I think it might be interesting to read even for people who haven’t seen every episode, maybe even for those who’ve never seen the show.

Ok. So here goes: after the jump, the first 8 episodes.

Pushing Daisies

Originally, after hearing the premise of Pushing Daisies, I’d dismissed it as ridiculously high-concept: a guy can bring people back from the dead by touching them, but if he then touches them again they die for good. And if he doesn’t touch them again within exactly 1 minute, someone else in random proximity dies.

There is one positive thing about the strike, however: because there are no more new episodes of my favorite shows, I have the time to go back and watch things I probably wouldn’t have otherwise. And Pushing Daisies, while indeed ridiculously high-concept, is also unbelievably fun.

Californication

“You can’t always get what you want
but if you try sometimes, you might find
You get what you need”

That’s how Californication starts, the ‘heavenly’ into of the song playing over the opening dream sequence in which Hank Moody, our charming protagonist, is offered a blow-job…by a nun. It’s also how Californication ends, and for a few minutes it fools you into thinking the show might actually end with Hank getting not what he wants, but what he needs. As soon as he accepts that conclusion, of course, he gets what he wants, too.