Season 3 reading list:
- Nicomachean Ethics - Aristotle
- The Republic - Plato
- Writings about Socrates (he didn't write anything himself)
- Apology - Plato
- Laws - Plato
- Phaedo - Plato
- Death: The Art of Living - Todd May
- Articles by Pamela Hieronymi (who was an early consultant for the show)
- Beyond Good and Evil - Friedrich Nietzsche
- Basic Writings of Friedrich Nietzsche -Meditationes de prima philosophia (Meditations on First Philosophy) - René Descartes
- Leonine Edition - St. Thomas Aquinas
- The Most Good You Can Do - Peter Singer
- An Essay Concerning Human Understanding - John Locke
- Is Personal Identity What Matters? - Derek Parfit
- Themes, Arguments, and Ideas - David Hume
You can watch the episode here; everything in this post is from The Good Place.
For actor names, see episode 1 recap. Spoilers spoilers spooooooooooooileerrrssssss
After putting myself through a pretty punishing three days of The Good Place recaps, I've decided that after season 3 of TGP ends, I won't write single-episode reviews/recaps for any show that I'm actively invested in/watching with my wife or that's currently on the air.
That basically means I'm going to pick a bunch of trash and recap/live blog that, so get ready for more stuff like Secret Life, which was one of the most popular things I've ever done on this blog so hooray!
I might still write essays on shows I like - I've been working on a B99 piece for a while now - and I might decide to do episode-by-episode recaps of non-trash shows that are either off the air or Netflix/Amazon Prime exclusives, but, let's be real, writing those Secret Life posts was a hell of a lot of fun, and I'm not mad about returning to trash-watching at alllllllllllllll.
If you have tips for fun trash, hit me up! I'm not going to keep going on shows that are wildly offensive (especially not if they're being offensive on purpose, whether "as a joke" or not (let's be real, it's never actually a joke)), but I probably won't abandon shows that make gaffes from time to time.
I'm also working on a bunch of fiction (you can read some and get more exclusive content by supporting my Patreon), so I probably won't post TV stuff more than ~once a week.
That's all! No more news atm. Check back within the next 24 hours for s3e9 of TGP.
Season 3 reading list:
- Nicomachean Ethics - Aristotle
- The Republic - Plato
- Writings about Socrates (he didn't write anything himself)
- Apology - Plato
- Laws - Plato
- Phaedo - Plato
- Death: The Art of Living - Todd May
- Articles by Pamela Hieronymi (who was an early consultant for the show)
- Beyond Good and Evil - Friedrich Nietzsche
- Basic Writings of Friedrich Nietzsche -Meditationes de prima philosophia (Meditations on First Philosophy) - René Descartes
- Leonine Edition - St. Thomas Aquinas
- The Most Good You Can Do - Peter Singer
You can watch the episode here; everything in this post is from The Good Place.
For actor names, see episode 1 recap. Spoilers spoilers spooooooooooooileerrrssssss
Season 3 reading list:
- Nicomachean Ethics - Aristotle
- The Republic - Plato
- Writings about Socrates (he didn't write anything himself)
- Apology - Plato
- Laws - Plato
- Phaedo - Plato
- Death: The Art of Living - Todd May
- Articles by Pamela Hieronymi (who was an early consultant for the show)
- Beyond Good and Evil - Friedrich Nietzsche
- Basic Writings of Friedrich Nietzsche -Meditationes de prima philosophia (Meditations on First Philosophy) - René Descartes (they didn't list a specific work, so I just picked one)
- Leonine Edition - St. Thomas Aquinas
You can watch the episode here; everything in this post is from The Good Place.
For actor names, see episode 1 recap. Spoilers spoilers spooooooooooooileerrrssssss
Season 3 reading list:
- Nicomachean Ethics - Aristotle
- The Republic - Plato
- Writings about Socrates (he didn't write anything himself)
- Apology - Plato
- Laws - Plato
- Phaedo - Plato
- Death: The Art of Living - Todd May
- Articles by Pamela Hieronymi (who was an early consultant for the show)
- Beyond Good and Evil - Friedrich Nietzsche
You can watch the episode here; everything in this post is from The Good Place.
For actor names, see episode 1 recap. Spoilers spoilers spooooooooooooileerrrssssss
Season 3 reading list:
- Nicomachean Ethics - Aristotle
- The Republic - Plato
- Writings about Socrates (he didn't write anything himself)
- Apology - Plato
- Laws - Plato
- Phaedo - Plato
- Death: The Art of Living - Todd May
- Articles by Pamela Hieronymi (who was an early consultant for the show)
- Beyond Good and Evil - Friedrich Nietzsche
You can watch the episode here; everything in this post is from The Good Place.
For actor names, see episode 1 recap. Spoilers spoilers spooooooooooooileerrrssssss
Season 3 reading list:
- Nicomachean Ethics - Aristotle
- The Republic - Plato
- Writings about Socrates (he didn't write anything himself)
- Apology - Plato
- Laws - Plato
- Phaedo - Plato
- Death: The Art of Living - Todd May
- Articles by Pamela Hieronymi (who was an early consultant for the show)
- Beyond Good and Evil - Friedrich Nietzsche
You can watch the episode here; everything in this post is from The Good Place.
For actor names, see episode 1 recap. Spoilers spoilers spooooooooooooileerrrssssss
Season 3 reading list:
- Nicomachean Ethics - Aristotle
- The Republic - Plato
- Writings about Socrates (he didn't write anything himself)
- Apology - Plato
- Laws - Plato
- Phaedo - Plato
- Death: The Art of Living - Todd May
- Articles by Pamela Hieronymi (who was an early consultant for the show)
You can watch the episode here; everything in this post is from The Good Place.
For actor names, see episode 1 recap. Spoilers spoilers spooooooooooooileerrrssssss
Season 3 reading list:
- Nicomachean Ethics - Aristotle
- The Republic - Plato (the book wasn't specifically in the episode, but if we're talking Plato, we're talking The Republic, you know what I mean?)
You can watch the episode here; everything in this post is from The Good Place.
For actor names, see episode 1 recap. Spoilers spoilers spooooooooooooileerrrssssss
I'm still working on season 1 and 2 recaps, but I definitely don't have time to finish them before s03e09 comes out on December 6. I DO (probably) have time to catch up on season 3 before then, so that is what I'm gonna do right now! Season 3 episodes 1-8 are going to just be recaps, no thought experiments, but hopefully once I'm caught up I can dig in a little deeper for the end of the season.
Season 3 reading list: - Nicomachean Ethics - Aristotle
You can watch the episode here; everything in this post is from The Good Place.
As always, spoilers for days. Also, heads up: this is a double-length episode, and therefore this recap is looooooooooooooong.
You may be asking yourself why a show whose pilot was about a ridiculous man-child who sexually harrasses his coworker is one of my absolute favorite shows on TV right now, and probably of all time.
Well, my friends, there are a multitude of reasons. Importantly, even while Jake Peralta was busy being kind of the worst, the writing was on point and very funny, and even more importantly, this character-driven show is a true ensemble show. Everyone, especially Jake, has grown and changed a lot over the five years we've been with them, becoming more and more complex and believable as the years progress. Jake undoubtedly becomes a better person through his sometimes adversarial, always father-figure-y relationship with Captain Raymond Holt and by falling - hard - for Amy Santiago, a woman who no man ever gets over (see: Teddy Wells, Constantine Kane, Jake Peralta, undoubtedly many others from various math camps and sudoku cruises). Close to a third of the core characters are queer, and less than a third are white men.
Also, and I can't overstate the importance of this, this is a cop show that is critical of the police and the prison-industrial complex. The overall attitude of the show is that while, yeah, there may be good cops, there are large, institutional problems, like racial profiling (see: Moo Moo (s4e16), Boyle's Hunch (s3e3)), unlawful arrest (Boyle's Hunch again), and white patriarchy (see: Deputy Commissioner Pedalski, Captain Jason Stentley, the commissioner race in which there are two John Kellys, the Vulture). They also don't hesitate to point out bad cops and the ways in which personal problems can result in bad policework and wasted time/money/everything: the negotiator in The Negotiation (s5e13), again and always the Vulture, CJ, Madeline Wuntch, Jake in 48 Hours (s1e7).
And, honestly, sometimes the criminals are more likable than the cops. The epitome of this is Doug Judy, aka the Pontiac Bandit, who ends up giving Jake a French gray le Creuset as a wedding present. But there are plenty of other examples: Savant (one of two Asian characters in the entire series, if I'm not mistaken - both of whom are hackers (they really need to do better on this)) gets busted for hacking their firewall and ends up being hired as their IT guy, Rosa's Little Brother from Brooklyn Big Brothers gets brought in for stealing a cell phone, Caleb the cannibal who saves Jake's life. People are complicated in the B99 universe.
Sure, there are inconsistencies. One example: Charles Boyle has to give his ex-wife 85% of his salary as per the divorce agreement (Hostage Situation (s3e11)), yet claims a mere two episodes later to have a ton of disposable income when competing with Rosa Diaz for an apartment (The Cruise (s3e13)), even though "the pay is LOL" (The Swedes (s3e9)). But the important things remain the same: the souls of the characters, if not their details, are constant.
One thing that's incredibly important to me is how long-term romantic feelings are handled. In Det. Dave Majors (s2e21), Rosa asks Jake why he told Majors that it was cool for him to ask out Amy, and Jake says that he can't stop other guys from asking her out just because he's too chicken to ask her out himself. In season 1, it's set up in the pilot that Boyle is in love with Rosa. In most shows, if there's a likeable male character who's in love with a female character, the woman will eventually fall for the guy, too. But in the case of Boyle and Rosa, even though he gets shot in the line of duty saving her, she tells him that she's not interested and that he needs to move on AND HE DOES. Boyle and Rosa never get together; they end up becoming good friends (Boyle is one of Rosa's maids of honor in Paranoia (s3e20)), and Boyle even apologizes to her for how much of a creep he was while he was in love with her. That development is incredibly unique in the world of TV.
I've written about one of B99's major problems before - their handling of mental health, including multiple suicide jokes - so I realize it's not a perfect show. But in my opinion, it's very, very close. In every difficult-topics episode, there are moments between the characters affected without anyone else (the many scenes of just Holt and Terry talking about blackness, power, and profiling in Moo Moo, Holt and Rosa's sweet moment (with one of the best lines in the series) in Game Night (s5e10), and I'm going to include Rosa and Amy's convo about being women in the NYPD in Sal's Pizza (s1e9)). I can't stress enough how important that is. Holt and Terry's conversations in Moo Moo are straight up unheard of on any TV, let alone a very popular network show in a prime timeslot.
So I'm extremely stoked for season 6, what may be (and possibly (probably) should be) the capstone of the series. It premiered last night, so go forth and stream, my lovelies!
To catch you up from where we last left off - everything happened, people are married and/or dead and/or dating other peoples' sponsors, and if you can think it, it has probably happened on the show. Also apparently Leo is married again. Because WHY NOT.
And now, to the absolutely absurdly named Hedy's Happy Holiday House, which I kind of hope involves a murder mystery, but looks like it will be Christmas-themed.
Also, I really thought I had skipped a good deal of episodes, but it turns out that there just hadn't been any episodes.
Oh man. Okay. It's actually Christmas. So apparently Hedy's Happy Holiday House is a toy store that Ricky broke into every Christmas while he was in juvie, apparently with the consent of the owners. And now the Chekhovian gun is the mention of "there's no chance we could be arrested, why would we be arrested? The chances of us being arrested aren't even chances." Written in true Secret Life style, with extensive repetition and awkward sentence structure. Ah yes, my friends, we are back.
Oh god. Guys, it's a caper episode. I can't believe this is happening. We're seriously on a caper. I don't even. I can't.
And now Ricky's foster brother guy is giving his pregnant girlfriend a cross necklace. And she's giving him a little music box mechanism that plays that baseball theme thing.
Oh, dammit. Jack isn't dead. He's just in a coma. And now Grace loves him, because of COURSE she loves him once he's in a coma. She's a sucker for a martyrdom situation. Adrian is fighting with Omar next to a coma patient. Clementine is back. Still named Clementine.
Oh man. Actually this is kind of hilarious. Grace keeps asking Jack questions, and they keep showing comatose Jack. I don't know why this is so funny to me. Maybe I am just a bad person.
OH DIP! CLEMENTINE IS GOING TO HEDY'S HAPPY HOLIDAY HOUSE. THE DRAMA. THE DRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAMAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA. Ugh, nevermind, everyone is just going there together.
CAPER CAPER CAPER! They're taking Jack to the toy store. CAAAAAAAAAAPER. POLICE. CAPER. CAPER CAPER POLICE CAPER. And now Clementine's going to make out with the cop. Probably.
Did I mention there's a caper happening?
Good god, this show. Why do I do this to myself? I do this for you, people of the internet. Because for some godawful reason, you keep reading these, just as I keep writing them.
But, I could not finish it. I made it all the way through Liz and Dick. I watched a full ten minutes of 2 Broke Girls on a plane. I have even watched all of Sleepover. Twice. Yet I could not make it through this episode. It made me want to punch myself in the face.
fun fact: this is what you get if you google image search "menzies"
In last week's episode, Menzies, New Girl went on the offensive. By which I mean, the offensive offensive. By which I mean, there was a silent old Asian man who helped Nick reach "zen" and Jess had the most intense PMS of all time.
click gif to go to gif-maker's site
On the one hand, the whole PMS thing was so intensely overblown that it was funny in its absurdity - it seemed more like "this is seriously what people think PMS is for all women, hyuck hyuck hyuck" than "this is seriously what PMS is! Dudes! Am I right! Your girlfriend has totally done this!" So I could get on board with that, especially since there were a few things that happened where I was like, okay, yes, that is hilarious because it is factual to my life, but I will not specify which things because I like to keep things confusing.
On the same side of that hand, one could interpret the whole Nick-old-Asian-guy thing as being a severely over-the-top to the point of satire thing - but I'm not sure that most people would view it that way. I feel like most people in my demographic (i.e., white, raised suburban and middle class) would group this guy, who I'm pretty sure remains nameless throughout the episode, since he only speaks like five words, into a Mr. Miyagi-type category - oh, look, a quietly mystical ethnically Asian man is using his mysterious, Eastern knowledge to help a young white person! Rad!
Look, New Girl, I'm not convinced that you're not smart enough to be doing this in a satirical manner - you've done some really wonderful stereotypes-way-past-the-edge-of-absurdity thing in the past, and I don't doubt that you can do that in the future - I just am also not convinced that this episode was meant to be funny in the pushing-back-at-tropes way, and not in the racist-stereotypes-as-humor way.
I will give you another chance, New Girl, because you have Schmidt, and that is all I really need right now (seriously, Schmidt and Jean-Ralphio and I'm done. DONE, I tell you). Also, you're one of very few shows to have at least two minority characters in your main cast (I'm counting Cece in the main cast, which TVEquals did not, but I think she definitely is a main cast member). I think that, for the most part, you're doing positive things. It's just, when I like a show, I don't want to have to admit to any flaws about it (unless it's Secret Life, in which the entire point is that it is nothing but flaws). I expect more from you, New Girl, and I really think you're capable of it.
Honestly, my thoughts during or after nearly every episode of Battlestar are basically, "GODDAMMIT, BALTAR, YOU HAD ONE JOB. ONE. JOB."
This post is a mess of spoilers for season one of BSG, so if you haven't watched it, I have now warned you about that.
Starbuck just keeps getting more and more hardcore. That whole thing with the alien ship? I was really worried that she was going to be rescued by Lee in something straight out of Dudley Do-Right, where Snidely Whiplash is a Cylon. Yes. I just made that reference. Okay. Moving on. Anyway, Starbuck is the coolest, and keeps on being cool. Pretty much all the time. Except for when she slept with Gaius, because, seriously dude? You can't see the fifty thousand ways in which that is a terrible idea? You don't spend 90% of your interactions with him rolling your eyes? BUT YOU DO THOUGH, WHY DID YOU SLEEP WITH HIM. I guess we have all made mistakes.
Further, I am really upset about everything involving Sharon. First question: can Cylons be pregnant? Because that would suggest that they can age (cellular division, ladies and gentlemen) and we have seen no indications that there are any Cylons outside of like, 28-40. And all of them, even the billion creepy naked Sharon clones, are exactly the same age as all the other ones. So there's no logical reason why, if they don't age, that they should be able to reproduce. Is Caprica-Sharon on pregnancy mode to save her from Helo killing her or something? I'm very confused by the mechanics of this.
Also, my reaction to the end of the last episode of the season, where Sharon shoots Adama, was much more like SHAAAARON NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO than it was ADAMA NOOOOOOOOOOOO because I assume Adama's gonna make it through this but I don't think Sharon will. I guess Caprica-Sharon will? Because nobody there knows that she just tried to kill the commander. BUT WHAT ABOUT THE BABY THAT MAY OR MAY NOT BE GENETICALLY FEASIBLE?!?!
Anywho. There's a hurricane approaching New York, so I'm going to find all of my candles and whatnot. Eventually I'm going to write a post about religion in BSG, because it's pretty interesting. But I'll need to actually think that one out, unlike pretty much literally every other post I've ever written.
I just watched the first three episodes of Elementary, and I recently finished the second season of Sherlock, so obviously I feel the need to think about them in concert.
First, and most obviously, the casting. Sherlock went the uber-traditional route - Watson is a former military doctor, Sherlock lacks any understanding of social cues. Watson treats Holmes with a certain familiar affection, viewing him as someone he needs to care for and keep from danger; to the extent that Holmes can feel anything approaching love for another person, it is for Watson, with some sentimentality spilled over to Mrs. Hudson (and the lovelorn lab scientist, but that's neither here nor there). Both are British, both are handsome.
Whereas Elementary went what I will call the American casting route, also reflected in the Robert Downey Jr. franchise - Sherlock Holmes is an unrepentant asshole. He's presented less as a possibly autistic person and more as someone who has made decisions to make them the person they are (bootstraps! huzzah!). He's had some sort of romantic mishap of epic proportions that caused him to turn to drugs (a point both more and less accurate than the British version, where Sherlock is merely a cigarette smoker trying to quit - Holmes is an active opium and heroin user throughout many of the books, with Watson working overtime to try and break him of the habits, but he also never has any romantic relationship, except maybe Watson). The Watson in this case is Lucy Liu, as you've probably read about in someone's angry rant about how they can't believe a WOMAN is playing WATSON, that's just BLASPHEMY, and it's NONSENSE, except for the part that Liu's Watson is far more loyal to canon than the show's Holmes. She's a former surgeon with guilt associated with her practice of medicine (the book Watson from his military service, Liu's from the death of a patient on her operating table, apparently from malpractice). She's explicitly trying to keep Holmes off of drugs, and her sass is both entertaining to watch and quite loyal to the banter-based relationship in the books.
I think both avenues have their merits - going the traditional route gives a certain sense of comfort to the literary nerds who undoubtedly have entire chat boards dedicated to non-canonical items in the episodes (and goodness knows that if I were the sort of person to get into chat boards, I would probably be doing that), but the American casting (dammit, I should've gone with English and Western so it would be like riding saddles) gives a bit more freedom to play with the basic concept without having to stick so closely to the established concepts. Neither Watson gives too much credit to their Holmes, always recognizing that Holmes needs an abnormal amount of care, despite being a genius. If I were to pick a Holmes, though, I'm team Cumberbatch all the way. The American Holmes (who, ironically? is British) is a bit too involved with other humans, especially since he was introduced post-coitus, more or less. That is just ridiculous.
Next point: the stories! Something I've loved about Sherlock is that they use the stories provided in the canon and simply modify them for the modern setting. For instance, in the Hound of the Baskervilles episode, there is some crazy genetic testing stuff happening that nicely dovetails with the concept of a hellhound roaming the moors (and there's also a brilliant bit with an opportunistic tour guide that I really loved). In a way, again, there is a lot of freedom to explore within the bounds of a known story (as we've seen with the recent explosion of fairy tale remakes), and I think that Sherlock has really used the canon to great advantage WITH ONE CRITICAL EXCEPTION that I will get to at the end because it's not really related to the compare-and-contrast.
Elementary has decided to go the American true-crime-procedural route, down to the expected reveals at certain times. I suppose that this, too, allows a certain freedom of experimentation within a set frame, just that the frame is markedly different. The cases don't really bear a resemblance to the ones in the books, as far as I remember - the random serial killer is not a trope (as it were) that really shows up in the Sherlock Holmes canon (feel free to correct me if I'm wrong (but A Study in Scarlet involves methodically killing a certain group of people for a certain purpose, not choosing unrelated victims for the sole purpose of murder, so that doesn't count)). The cases feel more like Law and Order than Sherlock Holmes, and Holmes ends up feeling more like Stabler than a mildly sociopathic genius/probable lunatic. I guess you could argue that the serial killer, the Balloon Man, from the third episode could turn into a recurring "problem" and therefore could count as an early introduction of a Moriarty type. Though the name isn't even kind of close, and so I'm inclined to think that he's not it. If they even go the Moriarty route. Which is debatable.
ANYWAY. My third thought is the memorialization of the cases. In the books, Watson publishes pamphlets or something about Holmes, talking about their adventures in a "romantic" style, derided by Holmes as ridiculous. I think it's an important element to consider when making a follow-on product, because Watson is the narrator of the books and, to put it simply, the books wouldn't exist without Watson writing them.
This is handled beautifully in Sherlock by Watson's keeping a blog of their exploits. It's in the parlance of our times, it logically follows as what would be the pamphlet equivalent (had this show been staged in the '90s, I would hope that Watson would create a Sherlock 'zine using the library's Xerox), and also, it allows for some really fantastic typography on the screen. Sherlock is interesting because it utilizes modern technology in a logical way - text messages, blogs, even a bit about smartphones - and it also doesn't pretend that the way people text is to immediately read the text out loud upon receiving it. There is an excellent use of subtitles. It's delightful. You should see it. The only thing that beats it (that I've seen) is Night Watch, which has legitimately amazing subtitles that actually add to the understanding and concept of the film.
Sorry, I couldn't resist throwing in the trailer here. It doesn't even show the subtitles. I don't know. I'm sorry. This got nonsensical really quickly. But like, imagine with how cool this is, where like, when a character yells "NO NO NO" each NO is bigger than the last and seems to match the volume of the yell? Whatever it's rad, go watch that movie. I can't find it streaming. If you really trust me and love weird beautiful horror films, here's the first two films of the trilogy (of which the third does not yet exist) --> DAY WATCH/NIGHT WATCH (DVD) [2 DISCS] (Google Affiliate Ad)
ANYWAY BACK TO THE SHERLOCKS.
In Elementary, the only way I can see that they could say that any of this is getting written down is that either they haven't brought it up yet, which, okay, I guess, or that Watson is reporting each case to Holmes's father, which just seems ridiculous to me. You can't tell a random civilian that much about a police investigation, even if he is related to a detective. So in this regard, the win definitely goes to Sherlock, by about a mile.
Now, not as a comparison, because Elementary has only had three episodes, and MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD for Sherlock and/or the books:
I was really pissed at the way they killed Holmes in the show.
If you're not familiar with the history of the books, what happened is actually kind of hilarious. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, after writing about a billion Sherlock Holmes stories, was really sick of it. He wanted to move on to other projects, but his adoring public wouldn't leave him the hell alone. So what does he do?
He sends Holmes off of a cliff.
Seriously. He didn't intend to bring him back, either. It was supposed to be a quick, dramatic ending to one of literature's greatest detectives.
Except for that the adoring public wouldn't let Sherlock die. This was the birth of modern fanfiction, and of people calling things "canon" in literature to mean "in the proper understanding of the thing," as in, this is not fan-fiction, this is for realsies. Other people started writing and publishing Sherlock Holmes stories in their own pamphlets, not unlike John Watson. But it wasn't what Doyle wanted to happen to Holmes! This was his character, and all these people were trying to throw in their weird, possibly ridiculous cases (and if you've ever read fanfics, you can probably guess what proportion of them were ridiculous and useless and canon-breaking). So, finally, a few years after he'd killed him off, Doyle had to write it all off as another clever ruse by Sherlock Holmes, Clever Thing-Doer Extraordinaire.
I can see how we're to the same point in Sherlock - the whole point of season 2 was that Holmes was becoming too notorious and recognizable to be as effective as he had been previously, and when he comes back to life in the books, he gives this as his reasoning to Watson - that all, including Watson, had to believe he was dead in order for him to be able to take down the criminal geniuses of the European continent. That's fine, I can see that, they made a point of making it obvious that he was becoming more of a household face.
The issue I take with it is that, in the books, Holmes fell, but nobody saw him land anywhere - he fell, rather dramatically, into some mist - and there was no body to be found. In Sherlock, he jumps off of a building in broad daylight and quite obviously is bleeding and dented on the street and looking quite dead. This would be a conspiracy that would require probably multiple people knowing about it, because it's just not as easy to be certifiably dead now as it was in the late 1800s, and if there's anything Sherlock Holmes doesn't do, it's involve multiple people in anything. Especially if he can't involve Watson (which clearly he can't, as they are publicly viewed as probably being in love and Watson is, in all iterations, not a good enough actor to pull off that kind of scam, probably because he has a soul).
Alright, that's my exceedingly long commentary on those two shows, mushed together. I didn't even throw in any of the non-obvious Sherlock Holmes shows, like (definitely) House or (arguably) Psych or Lie to Me, or even Endgame. Putting House in there would make it a very tight contest for best representation of the Holmes/Watson (House/Wilson) relationship, as on House, he does an awfully good job of sabotaging a lot of Wilson's relationships, which Holmes definitely does to a certain extent - OKAY I NEED TO STOP TALKING ABOUT THIS, JESUS CHRIST.
I should've been an English major, and I should've written about contemporary models of Holmes/Watson dynamics. I would've gotten like a 4.5 GPA instead of *mumbles incoherently*.
A priest has taken over Mystic Falls, and he seems incredibly evil. He's taking down all of the mystical beings by force. Someone needs to eat him. I really dislike him strongly.
Elena is turning into a vampire. OR IS SHE? Well, probably she is. And whatever happens, she'll know HOW MUCH DAMON LOVES HER. WHICH IS SO MUCH. OH MY GOD HE LOVES HER SO HARD. UGHHHHHHHH MY FEEEEELINNNGGSSSSSSSS
Incidentally, this show is what turned me to Tumblr in the first place. I needed somewhere where everyone could understand how intensely strong my feelings were about a television show. Illogically strong, one might say. But not Tumblr. Oh, no. Tumblr is there for me with gifs out the ears.
Anyway.
In the season opener, Bonnie's self-sacrifice takes a very insane turn as she decides to pull an Orpheus and bring half (or something) of Elena's spirit back from the dead. What? Why. I don't know. All I know is that pretty much every character on this show is completely determined to kill themselves for the possibility of saving someone else. I'm pretty sure literally every character has attempted to sacrifice themselves. Elena does it so often that it turned into a joke made by Damon at some point, though of course now I can't find it anywhere.
BUT OF COURSE in grand Vampire Diaries tradition, it only ends in something terrible happening to Bonnie('s grandmother, who was already dead? She maybe sort of like killed her soul? Seems bad.). Bonnie just keeps getting screwed royally by this show.
So does Damon, kinda. And Jeremy. And Caroline. All to lesser extents than Bonnie, who arguably has had the worst things happen to her, but this show does love abusing its characters.
ALSO IF ELENA STAYS WITH DAMON FOREVER I SWEAR TO GOD I WILL THROW MY TELEVISION OUT A WINDOW.
PS, I knew that the Pastor was bad news, and now he's killed everyone. Or something. OH GOD ARE THERE GONNA BE GHOSTS, IS THAT WHAT WE'RE DOING THIS SEASON, IS GHOSTS, AGAIN. NOOOO.
PPS, I love Caroline. Awesome right hook, girl. Get it.
I'm going to try a new thing where I give a bunch of shows I've been watching mini-reviews, all in one post. ENJOY IT.
i'm making all of the images link back to the show page, hopefully
Guys with Kids has gone to safe gender stereotypes for the most recent episode, with Marny desperately wanting a girl so she can treat her like a doll. It's still fun? I still really like the friendships? I kind of think this show has potential? Make your own choices here. I really can't tell you what to do.
If you're looking for a fun, occasionally offensive teen show, Awkward. has been an enjoyable run. I identify a little too strongly with Jenna, especially in the most recent episode, The Other Shoe, where she can't be happy because she's convinced that something has to go wrong. Oh, Jenna. Stop being someone I can identify with really strongly. Or a human Daria.
CASTLE IS BACK AND ALL IS GOOD IN THE WORLD AND JUST EVERYBODY HUG EVERYONE BECAUSE THANK YOU UNIVERSE YOU ARE THE BEST AND YAY AND LOVE AND YAYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY [<--- Castle/Beckett dating becoming canon]
Speaking of things that are back and g.d. amazing, Scandal is finally back on the air and I have to say, Shonda Rhimes, I love you. You are killing it. The story of a genius political savior, sweeping problems so far under the rug that in a few cases both the problem and rug cease to exist, made a strong second-season opener with QUITE the plot twist. Who is Olivia Pope, really, and why does she do what she does? I DON'T KNOW but I definitely need to. You should be watching this show. Go watch it. Watch the whole thing. I don't care if you have other things to do. This show needs you and you need it.
Parks and Rec is having a sort of slow start, but the cast is still as solid as ever, so there's always the pull of April, Tom and Donna. I mean, everyone on that show is awesome, but those three are probably my favorites. Except for Jean-Ralphio. But then, he's basically my favorite human. I don't care that he's a fictional character. He's still my favorite human.
You know what you should give a chance this season? Cougar Town. Abed (Community) was totally not wrong when he named it his favorite show and one of the best comedies that nobody's watching. I tried the pilot when it first came out, I think, and wasn't impressed, but I got pulled back in after Danny Pudi made a guest appearance as Abed-being-a-walk-on-extra. It's probably the best crossover joke I have ever seen.
This actually should give you a good sense of the level of seriousness with which the show takes itself (hint: next to none) and the wackballs comedy they go for. There's also a great episode in which Jules reels from the tragic demise of one of her best friends, Big Joe.
Shockingly, Glee is not sucking this season. It's had sort of a return to form this season, with Rachel and Kurt going to college and Rachel becoming... likable.... and someone I would be friends with... and a lot more self-aware and less self-important. It confuses me. I'm mad though, because while they're being pretty accurate about what happens to high school relationships when you go to college, that means that Brittany and Santana are probably going to break up, and I might cry if/when that happens. Do not judge me.
We are only 18 days from the next season of Happy Endings. Praise be to blog.
New Girl is dancing dangerously close to having Nick and Jess hook up, and I can't decide if the writers over there are good enough to pull off satisfying one of the big sources of tension on the show, a la Logan and Veronica, or Castle and Beckett, or if it will go more the route of Jim and Pam, where once the main tension is relieved, they aren't really sure what to do and the show shrinks rapidly without the elephant in the room. I have high hopes for it, largely because it's an ensemble cast (as are pretty much all of the shows I'm into right now. Take notes, Hollywood), and it's succeeded with some very weird or lame episode premises so far.
you don't get a picture, The New Normal, because you're awful. Everybody go watch Community instead.
I tried with The New Normal, and I really wanted to like it, but you know what, trying to make me laugh at hilarious racist jokes (/sarcasm) is just not happening. My roommate and I tried to watch the third or so episode together, and about 7 minutes in, she was saying, "Are we really watching this? Are you serious?" and I was saying, "I really wanted this to be good" in a plaintive tone. At about 10-11 minutes in, I had to turn it off. It's really terrible. It's pretty much the worst show. Here's the thing: you can have a show that highlights how awful someone is that is good (fans of the British version of the Office know this), but you can't have a show that tries to make someone relatable through their awfulness (as in, "Oh man! You and I just told the same terrible racist joke at the same racist time! Cue the cute smiles and heartwarmy music sounds!" <--- THIS ACTUALLY HAPPENED ON THE NEW NORMAL). It's terrible. Don't waste your time. There are plenty of other shows that have gay characters that you should give your time to over this one.
I've also been watching Go On, and it's actually wonderful. You should watch it. Trust me on this one. It manages to be sweet and lesson-y without being saccharine and preachy, which is impressive. This is an example of like, self-involved-semi-terrible-person-making-for-good-TV. Matthew Perry is both as egotistical as you would want him to be and as emotionally damaged as anyone could hope for, and his group therapy group is full of weirdos, and you know what, I don't know, just go watch it. If you're sorry, I'll give you half an hour of your life back by making you quit smoking or something. There you go.
Good god. This isn't even all of the TV I've watched this week. If you need me, I'll be checking myself into TV rehab.
In case you weren't aware, ephebophilia is the word of the year over at ABC Family. And in case you didn't know what ephebophilia was until today, it is the technical name for being attracted to just-barely-post-pubescent (15-19 year old) persons. Not that this is some bizarre development - we've all seen ads for "BARELY LEGAL" and "SHE'S JUST 18" when walking the strip in Vegas and being assaulted by those guys with the weird porn cards, or by super aggressive popups (thanks be to popup blockers) with girls with pigtails and schoolgirl uniforms biting their fingers laciviously. Nobody is unaware of the sheer amount of porn, erotica, and creepy Halloween costumes dedicated to this concept.
The problem is that ABC Family is taking this whole thing to a very romantic place. And it's creeping me out.
First, and longest-lasting-uncomfortable-relationship-on-TV-ever, are the "star-crossed" Aria and Ezra on Pretty Little Liars. Don't get me wrong - PLL is one of my favorite shows, and I've brought many a friend onto that boat. My sister and I talk about it endlessly. But Ezra was Aria's teacher when they started dating (we'll cover origin stories in a moment), and though young for a teacher, he was probably in the 25+ range. I'm sure they decided that he's actually just 23 and so it's totally not weird for him to be dating a 16-year old girl. I'm sure.
Second, and in the WTF-WHY-IS-THIS-HAPPENING-I-THOUGHT-WE-HAD-RESOLVED-THIS category, is a brand new development on my dear, darling Switched at Birth. It's a great show that involves deaf culture more gracefully and extensively than pretty much any other show... maybe ever. It often has bonkers plotlines that I love (Bay and her brother's significant others cheating on them with each other, the whole switched at birth situation, Emmett's dad's drunk pot-smoking girlfriend, Bay's brother's ex-girlfriend being an alcoholic... the list goes on), but today it took one too far, that I had hoped was already resolved - Daphne made out with her boss, who, at my most conservative estimate, is probably 28 - to Daphne's MAYBE 17.
Now, don't get me wrong. I know that sometimes, age ain't nothin' but a number, and I have known some relationships that started in very awkward age-differences that were largely successful, AND I understand that men these days seem to be getting less and less mature and sometimes it seems like sixteen-year old girls DO have equivalent maturity levels to male 20-somethings - I understand that all - having two separate plotlines on two separate shows, concurrently, where the attraction between a full-grown adult man and a teenage girl being too much to resist sort of seems like approval. Maybe even encouragement. Especially when you consider that those aren't the only age-disparate plotlines on that network (or even those shows).
Look, I remember being in high school. I remember having crushes on people who were inappropriately older than me. I get that. I get that maybe writers are trying to live out some kind of thing that they wish had happened when they were a teenager. I don't know. Maybe they're creepy old dudes who wish they could be banging teenagers. I really don't know.
What I do know is that it's creeping me out. No matter how mature a sixteen-year old girl acts, she's still sixteen! She's still at an age where her brain is forming (yes, literally), where her hormones are still settling into some sort of coherent mess, and where she probably has never really been in love or had her heart well and truly broken before. How are you going to go in there, with your years of dating experience, and having loved and lost, and having a goddamn fully formed brain, and be like, yeah, no, there's no weird power dynamic here. There's no strange, uncomfortable difference in experience and the extent to which this relationship will impact our day-to-day lives. (Spoiler: remember Romeo and Juliet? Relationships were substantially more dramatic when we were in our teens.)
The part that maybe gets to me the most, though, is the introduction these storylines have all had. With the possible exception of Wren, the medical student who can't stop hitting on 16-year old girls of Pretty Little Liars, all of the men were tricked by the girls about their ages. Aria and Ezra met in a bar, which pretty well implies age. Chef Jeff (I know) didn't bother to look at Daphne's resume because she was foisted upon him by family connections and so assumed she was a college student, what with the crazy hours she was pulling at the restaurant. The message here is that the men weren't at fault, because they were in some manner seduced by these young women who hid their ages.
Dear ABC Family, WHAT THE HELL KIND OF MESSAGE ARE YOU SENDING TO BOTH SIXTEEN YEAR OLD GIRLS AND THE LATE-TWENTIES-EARLY-THIRTIES MEN THAT APPARENTLY CAN'T KEEP THEIR HANDS OFF OF THEM? At least Nabokov made Lolita so young that even while in the perverse mind of Humbert Humbert, you knew he was doing something wrong. The girls in these shows are well-written, interesting characters, who are in fact smart and mature for their ages, and some part of me wanted to root for Daphne and Chef, and even Wren and his succession of 16-year olds. What kind of message would that have sent 16-year old me?
"Yeah, baby version of me, it's totally normal for this man who is 8-10 (or more) years your senior to be interested in you! There's nothing weird about this at all! He's definitely completely socially functional and not at all a creep for hanging around the high school looking to pick up chicks."
Guys. This is not normal, ABC Family. A mentally stable, emotionally healthy guy who falls in love with someone in a completely different developmental stage than him is definitely possible, but it's a crazy unlikely exception to the rule. Stop making it seem like the rule.
Or else expect more of this in the future.
[if you don't go to the link, it's about what it means in the Twilight series when Jacob, an 18-year old man, "imprints" on a newborn baby girl, which means he will marry her. No way to write that as not creepy.]
THIS IS THE SHOW I AM TALKING ABOUT. LET US BE CLEAR ABOUT THAT. THIS SHOW THAT WAS ADVERTISED AS BUFFOONERY AND DOPEY DADS.
I ENJOYED IT.
I KNOW.
I. KNOW.
Okay, gonna stop with the caps now.
So here's the thing. This show did open with three men in a bar with their babies watching the game. LOL OMG THEY'RE DUDES. LOL BABIES. And I was kinda like, why am I watching this.
And then there was the introduction of the (hot) harpy ex-wife. And again, I was kinda like, what am I doing.
But then, you've got Anthony Anderson playing a stay-at-home father of four, whose wife, Tempestt Bledsoe, works long hours, and the both of them basically have been driven completely insane by their kids (which, let's be real, accurate. Nobody has four kids and makes it out unscathed). You've got Zach Cregger being a lawyer or something with a wife (Jamie-Lynn Sigler) who he really loves and they're really cute together and just awwwwwwwwww. She's a stay-at-home mom and she and Anthony Anderson relate really well about the difficulties of being a stay-at-home parent. And then it's JESSE BRADFORD. Remember Jesse Bradford? I loved him in Bring It On. I did. I loved him. Anyway, the whole first episode is about him sort of freeing himself from his ex-wife, which, okay, I feel mildly weirded out by that, but then in the end he's like, we need to do what's best for our baby, even if we don't love each other any more, and you're like, okay, this is not the worst.
SO BASICALLY what I'm saying is that this show had some genuinely funny moments in this pilot episode, and was weirdly relatable, and there were very few things that made me feel like there were a bunch of sexists on the writing staff going for the cheap laughs, which is kind of shocking in a way. Especially since this show was marketed, very aggressively, as a dopey-dads-learning-from-their-wonderful-kids show (which would maybe be able to last like five episodes). I was really expecting this to be just a huge mess.
So, I guess what I'm saying is that my expectations were incredibly low and it exceeded those expectations admirably. But since that's basically saying that it's not Two and a Half Men...
Check it out and tell me what you think, because at this point I really just have no idea what I thought. Tell me how I feel, my loves.
