Shows That I Love (or Loved) and Why
I really do enjoy television, when it's done right. We've all got those shows that we just really connect with. Here's a number of them (some that aren't around anymore...and some that weren't around very long at all) that I've embraced enough to claim them as "my shows".
Band of Brothers
Okay, so technically, it's a mini-series, not an actual show, but I'd be remiss if I didn't add probably one of best things ever to hit TV to my list. I was a huge fan of Saving Private Ryan (one of my favorite movies ever), and when I first saw the promo ads for this thing, it looked to be Private Ryan: The Series, so I was all over it. What I didn't know when the ads started, months before its premiere, was that America would face 9-11 before it began. Which meant that it couldn't have come at a better time for America.
Start to finish, it was amazing. A 10-hour epic, the story of Easy Company. It had several actors I knew (Ron Livingston from Swingers, Donnie Walberg, and an unforgettable performance from David Schwimmer as the captain you loved to hate), but even more that I'd never heard of that startled me and made me their fans (like Damian Lewis and Neal McDonough). It was a fitting tribute to the men that fought the great war, and reminded us, at a time when we needed it most, of the greatness of America. It's still one of the best things in my DVD collection, and will be watched over and over for years to come.
Battlestar Galactica
I was a big fan of the original Battlestar Galactica when I was a kid. Why? Because I was a KID. It was corny, it used the same effects shots over and over, but darn it, I was a kid, and it was the 70s (when pretty much all sci-fi was corny), and I dug it. So it’s always held fond place in my heart. And when I heard that someone (after a protracted legal battle) was finally getting around to remaking it, I thought of all kinds of way that they might screw it up, creating something totally laughable, and kill the franchise for good (not that it had been that lively after being gone twenty-five years). I expected the worst.
I wasn’t expecting this.
You might have been one of the people who didn’t give much thought to the new show, and might have done a double-take when you saw TV Guide declare it to be “The Best Show on Television”. Wait, what? We’re talking about Battlestar Galactica, right? Cylons? Silly, made-up curse words? That annoying kid (the precursor, in some ways, of the later-to-be-annoying Wesley Crusher) and his robot dog? I’m here to tell you – TV Guide was right.
The creators of this remake did something that I, as a fan of science fiction, could kiss them for. They actually sat down and asked the question, “What if we took it seriously?” This is so rarely asked in the genre, particularly in television. They took the premise of the original show – of a lost branch of humanity off in space getting its planet(s) wiped out and fleeing through space, and from their robotic attackers, in search of a fabled lost colony called Earth – and took it seriously. They made a show that was dark and raw, painful and insightful, action-filled yet quietly haunting. It became a show not about a war or a journey though the stars, but one about humanity, and what being human means. They explored religion, politics, war, family…and not in the preachy, squeaky-clean simplicities of the Trek franchise. They showed us humanity at its worst, and at its best, and asked questions that made us uncomfortable, and yet unable to ignore. They made characters that we believed, and drama we could feel. The mini-series that began this new journey was a fine start, but it wasn’t until the first regular episode, one called “33”, when they set the tone for what we could expect, and they never let up. An amazing journey, and a landmark in television, the new Galactica is an experience not to be missed.
And man, if someone had told me as a teen that one day I’d dream of slipping into a hot tub with Starbuck and Boomer…
Boomtown
Oh, I have such an uncanny knack for falling in love with shows that get the ax. At least this one made it a whole season and change. Better than some of my other faves...
This had been on for a few episodes, and my friend Kevin, knowing what a fan of TV dramas like Homicide and Third Watch I was, kept telling me to try it. One weekend, Bravo ended up showing a marathon of the episodes aired on NBC thus far. I tried it out, and I was hooked from pilot, hard. At a time when I was trying to actually cut down on my TV watching, there was another hour a week lost...but given up happily.
While it looked like just another NBC police-type drama (though one involving police, detectives, a paramedic, a D.A. and a reporter as the main characters), it set itself apart with a fresh and addictive story-telling style, jumping back and forth in each episode through both time and character perspectives. Each character would have a different piece of the puzzle in what they saw, and we'd get it bit by bit until it all made sense in the end. And the characters were fantastic. I had just finished discovering Donnie Walberg as an actor in Band of Brothers, and he really impressed me in this...as did his BoB co-star Neal McDonough as a D.A. on the edge. All the character got a chance to shine (except the paramedic...they rarely ever used the poor girl, and she really got lost in the shuffled of this ensemble show), and the performances and story-telling were really impressive. I was locked on this one, but, unfortunately, when they managed to get renewed for a second season, they changed formats for no reason I can see and dropped their signature perspective/time-shift standard, and its uniqueness faded...and apparently pretty fast, because it got the noose barely into season 2. I was saddened and thought I'd never see any of it again, but one day when I was cruising through Best Buy I was shocked to not only find out the first season was on DVD, but it was out already! I'm usually more on the ball with that kind of news, but in this case, I loved getting the complete (and giddy) surprise. So I've got that amazing first season, at least, to go back to and enjoy through the years. And I'm sure I will.
Buffy/Angel
I remember, during the early part of the sixth season of Buffy, talking to someone at work about the previous night’s episode, the much-talked-about “Buffy, the Musical”. A guy at a desk nearby heard the mention of the show, snorted in a superior kind of way, and remarked, “Uh, aren’t we all out of junior high now?”
Sad to say, this was my initial impression of “Buffy the Vampire Slayer”, and the reason why I didn’t get around to trying it the first couple of seasons, regardless of how many friends of mine were talking about it. I mean, the title alone did it…but you add to it the fact that it was a show based on a crappy movie? Didn’t really see the appeal. But finally, after enough of the right people wouldn’t shut up about it, I decide to do something I NEVER do these days, which was jump into a show in the middle of it…in this case, the start of season three. And this ended up being one of the best entertainment choices I ever made.
The concept of Buffy is so simple and brilliant. The show’s creator, Joss Whedon (perhaps my biggest creative hero in my life), was watching some horror film where a young girl was being chased by some monster or demon, and kind of felt bad for her, and wondered, “Wouldn’t it be great if the girl just turned around and started kicking the monster’s ass?” Joss created a world – set in the real world – where vampires, werewolves, demons, witches and the like exist (it’s just not common knowledge), and the idea that there’s a secret society set up to fight the darkness. But the one who actually does the fighting is a girl, and there’s only one each generation. In this one, it turned out to be a wannabe cheerleader named Buffy Summers, someone who discovers her destiny in high school and initially wants nothing to do with it. But destiny has a way of tracking you down. The high school aspect of it was the brilliance. Joss used high school as the metaphor for all of this, which is appropriate as it’s the place where most of us faced our greatest horrors. He gave her a supporting cast of unforgettable and lovable characters to help her out in this, someone to guide her (her “watcher”), and a love interest in a suave good vampire with a soul named Angel.
But Joss did more than create a fantasy adventure show. There are actual college classes taught on the influence of Buffy on pop culture, and on television as a whole. Witty, insightful, heartbreaking, hilarious and epic, Buffy created a mythos that drew so many in, including me, once I pulled my head out of my preconceptions. It became the best night of TV of the week. And it really solidified that when it spun off.
Enter Angel. Joss felt the character of Angel was well-suited for his own show, and he did this at the start of Buffy’s fourth season, when I was irreversibly hooked, so I couldn’t wait to see what he’d do with it. Angel became an amazing show in its own right, exploring bigger themes than those allowable within the confines of Sunnydale (the hometown of the Buffy show). A couple of the other supporting characters came over with Angel, and what ensued was a fantastic show about redemption and humanity, about loss and perseverance in the face of darkness, and ultimately about hope. With both shows, Joss gave us grand stories and amazing characters, and ended both in his own (often infuriating but ultimately admirable) style. I own every episode of each on DVD, and could jump in for a marathon of either anytime.
Ed
In one of my rare moments of from-the-start TV wisdom, I listened to the critics that were tagging “Ed”, the upcoming hour-long comedy series on NBC, as the best show of the season. The ads sucked me in, and I was there for the pilot. And after that, there was no turning back. I’d found one of my favorite TV shows of all time.
“Ed” was the story of a New York lawyer who, after a divorce, decided to return to his hometown of Stuckeyville and pursue the one who got away, the girl if his dreams in high school. He ended up buying a bowling alley and setting up a law practice within it (in addition to the bowling part of the business). He hooked back up with his high school best pal, Mike (now a doctor) and starting to get his life back, and to pursue his dream. Stuckeyville ended up populated with wonderful and hilarious characters, major and minor, and set out to answer the question of whether we can ever go home again, and whether it’s ever to late to start our lives over.
“Ed” did something amazing to me – it actually ended every episode with me feeling good. We watch TV shows for a lot of reasons, from laughs to action to drama, but how many of them actually make you feel GOOD? “Ed” did it. It took what could have been a simple nice-guy-finishing-last concept and made it something special, something hopeful, something that made viewers feel great about life and all the people in it. That the show ended was a sad thing, but the greatest crime is that NBC, as of this writing, has yet to release it on DVD due to legal issues over the music rights and other things. I, for one, miss Stuckeyville with all my heart, and want it back in my life. If you missed it the first time, and if NBC ever gets their act together and releases the series for us, I hope you get a chance to have it in yours.
ER
I don't usually give up on shows once I've gotten into them (as painful as it sometimes is when shows hang on longer than they should have and fall apart before your eyes), but this is one I did. I watched the pilot when it premiered and I was still living in Arizona, and my love of medical dramas (from my early days with St. Elsewhere) coupled with the amazing writing kept me hooked. Back in Sacramento, I got my then-roomate Aaron hooked, and we'd watch it every Thursday night without fail. Aaron finally grew tired of it when major characters started to leave, and I held on for a while after. But as I tried to tone down my TV watching and concentrate more of my evenings on writing and web design, I had to let ER go. I tried to tune in once a while after that, but it was a different show by then, not my show anymore. But for the time I was with it, I loved every episode, every character, every week.
This still stands as consistently one of the best-written and produced shows in television history. I don't think I've ever seen such a great streak. And I probably don't have to tell you. Based on the ratings, you probably watched at one time or another yourself. It's nice to see a show actually live up to its hype and its ratings. Some of my favorite TV characters of all time came from this show. I've finally started buying the seasons on DVD, and rewatching the first couple really reminded me of why I loved it so much the first time around. Hopefully, as time goes by, I'll keep buying them, and will finally get around to seeing the seasons I missed and following it through to the end. It deserves a second chance for all the great watching it brought me over the years.
Firefly
Through Buffy and Angel, I had become a dedicated Joss Whedon fan. So when I caught the TV Guide Fall Preview Issue and saw that he was doing a totally new show, and one set in space (I dig space), it was a given that I’d be checking it out. Though I wasn’t quite sure what to expect. It was being described as…a western in space? That made a lot of people scratch their heads. For me, it was a selling point. So when its premiere came along, while I was living in San Diego, I and my like-minded buddies gave it a go, never realizing that this show called Firefly would become a major part of our identities, and would take us on a journey of heartache and hope, despair and triumph, and turn us – none of us being big joiners who ever identified ourselves with any kind of fandom group – into Browncoats. Browncoats for life.
It turns out this new Joss show was something so unique, so brilliantly written, so packed with embraceable characters (the opening credits alone showed you that you were stepping into a show with nine main characters) and such a perfect mix of action, comedy, drama and thrills that we became obsessed with it – and most of the rest of the country, and its own network, Fox, ignored it. There were network issues from the beginning. As we came to find out, there was a two-hour pilot for it that we hadn’t been shown. The network decided after seeing it that they wanted a one-hour pilot instead, and only gave Joss one weekend to write a new script if the show deal was going to happen (which he did). So not only did the show start right off in the middle of the story, with none of the character and world backstory that were contained in the real pilot, but Fox then immediately started showing the episodes out of order – and pre-empting them. We didn’t care. We could see the bigger picture and love it for what it was, and we loved it more with each new week…but it was a tragic love story, too, because we also followed the ongoing news about its sagging ratings, via the internet, between episodes. Things weren’t looking good.
We would get together at our pal Russ’s house every Friday night, barbecue some dinner, watch the new episode, and then sit out on Russ’s back patio with beers and cigars afterward, talking about the episode, the details of the show’s world and its characters and possibilities of where the story was going, and discuss the current state of its survival. We weren’t alone, we found out (though the network seemed to think so). All across the internet, people were raving about the show, forming up online (and live) fan groups, and trying everything they could to save the show. This rag-tag group of fans came to be called Browncoats (a name, in the show, for the losing side of the big civil war that had taken place in the show’s background, a side several of the main characters fought on).
But with letter-writing campaigns and other save-our-show plans really just getting started, Fox finally dropped the bomb, and we found out that our show was being cancelled. In what was the final insult, the very last thing shown of Firefly on Fox was the missing two-hour pilot – which turned out to be remarkable, and explained so many things that could have held non-fanatical and confused watchers. We were heartbroken in a way none of us expected. We dug our TV shows and all, but as I said, none of us were obsessive about them in Trekkie kinds of ways. But this show had become part of us. We were really devastated. Thought not quite as much as Joss Whedon, it turns out.
Joss refused to let his show go. He began shopping it around to other networks, even as us fans grew more organized, and more people started discovering it via the then-new medium of internet video downloads. There were no takers, though we did our part to help, sending postcards and emails to networks that Joss was trying to sell to. It didn’t find a new home, but the unexpected announcement did come that the show was going to be released on DVD by Fox, in a set including the three unaired episodes. Taking whatever we could get, we were ecstatic about this, and when the set came out, all four of our San Diego group bought our own sets, but we vowed to not watch the missing episodes individually. We got together on Friday nights, like the old days, three more times, and soaked up each new episode like the precious gifts they were to us. And then it was over. No more new Firefly.
Or so we thought.
Something amazing happened. The DVD Firefly sets sold like crazy. They broke records on Amazon, and more and more people began snatching them up as word began to spread about this amazing show that they’d missed out on. This set made CASH. So much cash, in fact, that one day we got the announcement that we thought, at first, was just another wishful internet rumor. But it was true. Joss has convinced Universal to let him make a two-hour big-screen movie based on Firefly, a film called “Serenity” (the name of the Firefly-class ship that the main characters flew around in). There was fan joy like you couldn’t imagine. We weren’t going to get our show back, but after thinking we’d never see any new Firefly again, we were at least going to get a movie – one that, we were convinced, would be so popular that it would spawn several sequels, and maybe even be popular enough to merit the show starting again. And through an interesting turn of events, two of our San Diego gang – me and Tony – ended up going to the premiere of the film on Hollywood, where we got to meet Joss Whedon and the cast. And as we did during the show as we daily checked its ratings, we began following the box office numbers religiously. Had all Joss’ (and our) efforts paid off? Did we have a new movie franchise to cling to?
Sadly, it turns out we didn’t. It didn’t do the numbers sufficiently to garner any additional films. Not surprising, really, considering it was a film based on a show that so few people had seen, and one that went ahead and just picked right up where the show left off instead of being dumbed down for new viewers. That was a gift to us Browncoats, but ultimately, probably the reason the film didn’t do better. But we made peace with this. We got more than we ever could have hoped for as fans of a cancelled show, and we become a part of something extraordinary, and made many new friends and had an unforgettable experience with it all. Tony and I even made it onto a documentary film called “Done the Impossible”, the story of the journey of Firefly to Serenity and the fans that made it happen, so in that, my connection to the whole thing has been immortalized.
And the DVDs are still selling, and new people are still finding out the joys of taking a voyage with Captain Malcolm Reynolds and his crew, and asking themselves why they never heard about this show and how something so good could ever have been cancelled. So it’s not too late for you to experience it as well, either by buying the set, putting them on your Netflix list, or finding them to watch online. I highly recommend that you do. You’ll thank me later, and maybe even start calling yourself a Browncoast, too.
If you want to read more about my whole journey with this and get the details on the night at the premiere, you can do so here.
Freaks and Geeks / Undeclared
I now know the shame that late-comer Firefly fans will when they see the DVDs, and realize that maybe if they’d caught on sooner they could have done something about the show going away. This was the case with me with both “Freaks and Geeks” and “Undeclared”, two shows I group together here because of their coming from the same creators.
I’d heard some really good things about Freak and Geeks, but had never gotten around to turning it on. I’d missed the start of it, and for the most part, I refuse to start watching a show in the middle. One day I was in Best Buy and saw the set, the DVD compilation of the one whole season the show’s run before cancellation. I was in the mood to try something new, so I gave it a chance, and settled in to start watching. And from episode one, I knew the shame, and could see what I’d missed. Set in 1980, this high school comedy/drama centered on two sets of characters from two different social classes – the “freaks” (the stoners) and the “geeks” (the nerds). This time period was close enough to my own experience (I was in junior high in 1980) that all the references in it seemed custom-made for me, from the music to the quoting of Bill Murray lines from Stripes, and nailed so many experiences from my youth it was like looking into a mirror. And what an amazing, then-unknown cast! It featured such actors as Linda Cardellini (who would go on to be on ER), James Franco (best known as Harry Osborn from the Spider-Man films), Jason Segal (“How I Met Your Mother”, “Forgetting Sarah Marshall”) and Seth Rogan (“40-Year Old Virgin”, “Knocked Up”, “Superbad”), and had stories and character issues that spoke so much truth! One of the producers behind this was Judd Apatow, who went on to become quite famous with films like “40-Year Old Virgin” and “Knocked Up”. Judd has since become one of my A-list creative inspirations, and I’ll watch anything he’s involved in. Watching the final episode of Freaks and Geeks was really wrenching, knowing that it was long-since finished. The show took me back to high school in a way no other show or movie had, and I loved it just for that experience alone, and all the memories it brought back.
And I screwed Judd over TWICE, since I also didn’t
watch “Undeclared” on Fox, a half-hour comedy show that
didn’t even make it for a full season. I had to discover this
one on DVD as well (thanks, Best Buy!), but went looking for it particularly
because I found out it was from Judd. While Judd wasn’t the creator
of Freaks, this one was all his own, and he brought several of the actors
over with him (like Seth Rogan, Busy Phillips and Martin Starr). He
did for me in this one what he’d done for me in Freaks, but this
time with college. I was so totally back in college! He hit all the
big themes, right down to the credit card companies coming on campus
and sucking students in with their first cards and making them credit
slaves for life (as happened with me). This hilarious show dealt with
friendship, love, finding your identity, growing up, popularity, religion,
drinking, fighting, and all the things that make up that mysterious
period in your life between high school and “real life”,
that strange zone where you’re still a kid but are expected to
be an adult, when you first start finding out who you are and finding
your place in the world. The cast so was amazing, the writing so brilliant,
that I literally almost cried when the final episode ended. It was that
good of a show. And it’s something on my DVD shelf that I’m
sure I’ll be going back to, again and again, for the rest of my
days.
Heroes
Wow. Who’d have thought?
Who’d have thought that someone could make a show about super-heroes and NOT make it silly, cheesy and predictable? Folks like me who are fans of super-stuff have had to endure so many years of Hollywood badly translating comics into the film medium, without ever understanding the genre. And yet, someone (creator Tim Kring) decided to do it the right way. He made a show about super-heroes…without making them super-heroes. No cheesy costumes, no silly villains. He made, instead, a tale of a world where, suddenly, seemingly random people started developing amazing abilities, and dealt realistically with how they’d process that fact, AND created a giant conspiracy story beneath it all that assured that viewers would keep coming back, again and again.
The characters are what make “Heroes” work,
and the casting couldn’t have worked better. Between the great
writing and the great performances, we ended up with a group of characters
that people really cared about and could identify with. This was a lesson
learned from “Lost”, the show that suddenly made network
TV actually care about characters again. Between the cop that can read
minds, the Japanese office-worker who can bend time and space, the indestructible
cheerleader, the senator who can fly, the junkie artist who can paint
the future, the internet web-cam model who splits into a dangerous other
personality and the male nurse who seems to be able to copy other people’s
abilities, there’s someone that everyone can identify with, and
the show turns them into real people with their own battles and dramas.
The show’s marked by jaw-dropping plot twists, gasp-inducing cliffhangers,
tantalizing mysteries, thought-provoking moral questions, fantastically
evil bad guys (Sylar will be in your nightmares…guaranteed), and
a palpable sense of momentum that keeps you checking your watch all
week long, wondering how long it’ll be until the new episode comes
out. It’s that good, and who’d have ever thought a show
about super-powered people could be something that could be “that”
good? Certainly not I. Thanks, Mr. Kring, for doing it right, and for
giving us a major new TV addiction.
Homicide
I watched this show entirely backward. The first thing I ever saw of this NBC show was "Homicide, The Movie", which was the wrap-up two-hour episode they made after the series was cancelled. Knowing nothing about this show or its characters, I just decided to watch (I'm a sucker for final episodes). And I was very impressed. So, when I noticed that the reruns were on Court TV, and came on right about the time I got home (I was getting home around 10pm back then with my old work schedule), I started watching. And I kept watching. And when the cycle on the reruns rolled back around to season 1, I loved it so much I started taping them all. And I'm slowly replacing then with the DVD seasons, but with the still-to-high price point on them, I'm taking my time..
I love good, gritty TV drama, and it just didn't get any better than Homicide. Unusual, realistic characters that didn't fit any of the normal TV cop stereotypes. Haunting stories, often in 2 or 3-part runs. Great use of music. While the stories themselves were great, it was the characters that hooked me in, and what keeps me occasionally popping in one of my Homicide tapes every ones in a while for a mini-marathon. One of the best shows to ever hit (network) TV, in my opinion, and many critics agree.
Journeyman
Boy, can I pick ‘em. I do so enjoy falling in love with a show that starts dying the minute its pilot hits the schedule.
Most people have that one show that they just love that no one else seems to “get” (or just plain like). I’ve had this happen a number of times in my TV life, but in 2007, that show was “Journeyman”. I tried to describe the show as “Quantum Leap for grownups”, but all that managed to do was insult fans of Quantum Leap (the same ones who disliked the show right away because it seemed to be ripping off their beloved 80s show). It was a time-travel show, yes. You had a guy named Dan Vasser (played by “Rome” star Kevin McKidd, part of the new British invasion of Brit actors doing American TV with yankee accents), a San Francisco reporter who started being thrown back in time for brief periods, seemingly to help right something that had gone wrong. He didn’t understand why, and got even more confused when he ran into his supposedly dead wife along the way and found out she was doing the same thing. Dan had a new wife (who used to be his cop brother’s gal) and a son, and suddenly had to deal with this unexpected turn in his life and somehow hold his family together through it.
I can’t put a real finger on why I fell so in love with the show. I think it was my love for characters. Yes, Dan went back through time every episode and helped some random guest star (the downside of the show was that I found I really didn’t find myself caring too much about these people), but the part of the show I loved was all the “modern” time stuff, and watching him try to explain his disappearances and deal with all the consequences of them. To complicate things, Dan was a recovering gambling junkie, and his disappearances had many (especially his brother, played by Reed Diamond, one of my favorite actors from Homicide) thinking he had relapsed into his old life. So, unable to tell anyone what was really going on (though he did tell his wife (the living one)), he was forced into these tough situations where we were more curious to see how he was going to talk his way out of them than what he was doing in the past.
I say it was Quantum Leap for “grownups” because it dealt heavily with relationships – between a man and his wife, a man and his son, a man and (the memory of) his father, a man and his brother, etc. And it all really rang true. And all the people in these relationships were really great characters, played by really great actors. Following their lives was enough to keep me around, but the slow unveiling of the mystery (and conspiracy) behind what was causing all this time-travel stuff kept me going, too. But, alas, I’ll never know the answers, because the show didn’t get renewed after its initial 13 episodes. I was heartened to see, at least, that NBC, who wasn’t even going to show the final three, listened to fans (who started a save-it campaign) enough to agree to show them all. I wasn’t as into this as I was Firefly, but I did send one letter, write an email, and do a blog posting to try to save it. I was into it enough to make the effort. But, as I figured, this deal was already done. So, another of my shows goes down. Ah, well. I’m sure I’ll enjoy rewatching all 13 eps in the years to come, and I recommend you give it a try yourself, even though you’ll know that’s all you get. It’s a very entertaining Journey you’ll take with the Man.
Lost
There are shows out there – for example, your Law and Order shows and the like – that you can turn on and start watching anytime, without having seen a single episode that came before it. The episodes are self-contained stories – beginning, middle and end. You really don’t need to know anything else about the show or its characters to be able to enjoy a random hour of it if you happen upon it on cable some night.
"Lost"? Not one of those shows.
I generally find three kinds of people out there when it comes to Lost. First, people who have watched the show from the start, and those folks are usually addicts who swear by it and would never miss an episode. Second, people who haven’t seen it at all (and generally don’t know or care what all the fuss is about). Third, people who tried to watch the show once, got too confused, and never tried it again. TV, after all, is supposed to make you feel good, not make you feel dumb, so who can blame them? The trick here is, you have to start at the beginning. This is the essence of Lost. In the same way you don’t pick up a novel and start reading it in the middle, you don’t jump in halfway through season 2 of Lost and expect to “get it”. This show takes some dedication, but the payoff is so, so worth it.
I was a big fan of Alias (until the final episode, that is…ugh…), so when I heard that shows creator, J.J. Abrams, was working up something new, I knew I’d be there to check it out. And I was fascinated by the vague descriptions of what the show was supposed to be about. I think the first description I got was “Survivors of an airline crash try to survive on a deserted island populated by mysterious animals”. Huh? If you’re a Lost fan, you’re laughing along with me right now. Because you can tell, like me, that some TV journalist was so baffled by the pilot that he couldn’t figure out how to sum it up, and sure as hell had no idea what was coming. All he knew, I’m sure, was that once he DID watch that pilot, there was no way he was going to miss the next episode. We all got that hooked, right from the start. We found ourselves trapped on that island, too. The only difference between us on the show’s characters was that we didn’t WANT to leave.
I’m not even going to get into telling you what the show’s about, because 1) it’s way too complicated and 2) half the joy of the show is watching things unfold and trying to figure things out yourself. I will confirm that it’s about a plane crash on an island, but beyond that? Rent (or buy) the DVDs yourself, settle in and find out. Any many ways, the show made an immediate change on the television landscape. The very next season, EVERY network was trying to make their new shows “kind of like Lost!”. In other words, they learned that Americans respond surprisingly well when they’re NOT talked down to and are invited to think, that they love (for once) honestly NOT being able to predict what’s coming next (after being conditioned to accept network television’s telegraphed punches for so many years), that big cliffhangers that blow your mind will make them HAVE to tune in again the following week, and that CHARACTER DOES MATTER. The remarkable strength of Lost, from that start, was in its characters, and in subscribing to the idea that people are never what we think they are on first impression, and as you start pealing back their layers, you’ll be shocked at what you find – and how much more like them you are than you ever thought you could be. The brilliant “character flashback” narrative style of Lost, that made the mysteries behind the lives of these stranded travelers equal to (if not greater than) that great mysteries of the island itself, has made for some of the most compelling and engaging television I’ve ever seen. A lot of modern fiction is about the worst of humanity. Lost is about the best of humanity in the worst of circumstances. I can clearly remember thinking, when I was still waiting for the show to premiere, that the creators had a tough job on their hands – how does a show about people trapped on an island sustain itself? The “Gilligan’s Island Effect” would certainly string people along for a while, but if the whole dramatic question is “Will they get off the island?”, people are going to lose interest fast if they get the idea that there’s NO chance they’re really getting off because YOU, the creator, knows that if they do, there’s no more show. Lost answered my question and blew me away, and somehow worked its magic to make us care more about the journey than the destination. Brilliantly done.
If you turned it on once and found yourself “lost”
and quickly “lost” interest, give it another try from the
beginning. DVD is a beautiful thing (and a great way to watch this show,
actually). Same thing if you’ve never gotten around to seeing
what all the fuss is about. Find out! And do it before you start hearing
any of the show’s secrets from those already in the know. You’ll
find yourself being a Lost junkie, too, and you’ll proudly cling
to that addiction.
Millennium
I watched the pilot for this show, back when it was strictly hyped as Chris Carter's new show, right at the height of his X-Files popularity. It was good. For some reason, I really didn't get back around to it until late that season, and watched the last couple of them. Then I started season two. Season two of Millennium still stands out as one of the best TV experiences I've ever had.
The second season was shepherded by former X-Files producers Glenn Morgan and James Wong. They took a show that people were starting to gripe about, with its "serial killer of the week" format, and made something so original and daring that I think it threw people off. It became this mystical, theological show, expanding on the mysterious Millennium Group that main character and ex-FBI profiler Frank Blank had fallen in with in the first season, and gave them roots going back to early Christianity, and made this global epic out of the whole thing surrounding the upcoming millennium and perhaps the end of the world. Maybe it was the serious religious themes that threw people off, I don't know. But the ratings needed help. And the show, with a huge cliffhanger at the end of season two, was in danger of cancellation. But it was saved at the last moment...but not without a price. Fox (man I hate those guys) decided to bring in a new team to run the show, and they completely changed and destroyed it. Season 3, the final season of the show, should have never happened. It was horrible. They should have just let it die. When they started running reruns on FX of the show, I taped the first two seasons only, and still have them around for occasional viewing. Another fine example of networks screwing up, and eventually ending, a good thing.
Mr. Show
I think the show was already cancelled with I first discovered it, watching late-night cable on HBO's comedy channel. I don't remember exactly which episode I came in on, but I do remember wondering how I'd managed to never hear of it before. And I'd come to find out that I was about the only one who'd ever heard of it. I've done my best to remedy that ever since.
The creation of comedians Bob Odenkirk and David Cross, this was one of the most bizarre, risk-taking sketch comedy shows ever produced. As with all great comedy, it was experimental, and didn't always work, but it never failed to entertain, and when it was working, it was pure genius. It had early appearances by Jack Black in its early episodes, too, someone who would become one of my favorite comedy people ever (and the power behind Tenacious D!). The greatest episode of the show is the one I share with people, the one that included some fantastic mock commercials, the story of the lost apostle (a motivational speaker) and a whole musical number based on a farmer's daughter joke. If you happen to sneak across an episode on HBO, or get a chance to get the first couple of seasons on DVD, don't hesitate.
Nowhere Man
I was actually at a convention one summer with my friend Joel when we were at a new show panel, and they showed the pilot for Nowhere Man. We were both amazed, and I knew I had to watch it when it finally aired. And it did, right when I had moved into La Casa with Tim and Rich. Tim and I were hooked, and we eventually got Aaron into it, too. It was the highlight of our week, waiting for this to come on. And we were stunned by the cliffhanger season finale. And then the fledgling UPN network decided to cancel it. Hey, but at least they officered us Homeboys in Outer Space the following season to ease the pain (grrrr...).
I dare you to watch this show and not get paranoid. It had that affect on you. It was the story of a man whose identity was completely erased. Suddenly, no one in his life knew who he was. And dark forces in the government were after him. It all seemed to be about getting the negatives to a photograph he'd taken (the main character, Thomas Vale, was a photographer) of a military execution in Central America. He could trust no one. The show became a suspenseful, surreal, and, as I said, paranoid journey. And by the season's final episode, the question on all our minds, how a man's identity could be so completely erased, was answered in a way none of us that thought of. It was a brilliant show that died before its time. But unexpectadly, after all these years, it's finally out on DVD! So give it a try if you like. But just be prepared to start looking over your shoulder...
The Shield
I didn’t start out watching the much-talked-about F/X show, The Shield. But when it was about three seasons in, my friend Tim got me the first season on DVD as a Christmas gift. The DVD TV season gift, by the way, is one of the coolest gifts you can give. If it’s a show you’ve never seen, here you have a chance to try it out on your own timetable…and for free! And unlike the gift of a movie, it’s not all over in two hours. This gift gives you many hours of enjoyment, and may just open you up to a whole new show that will become on of your favorites.
It was a Sunday sometime after Christmas, and I had some time on my hands, and I thought then was a good time to crack open the Shield set and try out the first episode. I had some other things to do, but I knew I could spare about forty-five minutes to at least get started and find out what the show was all about. So I sat down and started it up. Next thing I knew, it was five hours later, and I had to force myself to quit so I could get to bed and make it to work on time the next day.
The Shield grabs you from the gate with its shocking pilot and doesn’t let go. I was a big fan of Homicide, and I immediately thought of this show as what Homicide could have been if it hadn’t been on NBC. Dark and brutal, tense and packed with action, the Shield is an L.A. crime saga centering on an elite crime unit run by Detective Vic Mackey, played by the now-star Michael Chiklis, who owned this role like he’d been born with no other destiny in life than to play it. To call it morally ambiguous would be a vast understatement. It’s about temptation, corruption, betrayal, lies – and it’s hard to figure the good guys from the bad. And it does all this perfectly, taking you down into the depths of the violent L.A. streets. It’s raw in a way that surprises you, riding that line between network TV and pay channels, pushing to limits of what it can get away with. It will anger you, charge you up, break your heart, and keep you on the edge of your seat. And with its abbreviated 13-episode seasons, it can properly tell each season as one big, complicated story, and the performances you’ll get from its amazing cast of regulars will blow you away.
Not for the squeamish, not for the self-righteous, the Shield is a powerful experience that will stay with you long after the credits roll. Prepare yourself and hit the streets.
Space: Above and Beyond
I watched the pilot in Arizona by myself, just before moving back to Sacramento and into La Casa. There, the show was part of our house TV week, and Tim and Aaron and I were freaks for it. Created by Morgan and Wong, former X-Files producers and soon to be shepherds behind the beloved (by me, at least) Millennium season two, this show tried, and for us, succeeded, to make a military drama set in space. Like so many Fox shows with promise (and so many shows we seem to watch), it was cancelled after one season. Unlike so many of these shows, though, at least it got to have a final episode.
We loved this show, its concept and its characters. It gave me what are still two of my favorite actors (James Morrison (Colonel McQueen) and Tucker Smallwood (Commodore Ross)), and some B-level character actors as the fighter pilots whose careers I still follow because of my love of their work. It was a great guy show. Military stuff, space stuff, hot chicks, great action and serious drama. The show did take a few episodes to get its legs, but once it did, it just kept hitting. "The Angriest Angel" is still one of my favorite TV episodes ever. And the final, fatal episode? Beautiful, and with one of the best character death scenes (I ain't saying who) I've ever seen. Ah, yet another show I loved that bit the dust. But yet another one I have on DVD, so at least I can go back and relive it from time to time. Sempre Fi.
St. Elsewhere
This show was out when I was in junior high, if memory serves (maybe earlier). Even then when I caught some of these episodes, I knew I was in the presence of greatness. Critics of the time agreed. I didn't really get fully into it, though, until 1998, when I had just moved to San Diego and got knocked out of work by an injury that kept me in bed most of the time. That's when I discovered that TV Land was showing St. Elsewhere reruns, and that's how I started every morning when I woke up. I got obsessed. I watched them all. And then, when the first season cycled around again, I started taping them. Lets just say it took up a lot of tapes. But I have them all.
It was a groundbreaking medical drama when NBC gave it to us back in the 80s, thumbing its nose at the conventional rules and carrying itself with an ironic and often macabre sense of humor. I've said before that what I love about television is being able to follow characters over a long period of time, and these were, and still are, some of my favorite television characters of all time. Unlike today's shows that only put models into starring roles, the show was a mix of younger and older actors, appealing to different generations. They tried things on TV that had never been tried, and it was glorious. It was also the show that introduced the world to such actors as Denzel Washington and Mark Harmon...not to mention Howie Mandell. What's most fun about this show is the guest stars. It seems like most of the actors I know showed up on this show at some point in its six seasons. And the final episode was one of the better ones in TV history, too. If you happen across these reruns somewhere when you're flipping channels, and you managed to miss the show the first time around, give it a try.
Stargate SG:1
Aaron and I were living at our apartment in Sacramento, and we saw ads for this new Showtime series based on the Stargate movie. We'd both kind of liked the movie, so it sounded interesting. The premiere consisted of showing the director's cut of the film itself, followed by the pilot of the series. Nothing else was going on that night, so we gave it a try. And we really loved it. Great pilot episode. And we quickly found out that every episode thereafter was equally great, and seemed to just keep getting better.
This is just a great show. What first drew me to it was how they didn't just adapt the movie into a TV show, but that they made the show directly from the film...almost like the whole series is a sequel, just with different actors playing the roles. They took the concept of the film, of a star gate that goes from Earth to another planet, and said, "What if it went to other planets, too?" So you've got this show about a secret military project, with a bunch of Air Force guys traveling to other planets and exploring and meeting new peoples, but with the backdrop of a growing war going on. In the movie, the main bad guy was an alien that modeled himself after the Egyptian god Anubis. The series picked up with that, and supposed that the other aliens of this warlike race took on the personas of our gods as well, and that race ends up at war, essentially, with Earth (just a war that few on Earth knew about). It's an action show, a scientific show that's very well researched, a character show (all the main characters are great), and an adventure show that really gives a sense of wonder at the idea of exploration. Great entertainment, week after week, and if I'm not mistaken, I think it ended up, after 10 seasons, as the longest-running sci-fi show of all time. Definitely something I'd have to call one of "my shows".
The Wire
I’m not too big to admit when I’m wrong about a show. I realize that there are any number of reasons why we have the reactions we do to them, and I don’t cling to my first impressions as gospel. I tried the Wire when its first episode premiered on HBO, and I remember not being that impressed – which is surprising, since gritty crime stuff is right up my alley. I remember thinking it was a bit slow (something that’s actually normally a plus with me), and that I got the impression that it was one of those shows that said “Look at me, I’m controversial! You have to like me or other people will think you’re dumb!” In retrospect, I think I was kind of distracted when it was on. Regardless, I didn’t go back for a second episode.
Somehow it came back on my radar, and I started hearing people talking about it. I got a little curious again, and I decided to read some reviews on Amazon. The reviews really got my attention. I liked the way that no one seemed to be able to properly describe it, and made a point of saying that it was NOT possible to properly describe. I also liked multiple people referring to it as playing like “a novel on screen”, one with no real major character, but a bunch of characters that you follow through the course of the show, major and minor alike. I liked the sound of that, and felt that it deserved a second chance. I had quit Netflix a few years before because I just didn’t have time to watch the movies that I’d get in the mail, but until then, it had never occurred to me that I could now – with TV shows on DVD being so prevalent, unlike the last time I was a member – watch whole TV shows, without having to take the chance of buying them and finding out I didn’t like them. So I rejoined Netflix and gave the Wire a second try.
About two episodes in, I was quite hooked. By the third, there was no turning back. This was one of the most amazing things I’d ever seen on TV.
Like those other reviewers, I’m not going to try to sum it all up for you. Is it a cop show? Kind of. Is it a show about the criminals? That’s a “kind of”, too. Really, it’s a show about Baltimore, and about the dark side of city life that most of us (thankfully) will never experience. It takes you right into the alleys and down to the street corners, and feels so damned authentic that it seems like a documentary half the time. I’ve literally had to turn on the subtitles on my DVD player at moments in the show to figure out what the hell both the street dealers and the cops (and the politicians and the union reps) are talking about – that’s how NON-dumbed-down the dialogue is. They’re not going to spoon-feed you anything. You need to pay attention. A couple of the reviews I read said it was not a show you could just sort of have on in the background when you’re having a couple of beers and doing your bills. This is so true. There is SO much going on, and it all connects with everything that comes later. The “novel” description turned out to be so accurate. They broke all the standard TV rules with this one. The show is one thing one season, then focuses on something else entirely the following one. And yes, it’s all one big story, and moments that take place in the first couple of episodes of season one come into play in the middle of season four. I don’t know how people managed to watch this week to week – it’s hard enough watching it one episode per night like I did, and trying to keep up with all of it. It’s a show that takes dedication to watch, but it’s a labor of love. I love everything about it. I love how minor characters will show up and seem to be one thing, and then turn into something completely different than I expected and become major characters. I love that nothing is abandoned – characters and plot points don’t go away, but come back later when you least expect it. It’s as raw as I’ve ever seen a TV show, and it doesn’t just move me….it haunts me. I can’t tell you how glad I am that I changed my mind on the Wire and gave it another chance. It’s shown me what TV can really be when it aspires to be more than it’s expected to, and when creators have the guts to stay true to their material and not pander to what people allegedly want. As we step further away from the network TV paradigm, with the changing market of DVD sets and online content, I hope that the results give us more ambitious offerings like this. It’s time for TV to stop insulting us and start amazing us. Power to the Wire.