Severance

(Wrote this for a show over the summer, season 1 is now streaming free on the Roku Channel, season 2 premiers on Apple TV+ next Friday 1/17)

Severance on AppleTV+ is about this procedure which separates the psyche of a person creating one that lives, in totality, at work, and leaving the original person with no memories of what they do at work. This new person has no memories of their life, no context, and the show is mostly about a four person team, Macrodata Refinement, within this corporation Lumon.

The show was, for the most part, beloved, by both critics and audiences, so my question is, why is it great? What makes it a great show? It looks great, no question, really cool moody cinematography and interesting odd locations and sets. An eerie, effecting soundtrack, yes. An eclectic and deeply talented cast, yes(including Britt Lower a Chicago improv grad). The twists and turns and surprises and reveals of the story. Yes. No question. However that is not really why people love it. Why they are so effected by it. Severance is a great show and it captured hearts and minds because it is, in essence, The Allegory of the Cave which itself speaks to the most powerful and enduring quality of humanity: curiosity.

Plato's allegory is about a group of people chained in a cave, believing their shadows cast on the cave wall are reality as that is all they know. But upon being released some turn around. Some see the fire behind them and the cave mouth behind that and some depart for the unknown world seeking to understand the truth of reality. Overly simplified but for the sake of argument stay with me. This is 375 BCE Plato says this. And yet the idea endures.

In Severance the four macrodata refiners are quite literally imprisoned, constrained by the very definition of their existence. Consciousnesses wholly and completely confined within this workplace. And they are released to act only when they discover knowledge, when they are in this instance unchained. This comes in two forms, a map left by their old boss Petey and more importantly a self-help memoir written by Mark's(one of the refiners) brother-in-law Ricken they discover by accident. With these are they challenged to consider things outside their perception. And having gotten this glimpse, having peaked behind the curtain, in pursuit of fuller lives, but at a more basic level, reaching for simple understanding, do they act. And it is this fundamental decision which makes the show great. This impulse the macrodata refiners have which we all have to some degree, in some way, in some particular avenue. This desire to know. To see. To understand. To find truth. This quality of the human spirit is what we are responding to when we say to our friend "Have you seen Severance? You gotta watch it." The recognition of our own potential greatness which the show reflects.

And yes, of course, right here, right now, this has been perverted in us. Our most fundamental and wonderous spark has been weaponized, vampiric. Social Media, politics, mega-corporations we have in our hands a machine which can tell us everything we want to know. But that is not reality, that is just more shadows on the wall. Not to say we shouldn't be informed, not to undermine any national or global tragedy or its importance, nor the threats we most assuredly face as a species. But. It is important to question and understand what system we are in, where our information comes from, and by who and why it is provided to us.

Nonetheless this pursuit forges connections, people meet and get to know one another, they form relationships and community, and it is this bond which defines us. Even thousands of years before Plato. We came together. It is this pursuit which causes innovation, which brought us out of the caves and ceased our nomadic migrations. This pursuit which inspires art, reflecting back on us our condition that we may understand and evolve. And it is this aspect that is one of Severance's greatest inspirations. Ricken, the self-obsessed obtuse brother-in-law's vanity project, his book "The You You Are", is the seed of the macrodata refiners awakening. Even something objectively terrible, uninsightful, and navel-gazing can, in fact, be a titanic, earth-shattering, catalyst. And in the context of the show we understand this to be fundamentally true and without irony. That the creative work, regardless of who we have seen Ricken to be, has a power independent of him. That his writing, however saccharine, in its pure sincerity has penetrated the illusion of isolation and revealed the truth. That we are not alone. 

Back in 2016 I directed a play called Blockbuster and it was about a group of women who worked there, using movies and the work environment to engage with various themes. Towards the end of the show there's a scene where one of the characters talks about sexual assault based on her own experience. After one of the shows a friend came up to me in tears and berated me for its inclusion without a trigger warning. My first reaction was defensive, working on that scene had been incredibly difficult and I was proud of the work the cast had done, but I realized I was in uncharted waters. I did not know that experience and both working on the scene as well as being open to my friends hurt brought about a broadening of my perspective, a further understanding of those realities. I was well-meaning but ignorant and only the courage and compassion of my cast and my friend provided me an opportunity for growth, only through working on this project did it arise. I put up a trigger warning for the rest of the run.

Watching Severance we understand that all the macrodata refiners needed to launch on their quest of self actualization was information. Only in ignorance are we complacent, only in darkness do we like pigs at the trough eat the slop given to us without question. But given only a glance, a band of light beneath a locked door, a hint, a glimmer, with just this is inspiration born. We are, by our most fundamental constitution, forced to ask- who am I? where am I? why am I? And it is in the dogged pursuit of these questions are we most ourselves, most human. Severance is a great show because, taking away all the trappings of prestige TV, it is about freedom, it is about becoming.

I first moved to Chicago in 2006 straight from college and worked at the Barns & Noble cafe downtown. I was green and I was oblivious. I locked my bike up with a combination lock and one of those plastic covered mental cords. In the first month I was working, I'd lock it up across the street and could see my bike out the window. One day a guy appeared to be locking his bike up on the same stand and my bike was wiggling. I thought, huh, that's odd, and when I looked back it was gone. I ran out, no trace of my bike, no trace of the guy, I was demoralized. But I began to see and be aware of things I had not been previously. Do I think Chicago is dangerous? No. But it is a city. Teaming with life and passion and energy and duplicity and transcendence. Having been chastised by her, corrected, Chicago gave me an opportunity to learn, to go beyond my limited perspective to experience and understand more deeply, to become apart of something greater.

This is a well used idea, Silo has this, The Matrix, most recently Blink Twice and on and on, all these share this quality. Individuals coming to a jumping off place. A fulcrum where things are revealed and they are changed. Storytellers recycle this idea again and again. Why? Because we will never stop. We will never stop seeking. Never stop searching. Never stop trying to live in truth and beauty. It is our organizing principle.

I'd guess most of the people here tonight are artists in one form or another, to one degree or another. So I want to say two things to you. One, watch the TV show Severance. And two. Thank you and keep going.

Boundless Content

The problem with streaming
are it's two greatest assets-
convenience and limitlessness-
the intent is not to entertain,
excite, or enthrall
but to maintain
that thin layer of feeling
that resides just above boredom
in perpetuity.

The question is never why
but why not
as episodes automatically play
one after another after another
inevitable, like gravity
subsuming hours
in unintended lethargy.

But we are, as yet,
still in control of the box
and the outside is still just outside.
Ambition and inspiration not dead
but perhaps more elusive.

Commitment

Had a fun show tonight with Sight Unseen, we played some absurd, reprehensible characters and thinking about it afterward I'd say there wasn't a lot of funny lines per say, we just doubled down on these awful characters we were playing and the humor came from the situations and behaviors. Not a terribly astute observation but an interesting distinction none the less.

Set-up punch-line joke type jokes are more associated with stand up and although certainly there is that type of comedy in improv and sketch, character based content is what those mediums really exist for. And what makes for a funny show or performance is the same thing that makes for a compelling dramatic portrayal- commitment. Call it authenticity, call it honesty, believability, what have you. A characters sincerity, their realness, and the performers commitment to their POV is where laughs come from not the clever things they say.

Character is probably the main focus of Sight Unseen, we inherently go at improv in that way but just this week I noticed a couple other examples that stuck out to me. A friend just premiered a web series and its well put together, funny, but the most interesting sequence is one that doesn't have rapid fire jokes or meta elements but where there's just a fully formed, albeit extremely odd, character.  I also started watching Future Man this week and it's surprisingly fun. It's a sci-fi comedy emphasis on the latter and it is full of references and jokes but it works because of the sincerity of its titular hero played by Josh Hutcherson and the commitment of the two co-stars Eliza Coupe and Derek Wilson.

This is all to say that joke-based comedy works wonderfully in the right format but can be pretty thin when involving anything resembling a narrative- either individual scenes or fully flushed out stories. Because in drama and comedy it's ultimately the characters with which we identify. Which anchor a story and which all the pathos and humor are derived from. And the further committed the actor is to character, the more immersed, the more convincing, the more lived in, the greater potential for catharsis(laughter or tears) for we the audience.

SNL

(Hallway with headshots of all SNL cast members, Alex is the latest)

Alex my old teammate and roommate got hired on SNL at the start of this season. It had been a dream of his since he was a kid and he's been doing an incredible job. I went to the show with his fiancé and watched the show from his dressing room. Pictures aren't the best quality because there were "No Pictures" signs everywhere so I had to use my phone.

(Alex's office, supposedly the same office shared by Dan Aykroyd and John Belushi)

The whole experience was surreal. There were tons of staff and everything was very controlled and regimented. Saw some celebs in the hall way and got escorted onto the stage to watch the first act of the musical guest. Very cool. Alex was in a good amount of the second half so we didn't see him much after the first couple sketches. He did a great job and it seems like he's really making a spot for himself on the show.

Got the tour afterwards and took the obligatory SNL stage pic. It's been a good couple years since Alex and I were in classes together at iO and did shows in bars and storefront theaters with our independent improv group The Album. There's been a lot of ups and downs for both of us since then. It's pretty amazing Alex is on SNL, I never doubted his talent or ability but in some ways its like winning the lottery. He's been doing good work on the show and I'm so incredibly proud of him and so happy to call him my friend. Very bizarre and cool to see your friend leave his work and be asked by a group of twenty people for pictures. What a world.

Content

Currently I'm still adjusting to my new job, working on grad school applications, and recording the second season of my podcast Hindsight Hour so I've been a little remiss in keeping this blog updated as my energy has been diverted elsewhere. In consolation here's a list of some of the stuff I've been watching that I've enjoyed recently that I would recommend.

Master Of None- Aziz Ansari's Netflix series is the Gen Y version of Louie. Each episode tackles a specific subject- gender, dating in the digital era, minorities in entertainment, LTRs etc.- and although it is funny there is a tone of introspection and commentary that is very refreshing.

The Comeback Kid- John Mulaney's new Netflix special is a really funny tightly crafted hour of comedy. After being consistently underwhelmed by him I was shocked at how much I enjoyed this

Ex Machina- Just came out on Amazon Prime, one of my favorite movies of the year.

The Wolfpack- Just released on Netflix, another one of my favorites of the year.

Once I get my grad school applications out I plan to return to posting content with a bit more inspiration.

Amateur Cooking Shows: The Last Bastion of Credible Reality TV

I went home from work sick this morning and all day I watched Worst Cooks In America. Maybe because of the cold medicine, my eroded immune system, or my borderline ecstatic lethargy I found the show really engaging. The people were real and there was no drama, just normal people learning(to various degrees of success) to cook.

Reality TV pioneers Real World and the subsequent sister spin off Road Rules were successful not because they mirrored the emotional turmoil of network dramas but because they lacked it. Those shows captured real people, in both real(in the case of Real World) and heightened(in the case of Road Rules) but neither we're completely manufactured, and if they were structured they were not done so to create interpersonal conflict. In the beginning individuals were cast for personality rather than how unstable they were. As both franchises gained momentum Reality TV turned into a broad and viable genre. The shows being created became more and more produced, constructed, scripted. Eventually they all felt the same, fake.

Along came Top Chef which was refreshing in that it was about the food and not the drama but it quickly fell prey to manufacturing conflict and heightening action with musical stingers just like every other over wrought reality show. Now the only reality left in Reality TV is found in amateur cooking shows like Worst Cooks In America, MasterChef Jr., and The Great British Bake Off. Where the creators cast real people based on merit(or lack there of) and not on the unstable nature of their personality. Where the focus is on ability, challenge, and execution rather than interpersonal spectacle. When volatile people aren't involved typically people get along. And it's pleasing to watch people be nice to one another.

Central Park & Colbert

Got up at 4am to catch a flight to New York City to visit Tisher. After a bite to eat in Brooklyn we headed to Manhattan and walked around Central Park.

I can't stop thinking about one of my favorite movies The Cruise. It's about this double decker bus tour guide Timothy "Speed" Levitch. He has this amazing monologue about Central Park, listing all the tons of dirt and rocks, all the figures on plants and animals that were imported to construct it. The worlds largest man made piece of nature.

It was beautiful, quiet, and green. So bizarre to have such a huge park in the middle of a crowded city.

Walking around I haven't seen as many pigeons or rats as I expected.

There were people there but not a ton, it was easy to have a relatively solitary Central Park experience.

Being in New York reminds me of Through The Looking Glass. It feels like an amped up mirror image version of Chicago where everything is just a bit different. A bit faster, a bit more compact.

Central Park: an oasis for the on-the-go New Yorker.

Shakespeare in the park.

By the lakefront under the stairs these two weirdos were playing violin and singing opera. Behind me there was a middle aged guy with a huge string contraption making bubbles. It was wonderful.

After the park we went to The Colbert Report. Robert Plant was the guest. I wouldn't describe it as fun exactly, I feel like Tisher and I as comedy people can kind of see the strings being pulled, and with Ariel writing for the show I didn't go into it with the same kind of unbridled enthusiasm as some of the other tourist type guests. Regardless it was very cool. It went by surprisingly quick and Colbert was all business, the consummate professional, compelling from the moment he hit the stage.

Once the taping was over Ariel(I made her make a "tough" face) took us back stage and showed us her office and the writers room. It was all very exciting and wonderful. She was incredibly generous getting us the tickets and showing us around and I think very excited some friends came to see her work.

We got dinner and caught up, Ariel describing her routine and me providing Chicago updates. A great first day.

My First TV

I graduated high school in 2002. My folks bought me a lot of odds and ends for my first year in college- sheets, a hamper, plastic shelving unit, flip-flops- but the big purchase, my graduation present, was a 20" Toshiba TV with three AV hook ups. It was my first substantial possession. Under my lofted dorm room bed I had my Toshiba set up with speakers, PS2, VCR, and DVD player. Lived like a king.

My college roommate Bob and I used that TV for two years in the dorms, when we moved into our own apartment we upgraded to his much larger TV. I used the old Toshiba on and off during the last couple years in Chicago. It was never high end but it was always reliable. I've lugged it from Rockford to Normal to Chicago and as the years past it got lighter and more retro. Now a tube TV seems almost as antiquated as a bag-phone. The tube Toshiba is extinct, like the dinosaur.

Over the weekend Nicole and I got a flat screen complete with WiFi hook up. It's a wonderful and long overdue upgrade. But. I am an analogue man. I love mix-tapes, VHS, land lines, and when fast forward made noise. I love rethreading cassettes and blowing into VCRs. It is high noon in the digital age and analogue has almost completely vanished. It is a fast-moving, info-steeped, high-resolution culture we live in. Which is great, don't get me wrong. Things are easier and more accessible.

Putting the Toshiba out on the curb though, I was a bit nostalgic. For a time before cell phones, when rewinding necessitated a separate machine.

Deadwood

"Pain or damage don't end the world, or despair, or fuckin' beatings.
The world ends when you're dead.
Until then, you got more punishment in store.
Stand it like a man- and give some back." -Al Swearengen

The past two weeks I rewatched my favorite TV show Deadwood. From the aesthetic to the acting to the dialogue itself it is an incredible piece of storytelling. Not only is it a great western it's a poignant allegory for civilization.

I've watched the series now a couple times, each time more layers unfold and I can spot more subtlety. Each time I learn something, not in an after-school-special kind of way but in a broad life lesson type of way. Themes of compromise, communication, violence, empowerment, corporatization, contrition, justice, revenge, and many others are explored. The show has taught me a lot about people, individual ambitions and desires and how they meld with society at large. How to soldier on, how to weather adversity, how to negotiate, how to conspire. In an almost antithetical way its characters, despite their deficiencies, work toward the greater good.

It's a fearless show that advocates courage. Despite all the booze and the swearing and the prostitution it's a show about people standing strong against the dark.

Everybody Lies

I love the show House. I've watched its entire 8 seasons twice over. I loved the overarching plot lines, romances, and ever expanding back stories but even when episodes would follow its established procedural formula I was happy just to soak in Gregory House. A truth-teller, a self-proclaimed and unapologetic asshole and drug addict, an undisputed genius and delightfully anti-social atheist. He was my idol for a long time, I emulated him, his mantra "Everybody Lies" I took to heart and lived by.

There was a time I thought I had no moral compass, no conscience. I did bad things and never felt guilty. I operated under the flawed House justification "Everybody Lies", my own duplicitousness and deceits were merely a response, a reflection of the world I lived in, of human nature itself. I created a world of falsehood, lied so much I convinced myself the lies were truths. I became a dexterous and able fabricator. The lies would come freely, convincingly, subtly and colorfully. So enticingly believable. It came to the point I almost forgot how to tell the truth. Deception and deflection was my automatic response to any question under all circumstances.

My existence during these years was not satisfying, it was desperate and thin. I knew pleasure but no happiness. I discovered Gregory House's oft repeated phrase was not exactly true. People lied periodically, out of fear or necessity or ignorance but not Everybody Lies. Those who do lead bleak lives.

It can be hard to be honest and truthful. Hard to get past years of conditioned shams and habitual bluffs. Tough to get past the ease of pretense. But I realized there is right and wrong. More often than not the right path leads to a happy life. It can be difficult to be sincere and open and forthright but it is always better than the sucking isolation of double-dealing.

True Detective And Narrative Satisfaction

Last week the first season of True Detective came to a close. The show garnered a lot of interest, rave reviews, and a certain amount of controversy. It's an anthology show and this first season followed the story of Rust Cohle and Marty Hart over the course of two decades and a single case. The show has a singular and narrow perspective focusing exclusively on Cohle and Hart with almost no time spent on supporting characters.

The show struck a cord through a huge population and there is one clear reason why- True Detective is perfectly constructed. At its most basic level it is a complete and contained narrative. Questions are raised then answered. All episodes, all story-lines, all dialogue, all characters serve a narrow fiction. A number of elements weave together to strike a melodic singularity of storytelling.

McConaughey and Harrelson put in masterful performances. Layered, conflicted, spanning different points in their characters lives they provide depth. The dialogue is sharp, rich, and evocative. The story itself is focused on one particular case and one case only which is solved during the course of the show.

Because of its anthology format the show puts itself head and shoulders above other TV shows. It has no thought or incentive to extend the narrative beyond what is presented. The writers did not write themselves into a corner(like Lost) nor did they change the trajectory of the story mid-season(like The Killing). What was set up, promised and presented to the viewer was delivered.

The success of True Detective speaks more to the quality of other TV shows then to its own. Don't get me wrong it's a great show and I like its first season immensely. But people crave narratives that make sense, take them on a journey, then come to some kind of resolution, offer some kind of answer. Currently the state of TV is much more concerned with prolonging, with dragging out, with wringing as many Neilsen points as possible from any show that garners any interest, almost exclusively at the cost of narrative quality.

Humans delight in stories. This has been true since man scratched figures on cave walls with burnt sticks. Stories are a way to escape, to make sense of chaos, to offer answers to the unanswerable. When shows renew season after season we almost always receive diminishing returns. This is especially true of shows that revolve around crime or some kind of central mystery. See also Homeland and Flash Foward, even How I Met Your Mother. 

If you raise questions in a show your are obligated to provide answers. If you don't, well, isn't that just life?

Random Thoughts 5

James sent me this because he said the song was stuck in his head. It's soothing and unsettling.

I got angry and spoke in anger last week for the first time in a long time. I apologized almost immediately after. It was comforting in an odd way. I thought I had lost my temper completely.

There are so few movies to see in the theater, I will more than likely see I, Frankenstein out of sheer desperation.

It's great to have federal holidays off but almost no one has them off with you.

A lot of people I know have been talking about moving. I feel like the harsh winter has shaken some things loose.

The cold and the snow don't bother me as much as not being able to ride my motorcycle.

Then I raised my head
and stared out over
the blue February waste
to the blue bank of hill
with stars on it
in strings and festoons---
but above that:
one opaque
stone of a cloud
just on the hill
left and right
as far as I could see;
and above that 
a red streak, then
icy blue sky!

It was a fearful thing
to come into a man's heart
at that time; that stone
over the little blinking stars
they'd set there.
-William Carlos Williams

Charlie Brooker creator of anthology show Black Mirror "I don't want to slag off shows like House or… well, I'll slag off CSI - why the f**k does anyone watch that?! It's the same thing every week, the same f**king thing! CSI: Miami is the one I'm talking about - why would anyone watch it? It's literally the same thing every f**king week! I cannot for the life of me understand. You watch it once and it's f**king brilliant - it's one really brilliant episode that they're showing again and again and again. David Caruso - a mental performance! I mean, a brave performance in many ways, but a mental one. Constantly looking like he's reading his lines off the floor and doing the whole sunglasses thing - mental!"

Compelling Copy

I'm back in Rockford for the weekend and while I was indulging in some cable I saw this ad. I'm not an Apple guy. I don't have a MacBook, an iPod, an iPhone, or an iPad. I'm not going to run out and buy one or all of those things. But. This may be the most striking 90 second spot I have ever seen.

Some Love For Top Chef

I've been a Top Chef fan since the beginning. I've diligently and delightedly watched all 11 seasons, Top Chef Masters, Top Chef Just Desserts, and Top Chef Canada. It inspired me to cook a lot more and I've come to take a lot of pleasure in it.

Top Chef is a great show because it's straight forward. It's a cooking competition show which almost entirely focuses on the cooking competition. For the most part the show is concerned only with good chefs and interesting challenges. Certainly there are some big personalities on the show or they cut the show to create big personalities but the show has never become about them. The show will play up confrontation or emotional outbursts, sometimes teasing them for an entire season, but ultimately all the dust ups are minimal and breezed over by the competitors swiftly. They are just normal moments that happen when people who don't know each other are thrown into situations with numerous unknown variables.

The show doesn't cast basket cases, doesn't deliberately throw unhinged individuals together hoping for friction. They put good chefs in interesting situations to see what they cook. The personalities of the individuals on the show come through slowly and organically. We like some of the people, we dislike others, but not because the producers predicted and designed this outcome. Of course what we see is not truth, we don't get a full sense of all these individuals, but the show is not put together to skew or slant or facilitate villainization.

I loved the first couple seasons of The Real World and Road Rules. They were great shows because they were simply real people in a situation and the camera observed. As time passed stunt casting and contrived situations turned an interesting TV show into a spectacle. Most reality shows start from that manufactured place- fake people in conflict. Top Chef has consistently steered clear of these pitfalls and focused on what it is: a show about food and the people that cook it.

Arrested Development Season 4: Dead In The Water

I enjoyed the original Arrested Development, I watched the series probably twice over the 8 years since it's been off the air, but I wouldn't call myself a fan. I began watching the Netflix produced reboot with no expectations other than to enjoy myself. I was extremely disappointed.

Season 4 feels like a long convoluted TV reunion special that's ramping up to a feature film. There's a lot of set up and little to no pay off. Without the structure of a network sitcom the episodes meander on to thirty plus minutes losing the quick passing and fast editing which gave the original series it's edge. Without having to make hard choices many scenes and jokes are left in, at times bringing episodes to a complete halt, which should be cut. Repetition is used often to ill effect. Season 4 relies to heavily and everyone watching it knowing all the intimate details of the characters and back story as well as long protracted expositional flashbacks which often serve no other purpose than setting up the present plot which ultimately goes no where.

The reason the original series worked was because Michael was, ultimately, a good guy. We sympathized with him, we liked him. He was trying to keep the family together, a noble cause. In this ill conceived Frankenstein no characters are likable, every character is shallow and deplorable and self serving. Each episodes focus is on a different character which loses site of one of the key things that worked originally. Getting a taste of Gob or Tobias or Buster or Lindsay is great. They come in make some jokes and walk out. Whole episodes following those characters have no real comedic moments because none of these characters are based in any semblance of reality.

The one thing I enjoyed about Season 4 was the structure. They very cleverly and artfully weave the intervening years since the show has been off the year together with the present plot line with everything connecting. Which is all well and good if anything was actually happening or if we, as an audience, actually cared which we don't.

A miss, a most palpable miss.

If an Arrested Development movie comes out I'll see it. But hey, I saw Jack Reacher in theaters opening night.

British TV Is Way Better Than American TV

Tisher recently turned me on to the BBC series Black Mirror. Its like an updated version of the Twilight Zone which focuses on technology and the effects of our reliance on media. It has a rotating cast with each episode standing on its own. All six episodes are great, two are outstanding. The Entire History Of You set in an alternative reality where most people have a 'grain' implanted behind their ear which records everything they do, see or hear and Be Right Back about a widow using all of her husbands past online communications and social media profiles to create a new "Ash" virtually. The show isn't perfect but is always engaging. It raises pertinent questions that it seems most people aren't asking. It's got edge, it challenges the viewer. Black Mirror is the first TV show in a long time to really make a statement.

The final episode in the season aired this week and it just makes me wonder. Why aren't there any shows on like this in the US? Why isn't there any programming that really challenges the viewer? Any programming that takes any risk?

Recently the best shows I've seen, the ones I've got hooked on have all been BBC shows: Jeckyl, Luther, Sherlock, and now Black Mirror. They all take risks, have engaging actors playing engaging characters, have stories that actually move, and have definitive narrative arcs.

The problem with US TV is that, for the most part, it's run by studios who are sluggish and complacent. A bunch of people who are satisfied with the status quo and have no desire to try anything new. There is so much TV in the US which is just mind-numbing time-waste. The same people doing the same things ad infinitum. People want to watch a variety of stuff, people want to be challenged, to be engaged, but they settle for whatevers in on. I think the studios need to give their writers more leeway to develop projects they think are interesting as opposed to something they know will get the bare minimum of viewers to satisfy Pringles.

We also need to do away with such long seasons and series. Sit-coms, sure, they can go on as long as their viewing necessitate but TV drama is a different story. Shows like The Killing, The Following, The Walking Dead, FlashFoward, and Lost especially(to name a few) would have benefited(would still benefit) from a fixed number of episodes. A story line that is sketched out. A definitive narrative ending. Just because a show becomes popular doesn't give the studio the right to elongate it and ruin it. TV is a story telling medium, tell good stories, good stories have a beginning a middle and an end.

And Netflix, House Of Cards is just West Wing with worse dialogue and more sex. Step it up.

'How I Met Your Mother' Is Super Sexist

Recently I've been scrounging for anything good to watch on Netflix Instant. I started watching HIMYM because I had seen the first season years ago and remembered enjoying it. I watched the entire series in a couple of days. Its funny enough. There are some cool time jumps and over arching themes. There are some cool cameos and fun reoccurring bits. You get engrossed in the characters even though they never really progress or do anything. And at a certain point you realize. Wait. These characters are kind of horrible. Wait. This show is really misogynistic.

The character Barney played by Neil Patrick Harris is horrible. He thinks women are stupid(except for his friends and mother) and wants to have sex with all of them. He treats women like objects. A reoccurring joke on the show is Barney using ridiculous pick up strategies to successfully hook up with women. 'Bimbo' is used a lot on the show. Barney is very exaggerated and over the top, the intention is to be funny. But he just comes off as an asshole skeeze. And a lot of times the show expects you to laugh when Barney takes advantage of a women. Like "good old Barney, he fooled another one, haha!"

A lot is forgiven within the show because Barney is played by a gay actor. There's like a reverse suspension of your disbelief. You don't think anything of the way he treats women because you know its fake. But when you think about it, its really awful. After seeing so many episodes in so short a time it became glaring.

The leads in HIMYM are shallow, petty, and narcissistic. The show has a severely limited view of women and relationships. As a whole it reminds me of 'Seinfeld' without any self-awareness.

Full Disclosure: I did watch the entire series. I enjoyed most of it.

Graffiti 44

This is a little cleaner than I like and is obviously sanctioned/commissioned by the business but I like it. It makes me think of my dad and his favorite TV show 'The Prisoner', there's an episode called 'Hammer Into Anvil'.

Number Two: You shouldn't have interfered, Number Six. You'll pay for this.
Number Six: No. You will.

Number Two: Du musst amboss oder Hammer sein.
Number Six: You must be anvil or hammer.
Number Two: I see you know your Goethe.
Number Six: And you see me as the anvil?
Number Two: Precisely. I am going to hammer you.

Number Six: I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed, or numbered! My life is my own.

'Conan O'Brien Can't Stop' A Review

A documentary beginning with Conan's firing from 'The Tonight Show' follows his live tour through North America. A cross between Bob Dylan's 'Don't Look Back' and Vince Vaughn's 'Old West Comedy Show'. The film is a fascinating portrait of who Conan really is, what drives him.

The title is absolutely perfect. The most interesting part of the film is Conan's obsession with and need to perform. You see Conan at a volatile part of his life and it feels like a very accurate portrayal. He's highs are high and his lows are low. We see him elated, depressed, and angry. He makes jabs at his staff one minute and says he couldn't do it without them the next. He bemoans meeting fans and signing autographs but can't keep himself away when he knows there's a crowd waiting for him.

The clearest thing in the film is Conan's driving need to perform. As a performer myself I can identify but his is obviously on a totally different level. There are moments before the shows where Conan simply sits alone, waiting, anticipating the rush of the crowd. After shows he quickly tears off his shirt and flops down in a chair completely spent. The expression he has during both moments is the same, empty. He needs the audience to animate him, afterwards he's given everything but still wants more. He gives his all during performances you can tell. After every show the camera simply watches Conan sweat and pant. He's 47 after all.

One of my favorite scenes of the film is from Conan's LA show. His manager organizes a party before the show with celebrities and critics. This enrages Conan because he's forced to be 'on' when he should be mentally preparing himself. He works the crowd but we know from asides he's seething. His old employee and friend Jack McBrayer comes into his dressing room with Jon Hamm and he mercilessly makes fun of him. Conan takes out all his frustration on McBrayer. It's all funny of course and presumably not personal but still it's...mean. But we also get a sense that he does it because he's frustrated and their friends, he can do it and probably needs to. We also know McBrayer takes it with a grain of salt because he does a jig towards the end of the sequence.

This movie lets us know the man we watch every night on TV on a personal level. Anyone who feels a need to perform should watch this movie(improvisers this means you!). It's fun, funny, and has the ring of truth.

Don't Miss It.

Silver Screen to Small Screen

I was home for the holiday's this past weekend as many people were. My parents have an HD tv from one of my dad's clients, Boz. Boz tried investing in an HD tv company overseas a couple years ago that never panned out. The upshot of it was we got a BOZCO HD tv. My parents also have a much more involved cable plan than do I so when I'm home I always try to catch up on things I've missed with their 'On Demand.' Also I'm a huge reader. Not to be self congratulatory or anything its just a fact and I would say that its more of an anti-social behavior than an intellectual practice. But even so. I read alot and when I read I like to have the TV on. Some people think thats really weird. Both my sister and Matt just this past week commented on how weird they thought that was. I can't comfortably read without some kind of outside stimuli. I don't know why. Anyway to my point.

I was scrolling through the HBO On Demand looking for a movie I hadn't seen recently to put on while I finished up 'The Game of Thrones.' I settled on 'Avatar' in HD. I began to read.

I've seen 'Avatar' in theaters three times, once in 3D. I didn't love it but I really enjoyed it. The genre very much appeals to me. As I was reading I got really distracted and then periodically put down my book to watch the movie. What I found was surprising. 'Avatar' is terrible. It's awful. Sam Worthington's narration is campy and trite and couldn't be more obvious or heavy handed. The effects are almost cartoonish. My experience bore no relation to the one I had in the movie theater. I exited out of the movie and tried to find something more agreeable to read to on cable. I settled on 'Lord of the Rings: Two Towers.' I began to read. After a while I was distracted by Elisha Wood acting with a cartoon. I finished TGOT and went to bed. I dreamt.

I dreamt of dark theaters, hushed voices, and raked seating. I dreamt of popcorn and nachos, holding hands and stolen kisses. I awoke. And realized.

Some movies just don't translate. Some movies aren't meant to be seen on a TV. Sam Worthington's narration in the theater is moving and adventurous and brings you in to the story, on TV its simple and stupid and childish. In a dark theater these sweeping effects create a world you would have never imagined, in a lit living room the same effects look cheap. Will I ever watch 'Avatar' on TV again? No.

It's all about context.