Been Around The Blok

As my radio silence unfortunately continues (hey, moving is time consuming), I wanted to point out that my review of Free Lions and Blok from a month ago ended up on Blok's MySpace blog. I'm excited that they would do that, especially since it wasn't a completely glowing review (though ultimately kind, as they say in the post). Thanks, Blok! And for the record, I've seen them again since that show and have come around even more. Just a really fun live act, and I suggest you see them when they play Detroit Bar in Costa Mesa on September 29th.

Also, Sons of Anarchy has its Season 2 premiere tonight, and I'm just counting down the hours until 10 PM. The show is about an outlaw biker gang in the fictional town of Redwood, CA, led by Clay Morrow (Ron Perlman) and his stepson, Jax Teller (Charlie Hunnam). The first season had a vaguely Hamlet structure, with Jax as Hamlet and Clay as Claudius, but it evolved into a very gripping crime drama about the motorcycle club as a whole. Not quite up to Mad Men levels, but it's one of the best on TV right now. I may write about it from time to time, but who knows. In any case, do yourself a favor and watch.

Mad Men Medley

Call me a liar and I won't disagree. I had grand plans to do in-depth write-ups of each episode of Mad Men this season, but through two episodes I just haven't had the time. I've watched both, but to do anything more than summaries would have taken too much, and I'm only going to get busier. So, as the season goes along I may actually delve into it, but for now I think I'll just try to put up a post every week where myself and the other couple people watching can talk about it. Some highlights from the first two weeks: 

TV: Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog

Normally, something with that title would sound like the kind of overly precious, indie-pandering project that I run screaming from. This one's got a major plus on its side though, and his name is Joss Whedon. 

It's a Mad, Mad, Mad Men World

As I mentioned about a month ago, Mad Men is the best show on television right now. I demurred when it came to explaining why, mostly because it's a show that moves at a very measured pace, without many grand moments; it expects the viewer to invest in the characters and trust that it knows what it's doing. Don't worry, it really, really does. If you haven't seen the first two seasons, I very strongly urge you to go back, rent them, and then call in sick for a few days and charge through all twenty-six episodes. The third season begins tonight at 10 on AMC, and the strength of the writing and acting will probably still be enough to grab you if you haven't watched it before, but you'll be missing out on two years of character development. I had entertained the idea of analyzing/summarizing the first two seasons leading up to this one, but I realized that was a greater task than I was up for, and with only a few people I know who read the blog and watch the show, I'll spare everyone the master's thesis in dramatic television. What I will be doing, however, is writing summaries and analysis of each episode as the season goes along. I'm not sure how in-depth I'll be able to get, and they may take a day or two, but hopefully any of you who are fans will join in the conversation as we try to figure out where things are headed for Don Draper and everyone else at Sterling Cooper.

Oh, and in case you're wondering, that is supposed to be me in that picture at the top. To Mad Men yourself, go here.

TV: NCIS

I'm about to cross over into super-dork territory here (and the audience shouts, "Too late!" in unison), but so be it. I was sitting here last night, clicking between the Angels game and an NCIS rerun on USA, and I couldn't help but think about how much I really like that show. These days it's basically a coin flip as to whether you'll catch it on USA at any given moment, but I remember when it first came on CBS almost seven years I scoffed at the commercials, thinking it looked like just another disposable police procedural. Not long after that I got sucked into the HBO drama factory and plowed through some of the best television ever produced in Deadwood, The Wire, The Sopranos and more, presumably making me even more snobby to case-of-the-week style drama. Then USA went and acquired NCIS and started airing it in three hour blocks right when I got home from work, and it slowly worked its way into my heart. There are some pretty clear reasons why this happened:

1. Mark Harmon
As Special Agent Leroy Jethro Gibbs, Harmon is the badass that every guy wishes he could be. A former sniper when in the Marines, he's also tougher than the grey hair and usually calm demeanor would lead you to believe. As anyone who's seen The Presidio knows, Harmon even managed to pull off badass next to one of the original badasses, Sean Connery, and that's no small feat. My brother thinks that they waste Harmon's natural charm in a role that isn't exactly gregarious and can seem a bit cold, but I would say they play off of it to show you why his team respects him so much, even while he seems like such a tough leader. Also, it never gets old watching him kick ass when up against it, though usually in a realistic way that includes him getting worked over as well. Yes, I realize I've used "ass" in various permutations four times in this paragraph, but what can I say? This show brings out the G.I. Joe-loving little kid in me.

2. The rest of the cast
There's lots of fighting, gun play and gore, but the real appeal of the show lies in the interactions between the characters, and the people around Harmon all have an easy, sometimes quirky charm that makes you care about what happens to them, adding suspense to scenes that would feel like an obvious win for the good guys on any other show. There have been a couple of deaths by major characters over the course of six seasons, and these guys make you feel every one as if it were a beloved character in a series of books. Which, in a way, they are.

3. The writing
The individual cases are usually interesting, if a little far-fetched at times. What makes the writing really stand out is the effort to build the relationships between the characters, so you understand why they do what they do, and why they care about each other. It seems like such a small detail, but it's really what makes this show stand out, especially when one of the cases directly involves someone on the team. Not many case-of-the-week shows can claim they have back stories and mythology, and it makes it worth coming back to. There's also a lot of goofy humor, and it works all the more because you've seen these people in dire situations with each other.

I doubt I can really convince anyone to watch, but I'm telling you, it's really good. Everyone who knows how much I like to watch egregiously awful horror and sci-fi films may find my opinion dubious, but just go turn on USA for a bit and see what you think. At the very least, Ziva is hot, right?

TV: Mad Men Season 2 on DVD

Just a quick notice that Mad Men: Season 2 comes out on DVD today, and everyone should watch it. Not to sound too dictatorial or anything, but I'm serious. I say that even as I acknowledge it's a hard show to describe in a way that makes it sound particularly appealing, but here goes anyway: the story centers around a man named Don Draper (played by Jon Hamm, above) who works at a New York ad agency in the 1960s, and it details the lives of him and his co-workers, as well as his wife and kids. And that's basically it. I know, it sounds exciting, but just watch it and try not to get sucked in. The performances are excellent across the board, the look and feel of the show is spot on, and it's amusing to see everyone smoking and drinking in the office, littering with impunity, and marginalizing women to the point of absurdity. I'm not advocating that last point, just bringing it up to show how authentic the show is as a period piece. That said, the women are some of the best characters on the show because they have so much more to overcome, and they wrestle with trying to advance themselves or building their own niche within the existing societal constraints. Simply put, the show is a study of human behavior in a particular setting, and the writing makes you care about these people, even as some of them do deplorable things. There's a reason it's been called the heir apparent to The Sopranos as the best drama on television. (The Wire was actually the best drama on television, but let's not pick nits.)

Season 3 premieres on August 16, so you all have plenty of time to go back and watch the first two seasons. So what are you doing still reading my nonsense?

TV: Kings

As I said in my opening post, I'll be using this space to write about all sorts of things, and TV series will be a big one. For years I didn't watch TV except casually or with only half my attention, but ever since I was home bored one Saturday night four years ago and decided to rent the first disc of Deadwood, I've seen the light.

Whenever there is an adaptation of a famous book that comes to the big screen people always complain that the book was better--because it was richer, had more depth, so on and so forth. Well, television series, when given their freedom, have the ability to develop at their own pace and slowly reveal character and plot the way a great novel does. Honestly, at this point I don't even waste much time with movies that are dramas, because two hours is just not enough time to spend with characters for me.

Anyways, expect to see many entries on whatever stable of shows I am currently watching, because while many of my favorites have ended, there are always more. In that vein, we have NBC's Kings, a new Sunday night drama that is a re-imagining of the David and Goliath/David and King Saul story from the bible. The setting has been updated to a kingdom named Gilboa, which looks every bit as modern as our society, but is of no specific era. There are computers and cell phones, paparazzi and night clubs, taxis and traffic--but people speak like it's the 1500s. It stars Ian McShane (Deadwood) as King Silas, and Chris Egan, a relative unknown, as David Shepherd. Also with Wes Studi (The Last of the Mohicans, Heat), Eamonn Walker (Oz), veteran That Guy Dylan Baker, and recurring roles for Brian Cox and Sarita Choudhury, the cast is very strong, and most are equal to the task of series creator Michael Green's flowery dialogue, which has a vaguely Victorian or Shakespearean quality to it. If you've ever seen McShane as Al Swearengen on Deadwood, you know he can tackle this kind of writing in his sleep, and he is, as always, a joy to watch.

I'll avoid a plot synopsis of the first three hours of the show, if only to encourage you to go online and catch up. The show melds political intrigue with theological undertones and character spotlights, and it definitely only tells you what it wants you to know and when. If you don't have the patience for that, then steer clear. But all who are in search of a grand, slowly unfolding epic, Kings is just the ticket.