Jolly Good Show

TV: Downton Abbey, season 1

You may be familiar with the Saturday Night Live recurring skit "Merv the Perv", in which Chris Parnell plays a horndog named Merv who speaks in double, triple, and quadruple-entendres to every woman he sees. One of my favorite versions of this skit is when Merv's cousin from England, "Steve the Skeeve" comes to visit. Steve says the exact same disgusting, pervy things as Merv, but because he has an elegant mustache and says them in a debonair English accent, the women go wild for Steve. They tell Merv, "Why can't you be more like your cousin Steve? Steve is a gentleman."

And so it is with cult BBC/PBS hit Downton Abbey. The show is chock full of soap opera plot lines, melodrama, catfighting, and illicit sex (gay and straight), and yet it comes across as a classy, elegant window into a time gone by. Albeit a time when "the help" spent their lives catering to the whims of the rich and women couldn't vote or inherit property. You know, the Good Old Days.

The first season of Downton opens on the morning of April 16th, 1912--the day after the RMS Titanic sank. The Earl and Countess of Grantham--aka Robert and Cora Crawley--awake to find out that their two closest male heirs to the family estate were on the fated ship and are dead. This leads to the central conflict of the series: since the Earl and Countess only have daughters who, by law, cannot inherit the estate, who will Downton Abbey fall to after Robert Crawley dies?

This questions branches out into a number of other plot points that concern the seven episodes of the first season, including the intricate laws of English inheritance, the potential suitors of eldest daughter Mary and how they may or may not be advantageous to the family, the schemings of the maids, butlers, and other servants, and the question of women's rights in late Edwardian England.

And also--World War I and how it will change everything. But that issue is left to season 2.

Although Downton Abbey may be dismissed as "costume porn" in the vein of made-for-TV Jane Austen adaptations, the series is complicated, intriguing, well-written, and often very funny (Maggie Smith, playing the Dowager Countess, gets many of the best and snarkiest lines). Plot lines often take a turn for the unexpected--even shocking--such as when (SPOILER) a foreign visitor to the estate engages in some illicit nooky with daughter Mary and promptly...dies of a heart attack in her bed. Yikes!

Fans of British humor, history buffs, and those who simply like well-made television will all find something to delight in with Downton Abbey. I personally can't wait to get started on season 2.

4.5 out of 5 stars

A Turn for the Worse

TV: Breaking Bad, season 1

"Breaking Bad" is, according to Wikipedia, is a southern colloquialism for taking a turn off the straight and narrow path. Or it might be defined as when someone forced beyond their limits to their breaking point--the point at which they're forced to do things they never thought themselves capable of.

Walter White, played in turns gently and ferociously by Bryan Cranston, is the definition of "breaking bad". He's a mild-mannered chemistry teacher with a loving wife, Skyler, who is unexpectedly pregnant with the couple's second child. Their first son, Walter Jr., has cerebral palsy. Walter and Skyler manage to hold it together as a lower-middle to middle-middle class family. They may not be able to afford a new water heater, but they're not exactly starving either. Things are going ok and they have a lot to be grateful for.

That is, until Walter is diagnosed with terminal, inoperable lung cancer. He will almost certainly be dead within two years, leaving his family with a mountain of debt. This turn for the worse is what pushes Walt to take a turn for the worse in the moral sense.

After Walt's brother-in-law, who works for the Drug Enforcement Administration, describes the massive amount of money meth dealers can make, Walt is inspired. He has the scientific knowledge to cook the world's greatest, purest meth. However, what he has in book smarts he seriously lacks in street smarts--at least at first.

Walt recruits Jesse Pinkman (Aaron Paul--you might remember him as Amanda Seyfried's husband in Big Love), a rough around the edges drug dealer, to do the street work for him. Turns out that Jesse is smart and, in many ways, a decent guy. He comes from a good family. Like Walt, Jesse wasn't born bad--he's breaking bad.

The first season of Breaking Bad is a short run of seven perfectly tuned, intense, gritty episodes. I was hooked from episode one. The concept of a good man pushed to his limits intrigues me. And unlike many other violent and exploitative shows, Breaking Bad has genuine heart below its grimy surface. When Walt's family tries to stage an intervention to make him undergo chemo (Walt balks at the idea), Walt explains as calmly as he can that in his last few months he doesn't want to be "unable to enjoy a good meal...to make love. To be so nauseous I can't turn my head...you would all remember me that way". As much as we sympathize with Skyler and Walter Jr., who think Walt would be crazy not to try to fight the cancer, we see Walt's point of view as well. He's going to die--why suffer to delay the inevitable for a few months?

Yet, the next day, Walt wakes up in bed alone. He walks downstairs to the kitchen, where Skyler is making breakfast. He hugs her from behind and says "Ok. I'll do it for you." At this point, Walt realizes there is something he loves and cares about more than a good meal and the ability to make love--his wife and son. He has decided not to live his last months for himself, but for them. The love in the White family is palpable, which makes it all the more heartbreaking.

But unlike a Lurlene McDaniel book or Lifetime movie, Breaking Bad removes any sentimentality of terminal illness. In the world of Walter White, illness leads to desperation--and a certain kind of exhilaration. Walt, previously a geeky, quiet, passive man is now on the road to becoming a criminal, a liar, and a killer. This is no 3-hankie made for TV movie where the cancer patient lies in bed and nobly waits for death to come. Breaking Bad is about what it's like to live when there is literally nothing left to lose. And it's a heart-pounding ride.

4.5 out of 5 stars

Trapped in the Black Lodge

TV: Twin Peaks season 2

The second and final season of cult television show Twin Peaks gets a bad rap for "sucking" after they reveal who killed Laura Palmer in an episode at the midpoint of the season. While I don't feel that the show became an abyss of suckiness after that revelation, it certainly became uneven, with pointless and annoying subplots spinning out in every direction. And while the last few episodes were, in my opinion, a return to form, the finale left a myriad of cliffhangers and unresolved plot points, giving the show an intriguing and frustrating air of an unresolved murder.

Twin Peaks struck me as being bizarrely paced. The first season is a mere 8 episodes long. The second season has 22 episodes, but Laura Palmer's killer is revealed in episode 14. So it's almost as if the series is 1.5 seasons, rather than 2.  Instead of following and resolving the main plot arc, i.e. "Who killed Laura Palmer" in one, continuous season, which would have made sense--they spread it out over two seasons and then added a bunch of extraneous stuff for the rest of the series. I really don't think this was David Lynch's intention. I read somewhere that he and co-creator David Frost wanted to go the length of the entire series without revealing Laura's killer and just letting the mystery hang there, open to interpretation--but were pressured into solving Laura's murder by network executives. In addition, I think it's pretty obvious that Lynch had plans for a third season that simply didn't get carried out since the show was canceled because of declining ratings. In a way, this adds to the show's mystique: the finale is so abrupt, strange, and dramatic that it's hard not to wonder where Lynch would have taken the show if he had had an extra season to work with.

Rather than review season two in a narrative manner, I'm going to fall back on the classic bulleted list:

And be warned, here be spoilers.

Things that worked well:

* Supernatural/bizarre elements handled well: As in the first season, Lynch is able to introduce strange characters and occurrences in a nearly seamless, believable manner. In the first episode of season 2, Cooper is visited by a giant who takes his ring and gives him three cryptic clues. In another episode, the spirit "Mike" speaks through the character Phillip Gerrard. In other episodes, the malevolent otherworldly spirit Bob makes terrifying and dramatic reappearances. I firmly believe that only David Lynch could pull this kind of stuff off. In different, and even equally talented hands, these supernatural elements could have come off as silly and over-the-top. Somehow, David Lynch makes it work. The season finale, in which Cooper is trapped in the Black Lodge, is incredibly weird and frightening in a way that can only be described a "Lynchian". He manages to tap into some part of the human psyche where fear dwells and express that primal fear through images and sounds. I don't know how the guy does it, but he makes it work.

* The revelation of Laura's killer and the death of Maddy Ferguson: Even though Lynch and Frost were apparently pressured into revealing who killed Laura Palmer, it's clear that they both knew who the killer was from the get-go. <SPOILERS> Even in early episodes of season 1, the strange behaviors and reaction of Leland Palmer seem to be pointing quite baldly to the fact that he killed his daughter (that he was inhabited by the spirit Bob was not quite so clear until season 2). And talk about a character without a motive! While some characters (James, Bobby, Dr. Jacoby, Benjamin Horne, and even Donna) had feelings of jealously (sexual or otherwise) toward Laura and other characters (Leo Johnson, Jacques Renault) are obviously sadistic sociopaths, Leland Palmer was not violent and clearly loved his daughter. His reaction to her death--the white hair, the freak outs, the crying hysterically, the dancing whenever a swing/big band song comes on--points to something not being quite right. As it turns out, evil Bob took possession of Leland at a young age and forced him to rape and kill his own daughter. In addition, Leland/Bob kills Maddy, Laura's cousin who looks very similar to her, perhaps as a way to relive Laura's death...or even just a way to torture Leland further. The whole "possession by an evil spirit" premise works well within the world of Twin Peaks--a place where the natural and supernatural worlds seem to be intimately entwined.

* Super Nadine and Ed and Norma's romance: I hated, hated, hated Nadine--Ed Hurley's wet towel of a wife--in season 1. But after her suicide attempt in the season 1 finale, Nadine awakes as a completely different being altogether: she has regressed to her late teen years and thinks she and Ed are still in high school. She also has super strength, for whatever reason. At first, I thought this was the dumbest plot line ever. But as Nadine falls for teenage Mike (not to be confused with spirit Mike) and his "cute buns", giving Ed the possibility of finally getting together with his true love, Norma Jennings, I changed my tune. I found the story line to be funny and charming.

* Major Briggs: This guy is awesome. "What do you fear the most?" "The possibility that love is not enough." Right on, dude.

* Leo Johnson's coma and return to sentience: One of the most frightening and upsetting scenes in season 2 was when Leo comes "back to life" after being in a vegetative state and chases Shelly down with an ax.

* Audrey Horne's conversion to being a good girl: Here's another character than annoyed me in season 1. Audrey Horne came off as a bitchy, spoiled brat in the first season who decided to help Cooper find Laura's killer only because she had an inappropriate crush on him. By season 2, it seems that she really does want to help--and it lands her in a classic damsel in distress scenario at One-Eyed Jack's, leading Cooper to raid the joint and save her. Afterwards, she grows so much. From immature brat to nearly grown woman in a business suit helping her dad's Stop Ghostwood campaign. It's a shame she ends up asploded in the finale.

* Dale Cooper's continuing awesomeness and subsequent fall from grace: I love truly good heroes who aren't also preachy goody two shoes. They are fewer and further between than you might think. Dale Cooper is a man of such character, though hardly perfect (he slept with Windom Earle's wife! Bad choice, Dale). You can tell that this guy really is on the side of good--and not in an annoying "I'm better than you" way. This is what makes his demise all the more painful and ironic. In the amazing finale, he follows Windom Earle into the Black Lodge to save Annie. Earle asks for Cooper's soul in exchange for Annie's life and Cooper immediately and unthinkingly agrees. But then Bob appears and tells Cooper that Earle does not have the authority to ask for his soul. Bob tells Cooper to leave, and he does with Annie. We think for a moment that Cooper has actually escaped, only to realize that Bob in fact has taken possession of Cooper, while the "good" in Cooper (his soul) remains trapped at the Black Lodge. Thus, Cooper is vanquished through an act of self-sacrifice and love. Quite a way to end the series.

Things that didn't work so well:

* Ben Horne goes crazy: Once Ben Horne went nuts and began reenacting the Civil War, I started fast-forwarding. I did like the post-insane "good" Ben Horne that followed though.

* James and the femme fatale/James' death: Ok, seriously, what? This is hands-down the most pointless plot line in a season filled with pointless plot lines. James leaves town for a while and meets a sexy woman who is involved in a plot to murder her husband and make James the patsy. He outwits her before the cops can get him, only to drive away on his motorcycle again, right out of the show and to certain, untimely death. Fun.

* The whole Josie Packard/Catherine Martell/Andrew Packard/Thomas Eckhardt thing: Again, why? Who cares? Is ANY of this stuff believable, even in David Lynch's world? Why would Josie agree to be Catherine's servant? Why would she return to Twin Peaks? Why not run away and go into hiding. And WHAT in the HELL was up with her death/transforming into a drawer knob?!

* Annie Blackburn: Only a woman this boring could be pure enough to be a love interest for Coop. Worth losing your soul to the Black Lodge for? No way.

Things I am neutral about: 


* Windom Earle: On the one hand, he brought a much-needed plot arc to the second half of the second season. If "Who Killed Laura Palmer" was the driving mystery of the first 1.5 seasons of Twin Peaks "Who is Windom Earle and How Will Coop Stop Him" was the driving mystery of the last part of the series. On the other hand, Windom Earle was not quite as compelling as I thought he would be. Cooper speaks of him as if he were a mad man and evil genius of legendary proportions--but he turns out just to be a crazy kook, living in the woods. No subtlety and no class.

* Who is the father of Lucy's baby: Dick Tremayne is hilarious as an arrogant British dandy and Andy is so sweet and gentle. But, again, I didn't really feel this plot line.

* Harold Smith: Another interesting character with too thin a plot line. What a creeper, though.

And that's about it. Overall, Twin Peaks deserves its reputation as one of the most unique and well-done shows ever to hit the airwaves. But it definitely jumps the rails and/or shark in the second season, only to build up to a nail-biting and haunting conclusion.

Episodes 8-15: 4 out of 5 stars

Episodes 16-19: 3 out 5 stars

Episodes 20-25: 2.5 out of 5 stars (truly the low point of the show)

Episodes 26-29: 4 out of 5 stars

An Open Letter to The History Channel

TV: History Channel

Dear History Channel,

What happened to you? I feel like I barely recognize you anymore. You used to have such interesting programs: specials about the history of Coney Island, Halloween, sex in the Bible, and Nazis. These days, it seems that there are only two options when I turn you on: American Pickers and Pawn Stars. I don't want to watch Pawn Stars...I want to learn about the history of the mafia and what the pilgrims ate on the Mayflower! I can't be the only one who enjoys the soothing combination of a soft-spoken male narrator and old-timey images appearing on screen. I guess I'll have to watch PBS to get my fix now.



Now, look, I get it. It seems like all TV viewers want anymore is reality shows and to be mindlessly entertained--not to learn anything when they watch TV. Turn on Bravo, TLC, or MTV and you'll be hit with a sea of dumbed-down reality programming aimed at the lowest common denominator. That's a societal problem and we're all complicit. But History Channel--just because the world is changing doesn't mean you have to! It's ok to refuse to budge in the face of changing expectations in the world of pop culture. After all, you're the History Channel! If any channel can remain an unchanging monument to a time past, it's you.

Please, History Channel. I love you and I miss you. Please come back.

Sincerely,
Jenny

Hangin' with Agent Cooper

TV: Twin Peaks season 1



I'm starting off by talking about the show that gave this blog its title. Twin Peaks is a cult television show that ran for two seasons from 1990-1991. Created by David Lynch and Mark Frost, I'm amazed that this surreal, creepy show was even allowed on air that long--and that is was insanely popular for a while to boot. Maybe I'm just cynical, but I feel that a show like this would never get greenlighted today. As we've seen with Arrested Development, Firefly, and Freaks and Geeks, even shows with a loyal fan base often get booted off the air at the first sign of lower ratings.

Twin Peaks takes place in the eponymous fictional small town in Washington state, very close to the Canadian border. It begins with the discovery of the dead body of one Laura Palmer--a beautiful high school girl who seems to have been known and loved (mostly) by the entire town. The local authorities have limited resources and soon call in FBI Special Agent Dale Cooper, played by Kyle MacLachlan, a wholesome and honest man with a taste for 'damn good coffee' and cherry pie.

Over the course of the first season, the show delves into the lives of a large number of inhabitants of Twin Peaks. Among them are Donna Hayward (Lara Flynn Boyle) and James Hurley (James Marshall), Laura's closest friends who knew she was in some sort of trouble right before she died; Ben Horne (Richard Beymer), a business man who owns half the town and his spoiled daughter, Audrey (Sherilyn Fenn), who takes a schoolgirl liking to Agent Cooper; local diner owner Norma Jennings (Peggy Lipton) and her married lover Big Ed Hurley (Everett McGill), and many others.

The main point Lynch and Frost aim to get across is that everyone in Twin Peaks has a dark side and secrets--and that's why there is a sense of evil hidden away within this friendly small town. In one episode, James Hurley reveals to Donna Hayward, his now girlfriend, that his mother is a deadbeat alcoholic. He says that he is telling her this so that there will be no secrets between them: "It's the secrets people keep that destroy any chance they have of happiness and I don't want us to be like that". In another episode, Agent Cooper tells a lovelorn Audrey Horne that he has no secrets. Indeed, it seems that this outsider is the only one without a double life. Even the upstanding sheriff, Harry Truman (Michael Ontkean), is carrying on an affair that few people know about.

This "things are not what they seem" trope is typical to David Lynch's work, as are the elements of surrealism that pop up here and there among an otherwise straightforward 'whodunnit' story arc. One example is Cooper's dream at the end of the third episode. In the dream Cooper is in a red room with a woman who looks like Laura Palmer and a little person: "The Little Man from Nowhere". The people in the dream speak strangely, both in tone (Lynch had the actors say their lines backward and then played the lines forward, resulting in bizarre speech patterns) and in words. They reveal clues to Cooper that become clear in later episodes. Despite chilling and strange scenes such as this one, Twin Peaks proves to be one of Lynch's more accessible works. Compared to Mulholland Drive and Lost Highway, Twin Peaks is downright vanilla. The show most closely resembles the tone of Lynch's earlier film (also starring MacLachlan) Blue Velvet.

Well, I'm now partway through the second season of Twin Peaks which notoriously started sucking (or so I've heard) after they reveal who killed Laura Palmer. Since I accidentally read a recap that revealed the killer (and once you know who it is, it's SO obvious), I'm not exactly waiting feverishly for this revelation to occur. I'm just sitting back and enjoying the weirdness. I have yet to judge the second season, but I can say that the first season of Twin Peaks is as close to perfection as a TV show can get.

5 out of 5 stars