Tuesday, August 14, 2007 Rant Archive
Showtime has always been the Avis of premium cable networks, so it’s had to try harder. But you don’t always succeed just by trying. For the longest time, no matter what Showtime did, HBO was the place where creatives went with programming that were cutting edge and/or quirky. But that seems to be changing. It started I think with the decision to air THE L WORD, a drama that was in many ways as conventional as it was hot. And it was – is – hot. People fell in love, fell out of love, tried to have families, feuded and died. It just happened in this case they were all women. Very attractive women.
More recently it signed X-FILE star David Duchovny to star in CALIFORNICATION, a program that serves as a counterpoint to THE L WORD and might just as easily be called The Y Chromosome File. (See review of first episode here.)
But I think if one series turned things around it is WEEDS (Showtime Mondays at 10 p.m.), which just started its third season. The show is so brilliantly conceived and brilliantly executed it is worth whatever exorbitant fee your cable company charges for the network.
At its center is the exquisite Mary-Louise Parker who demonstrates comic chops and sensibilities I never knew she had. Parker plays Nancy Botwin, who, in order to maintain her lifestyle in the ritzy development called Agresta, turns to growing pot. At first she approaches the job as a dilettante, but she has embraced her role in crime with middle class fervor.
CALIFORNICATION is no X-FILE. Call it the X-Y FILE. There’s lots of sex. Lots of laughs. What’s not to like?
Hank Moody (David Duchovny) is a New York-based novelist. Well, actually, he was a New York-based novelist. But then he wrote God Hates Us, a book the critics lauded and became a best seller. Unfortunately, he moved out to Lalaland before it was transformed into a crappy movie (Tom & Katie star in A Crazy Little Thing Called Love). Then to make matters worse, his long-time girl friend, Karen (Natascha McElhone) broke up with him, taking their daughter, Becca (Madeleine Zima). And now he has writer’s block.
What to do? In CALIFORNICATION (SHOWIME, Mondays at 10:30 p.m.), the answer is simple. Hank beds every beautiful woman he meets—and there are a lot of them: the wife of the producer who screwed up his book, a young girl he met at a book store, the wife of a motorcycle dude. Based on a visual inspection, they all have beautiful breasts and are as eager to sleep with Moody as he is to sleep with them. Throughout the show I kept asking myself why? Why?
One of the perks of having three wives is that you always have one to fall back on if the others won’t fulfill your every wish or desire. Bill (Bill Paxton) knows when to back down, especially when it comes to Barb (Jeanne Tripplehorn). Being the first – and most powerful – wife, Barb sets many of the rules and regulations in all three of the family homes. And, in tonight’s episode of BIG LOVE Barb has put her foot down, when it comes to visiting a bar owner’s convention. No matter, Bill has Margene (Ginnifer Goodwin), who is up for almost anything, to take along. And with Nicki (Chloe Sevigny) busy trying to plan a party at the Juniper Creek compound, Bill doesn’t have to worry about sending her into yet another jealous middle-wife tirade. Ok, she throws a little one, but that was nothing for Nicki.
It’s so sad watching Nicki grasp at anything to get back into the good graces of her mother. You know if she had her way, Nicki - and the rest of the Henrickson family - would all be nestled in at the family compound, sharing their lives and daily chores with the other 100 or so family members. Alas, she seems to have burned her bridges there. But, Nicki has her own compound – of sorts – to retreat to, so she decides to move her party to her own homes. This girl isn’t as innocent as she would like everybody to believe. I mean, first there was the spending addiction, and last week she looked like she was in the throes of passion, while playing bingo. She may like to be called a good little girl, but there is definitely a fire burning underneath those prairie clothes.
Juniper Creek does have cause for celebration – whether Nicki organizes it or not – because creepy Roman (Harry Dean Stanton) is up and walking. Wonder how he will feel about his son, Alby (Matt Ross), assuming temporary control by finagling a testament? Meanwhile, Barb has decided that she no longer wants to be trotted out as the dutiful wife, pretending that there aren’t three others back home. I don’t get it, does she want to promote the polygamist lifestyle or forget she ever agreed to it? She seems to bounce back and forth on that. This issue gets especially confusing, when Barb appears to be jealous at the prospect of Margene going on the business trip with Bill instead of Nicki, who is none to pleased about being passed over as well.
It’s taken a couple of seasons, but the Los Angeles Police Department has finally confirmed what many viewers have suspected all along. To wit, Deputy Chief Brenda Johnson (Kyra Sedgwick) is nuts. After the shooting last week of a nutjob, Johnson goes under the scope of the department psychiatrist, who tells Chief Pope (J.K. Simmons) that Johnson is exhausted, disconnected, in denial, and a whole bunch of other terms that add up to being a couple sandwiches short of a picnic. Thus, Pope orders Johnson to take some time off from regular work and squire a reporter around for a puff piece on the overworked men and women of the LAPD.
This seems like it would be a lightweight assignment, right up until a fusillade of rifle fire tears up the car Johnson and Sgt. Gabriel (Corey Reynolds), killing the reporter and wounding his cameraman. As a result, Pope orders Johnson and Gabriel to take some time off, just the very thing Brenda doesn’t want. Oh, and did we mention that Brenda’s long-talked about, slightly feared father (Barry Corbin) is coming into town? Now, Brenda gets to go everywhere with a SWAT detail, and face her worried parents and fiancé at home, her worried co-workers on the job … the whole situation just screams for Dr. Phil. Or a double bourbon, whichever one’s handier.
How Brenda handles it all makes up the meat of the episode, and as expected, it plays as pretty amusing, although there’s a strong undercurrent of franticness that underlines the whole narrative. Until this episode, the theme of vulnerability seemed to be played out, but the climactic events of the episode—particularly an anguished interrogation in an elevator where Johnson is, in many ways, performing live without a net—make it clear that this is the true theme of the season. One wonders what else Brenda is going to get piled on her, and how it will affect the rest of her crew.
Sorry Bonnie. I picked the worst time for you to start making accurate predictions for this show. Rock won. Despite this being perfectly foreseeable, the finale was still an entertaining hour.
As the show started, the creative editing went into full spin mode. Remember last week when Rock was sweating and befuddled when describing his menu to his sous chef while Bonnie was relaxed and surefooted about hers? That was all forgotten and Rock was portrayed as confident, aggressive and forward thinking while Bonnie was hung with the flake image.
Rock gathered his team, the men and Vinnie, and put them through the paces on how he wanted his final service presented. Bonnie was lounging on the couch with the girls and eventually admitted that she hadn’t done the full prep work on the menu yet…like actually cooking all the dishes. Originally I thought this was where she lost the game but I have this nagging feeling that she was never truly in the game.
And yet that didn’t seem to bother me all that much. Leading up to tonight’s show, neither Bonnie nor Rock had been all that engaging as personalities so my own rooting interest wasn’t amped up high. The competition still presented all the opportunities for failure so there was at least some risk involved. Josh was on the fish station for Rock and Melissa was doing pasta for Bonnie. Those situations alone were enough to cause a competent chef angina. Despite this, both services came off complete.
Girls, take it from somebody older and wiser, never let yourself get sucked into revealing your deepest, darkest secrets out of sheer boredom. I promise they will always come back to haunt you, and I do mean haunt.
When foul weather puts a dent into Casey’s (Spencer Grammer) slumber party for the Zeta pledges, the girls get lured into discussing sorority secrets. With rain and thunder pounding down, there’s nothing better than a good ghost story, and Rebecca (Dilshad Vasdaria) leads the house in a doozy about a previous sister that died in that very house. This is just one of the many lessons you learn by going to college. What, you thought it was all about cramming for tests? At least half of what you garner from sorority life is how to manipulate and out maneuver your enemies and friends, and something tells me that’s just what Rebecca is up to on tonight’s episode of GREEK.
Fraternity life isn’t much different. There’s just more punching and farting going on over there. Oh ya, and the endless humiliation of cleaning up after your brothers. Personally, I wouldn’t touch any room in a fraternity house with a ten-foot-poll. But, it seems to be working for Rusty (Jacob Zachar), who just last week found himself his first girlfriend. Amazing how a little action can give even the wimpiest amongst us some much needed confidence. But, things aren’t going quit as well for his sister, Casey (Spencer Grammer), over at the sorority house.