Television

Terra Nova – Now You See Me

Last week, Terra Nova delivered an episode much better than what we have come to expect. Unfortunately, with this week’s “Now You See Me” the show didn’t even manage to get back to its usual self. Interestingly, in its failure, the episode definitely established that only Shelley Conn (who plays Elisabeth Shannon) can really carry an episode convincingly.

It is not as if the show-runners didn’t try. It is simply unfortunate that they just happened to create a story that needed some qualities most of the cast lacks. Every single story in “Now You See Me” required the viewer to do more than just understand what was going on, each of them required us to empathize with its main protagonist(s) to really enjoy the experience, which is where acting skills come in.

House – Perils Of Paranoia

As the eighth – and by all reports the last- season of House creeps towards its midway point, it’s a sad fact that even die-hard, long-time fans like me are beginning to feel as if the life-blood of originality that has kept us glued to the series for seven long years is quietly hemorrhaging from this show.

House’s rigid structure, often a subject of derision for its critics, isn’t broken or bent in any way for this episode. The POTW (patient-of-the-week) is the standard good-looking yuppie with an attractive (albeit mildly shrewish) wife, interrupted in the business of his every day life by a serious (but initially innocent-seeming) heart-attack. This normally wouldn’t interest House in the slightest of course, except that– quelle surprise – Foreman’s sneakily already ruled out all the boring stuff that might have caused the attack, impressing House so much with his deviousness we get the feeling he takes this one just as a favor to his star pupil.

Fox Unveils Mid-Season Schedule

Fox revealed its mid-season schedule today, with official dates for highly anticipated new shows Alcatraz and Touch now being made official. The new JJ Abrams drama Alcatraz will premiere January 16th, whilst Touch will begin officially on March 19th, with its premiere episode also being previewed in January.  The full mid-season schedule is as follows:

Homeland – Crossfire

For anyone who’s been following Alex Gansa and Howard Gordons’fascinating and suspenseful drama so far, the quality of this last episode will have come as no surprise. This first season of ‘Homeland’ has delivered at every turn, offering us a riveting mix of drama and character study from a cast of actors that rivals the highest budget Hollywood blockbuster.

Our protagonist, Carrie Mathison (Clare Danes) has to be one of the most unconventional female leads to ever be featured in a drama series. A driven career woman and dedicated intelligence agent, Carrie is brilliant, unpredictable, passionate and audacious, with a non-linear way of thinking and a personality that thrives on risk-taking; apparently all symptoms of her carefully hidden mental illness.

Louis CK to Return to Parks and Recreation

According to TVLine, Louis CK has signed up to reprise his role on the critically acclaimed NBC comedy Parks and Recreation. The actor and stand-up comedian previously had a mutli-episode arc on the show as cop Dave Sanderson throughout its second season.

A former love interest of the show’s leading lady Leslie Knope (Amy Poehler), Dave left Pawnee to take a job in San Diego. The character is set to reappear in at least one early 2012 Parks episode, potentially vying for Leslie’s attention from her current love interest Ben Wyatt (Adam Scott). Louis CK currently stars in his own FX sitcom Louie, which has been picked up for a third season.

Dexter – Sin of Omission/Get Gellar

For those of you keeping up with Dexter this season it isn’t likely to escape you that one of the episodes that I’m about to talk about is a week old. Let’s ignore my lateness and simply move onto business. “Sin of Omission” was a big episode for Dexter, both for the character and potentially for the series itself. On the character side Dexter had just about one of the most “human” episodes in the series’ run as he dealt with the fallout from his trip to Nebraska as well as his own emotions. With his sudden disappearance amidst the height of the Doomsday Killer case, Debra was pissed to say the least, so when her brother reemerged without plausible responses to her questions, things got interesting.

Whilst there was nothing direct about it, the way in which the inquisition was acted hinted towards two things: one, that Deb is finally coming to accept that her brother isn’t normal and two, that Dexter felt genuinely bad for lying to his sister and putting her in an awkward situation at work. Over the last six years Dexter has been humanized to a massive extent. He has gone from a soulless mass-murderer to a husband and father with genuine love for his family members, but one thing that has never really come to the surface is guilt. Sure, following Rita’s murder there was a certain quality to Dexter that wasn’t in line with his usual self, but it was anger at being outdone by Trinity more so than genuine remorse. 

Terra Nova – Vs.

After quite a few trials and errors, last week, Terra Nova
managed to produce a multi-storyline episode that was not only
entertaining, but was also the first to really break with the show’s
habit of holding back on the overarching story. This week, with its
first try at delivering an episode entirely built on that main story,
the series hit all the right notes.

Like
for everything else in life, not all TV shows are the same. When it is
your job to watch them, interestingly, the most striking difference
between them is not their budget, the number of viewers they draw or
even their category. What sets them apart is the ambition of the
production team. That’s how intuitively, as a reviewer, you sort out
“little league” shows from those that take themselves more (or maybe
too) seriously. It can be seen, among other things, in the way stories
are structured or how acting shortcomings are tolerated. Because of
that pervasive nature, occasionally, there is an episode that makes you
wonder who the writers and producers were and if they have done any
work for the show before. “Vs.” was such an episode for Terra Nova.