Television

Breaking Bad – Face Off

In the final installment of Breaking
Bad’s fourth season every aspect of what makes the series so
brilliant was on display. “Face Off” featured a healthy dose of
comedy, superb acting, and thrilling drama to rival any other series
on television. With the exception of one crucial moment, it was an
absolutely incredible ride from start to finish. Though we were
saying goodbye to one villain, as it turns out, we were also saying
hello to another.

One of the most surprising aspects of
“Face Off” was the humor that made up the first few minutes of
the episode. It wouldn’t have been expected of Vince Gilligan, as
writer and director, to include any comic relief in the season
finale, especially with how grim the episodes leading into it have
been. It was certainly welcome though, especially since it didn’t
completely derail the tension that had been building, only lessened
the very dire atmosphere created with the end of “Crawl Space.”

Dexter – Once Upon a Time…

It would be pretty difficult to deny that Sunday was largely about Breaking Bad’s fourth season finale for me and likely many viewers of Dexter, but when the dust was settled for another year over at AMC, Showtime’s behemoth stood front and center. Dexter’s sixth season premiere had a lot to take on last week when it hit screens, as the fifth season wasn’t what one might call universally loved. Scour the internet and you’ll find no shortage of people that cite the fifth season as their favorite, but conversely, you’ll find many that would take a rusty pole to Julia Stiles/Lumen Pierce’s face given the opportunity. Taking its task in stride, the premiere would likely have converted many (if not most) of the season five haters, with an abundance of character and plot progression. While the goings on of the past year hadn’t been solidified quite yet, we’d dealt with any residual rubbish from the gap by the episode’s end. Then along came “Once Upon a Time…”

We picked up this week with Dexter putting his son to bed. Mundane as it might sound, seeing and hearing (through inner monologue) Dexter interact with another human on a completely emotional level is a fairly big thing for his character. Many people probably have not been a fan of Dexter’s humanization over the years, but I find it to be one of best things about the show. Knowing what Dexter is truly made of, seeing him balance his roles as brutal killer and loving father so skillfully, yet at the same time earnestly, is pretty great. In the earlier years, the show derived copious amounts of dark humor and even drama from the double meanings and hidden agendas of Dexter Morgan, but now we just get to see him be himself. With a young son incapable of comprehending the subtleties of his father, we get a view of who Dexter really is outside of his dark passenger and he is a man worth knowing.

A Gifted Man – First Impressions

A Gifted Man is a CBS medical drama starring Patrick Wilson. Wilson plays Michael Holt, a driven and brilliant neurosurgeon living in a bubble until the ghost of his ex-wife Anna (Jennifer Ehle) comes knocking. Anna is a very demanding ghost who wants him to help with a few things that will substantially alter his life. Although the pilot and the second episode are, on many points, surprisingly better than I expected, they highlighted a couple of issues that may make or break the series, depending on the type of audience that was first drawn to the show.

In the pilot, we are introduced to Michael Holt, a very successful doctor who “gets” what being the best at anything entails. One evening, as he is leaving a fancy New York restaurant, he stumbles upon his ex-wife. They end up having dinner together and discuss their distant, but still very memorable life together. A few days later, he realizes she has been dead for almost two weeks and starts researching hallucinations, thinking that is his plight. Needless to say, the ghost returns and by the end of the pilot, Michael is convinced she is indeed the real deal.

Person of Interest – Mission Creep

The names Jonathan Nolan and JJ Abrams suggested we’d get a more science-fiction based thriller with more of a long-term narrative. Instead, the show has turned out to be a “case of the week” mystery. It might not completely be time to come to terms with that violation of expectations, but regardless, the show does the formula pretty darn well.

Fringe – Alone in the World

In a very Fringe style, an episode that started out like a standalone was expertly used to explore a character’s backstory, and from that character, the episode was skillfully turned around to propel the main story arc forward.

The episode starts with Walter being interviewed by an old “friend,” the director of the mental institution he resided in for 17 years, performing a monthly evaluation of his former patient. Aside from hovering the threat of re-institutionalization, the session summarized the issues the ethereal presence of a man (Peter) has been having on Walter and was our cue that we were finally having a Walter-centric episode.

Supernatural – The Girl Next Door

Twenty-one episodes after having the helm of the 108th installment of Supernatural (“Weekend at Bobby’s”) put into his hands, Jensen Ackles returned to the other side of the camera for his second directorial effort in this week’s “The Girl Next Door.” Before getting into the who, what, where, why and when of the episode itself, I feel that it would be appropriate to speak of Ackles’ performance as a director. For only his second attempt at being in charge of anything, let alone a show that he is an integral part of on the other side of the camera, the man has some skills. I went back and watched “Weekend at Bobby’s” before taking in this week’s episode and both are indistinguishable from any other episode of the show. By that I mean that a complete rookie has managed to seamlessly integrate his efforts into a show usually directed by veterans of television.

His style is noticeably different in a few scenes of this week’s episode in particular – with some instances of a first person view from Dean’s perspective – but even his own personal touches were perfectly applicable to the situation at hand and would likely have been used anyway were someone else directing. With that out of the way, this week’s episode…

The Office – Lotto

Season eight of The Office had been difficult to judge from its first two episodes.  Should the show be dropped for all its flaws, or held onto for its few redeeming qualities?  Well with “Lotto” the bad has officially outweighed the good.  A lottery winning turned out to be one of the episode’s more grounded plots, as low-key humor didn’t so much take a back seat to wackiness, but was practically thrown from the car.

The episode was off to a rocky start even before the title credits rolled.  For a while now, Oscar has been the only remaining voice of reason in the office, but with this new season of more outlandish moments than ever before, even he is no longer immune to the plague of irrationality.  Watching him sacrifice his sanity in The Office’s latest over-the-top attempt at humor would have been less painful if he – or anyone else for that mater – had been sharp enough to catch the fact that the sun roof was open the entire time.  Oscar taking one of his “principal stands,”as Pam has called them in the past, was right in line with his character, but it just shouldn’t have ended with him vandalizing a car.  The cold open did at least set the tone for the episode, as it was the same reliance on ridiculous premises and adults using the judgment of children that spoiled most of “Lotto.”