I was bagging my comics this morning and of course came up exactly three bags short. So I drove to my favorite comic book and supply store, the place I worked at when I was in graduate school and where I have been a customer for 20 years now. I was startled to find the owner was actually working today, since it is a Sunday, but it turns out there was a Heroclix tournament going on and the other clerks were busy playing. The store owner has a great sense of humor, and even when he is being dry, he gets this gleam in his eye so I can tell when he is not being serious. With that particular glint, he ask, "Have you heard that our long national nightmare is over?"
Rick and I often have political discussions, as well as discussions about books and movies. Without a context, I was unsure what he was talking about. I guess I looked dumbfounded, because he followed up fairly quickly with "...now that the final Countdown has come out?" I grinned, in part at the memory in the same store on Wednesday picking up the week's book and serenading the employees and customers with a decidedly Southern and more off-key version of Europe's 80s rock hit, "The Final Countdown." But before I could respond, the poor customer who was trapped in our verbal volley asked if it was that bad. Rick responded, and I was taken aback: "Well, financially, we still have 97% of the sales from issue 1, so I liked it. But it was a horrible story and DC should be embarrassed." What was so astounding about this was not just that Rick was so honest about an issue of a comic he was still trying to sell, and that in fact this customer had in his hands, but that he was still selling 97% of his initial sales on a weekly basis!
I've been pretty frank about my opinions of recent writing at DC. I think their pinning a years' worth of stories on something that was apparently so poorly planned out was shameful. I've stopped doing comic reviews for a while because otherwise I would end up blogging on a weekly basis about the same crop of books all the time: Booster Gold, Blue Beetle, Green Lantern and Green Lantern Corps, and Detective. What is so odd is that as much as I am enjoying Detective, its writer--Paul Dini--was supposed to be the architect of Countdown. And the potential and success of those two series are completely opposite: Detective is exciting and refreshing while Countdown appears to spent a year marching steadily in place.
I recognize that it is incumbent on a critic to explain the reasons why he doesn't like something, probably moreso than why he likes something. And part of my problem is that I can't remember details about Countdown, which simultaneously points out one of its biggest flaws. I've been reading the book for 52 weeks and yet I can barely remember any details from it--was that really DC's goal? The best I can do is catalog the differences in the DC Universe from the beginning of Countdown to its end.
1. Jimmy Olsen had all the powers of the New Gods, then lost them, so that by the end of the series, nothing has changed for him except that he has fond memories.
2. Speaking of which, all the New Gods aer apparently dead, except for the "spirit" of Orion, who helps defeat Darkseid but is voiceless and ghostlike, and a new Forager, a character we have never seen before and doesn't offer a whole lot of promise for the future.
3. There is a new group "Monitoring the monitors" made up of Donna Troy, Kyle Raynor, Ray Palmer and the aforementioned new Forager. Expect most of the work for this group to be performed by Ray and Forager, since Donna and Kyle have their own books to be a part of.
4. Mary Marvel went evil, then good, then evil again. Now she is challenging Black Adam. And all during this yearlong period of angst for her, Billy Batson and Captain Marvel are nowhere to be found.
5. Jean Loring is not Eclipso any longer; the mantle has gone back to Bruce Gordon.
6. And Monarch has put together a pan-universal army that includes the Extremists. Just why we have no idea, but we spent a total of 10 issues of side series getting to that point.
So some things have happened, but a lot of each of these could have been handled in their own mini-series, instead of dragging readers along for 52 weeks. In terms of sweeping changes to the DC Universe, promised changes to the status quo, there is nothing. I can't think of a darned thing that is different, other than the reading has become that much more tedious in almost all the series.
But to go back to Rick's statement, the amazing thing is that he kept the vast majority of his sales over the course of the year. Why didn't anyone give up the series....why didn't I give up the series? For myself, I know I am a completist--once I start a series, it takes a lot to make me stop reading it; I am DC's dream customer. But I have been saying for a while now that I wanted to stop reading, so why didn't I quit the series? And as silly as the answer sounds, it is exactly this: I bought the hype, that something important was going to happen in the course of the 52 weeks. If you had told me before the series started that the New Gods would be wiped out, I would have thought that was a huge event, but there have been no repercussions, and apparently most of the DC Universe doesn't even know it yet. And I am already hearing rumors that Darkseid is going to show up in the next major event, Final Crisis, so it would appear that I did wisely by holding on to my emotional energy. As best I can tell from reading numerous boards, including DC's own, very few people are very happy with Countdown but most of them read the whole dang thing. So, no matter how poorly it was handled, it has to be a success in DC's eyes, and there is no reason for them not to do something like this again.
I've been resistant to the whole idea of waiting for a story arc to come out in graphic novel format, but I now see one huge advantage to it--I would only be buying things that have been reviewed and vetted, and thus saving money both because the graphic novels are cheaper than the per-issue cost and because I would be buying fewer comics altogether. I don't want to think like this, as I enjoy the serial nature of buying comic books on a weekly or monthly basis, but the strains of the Who are drifting in my mind, "I won't be fooled again." I'll give it one last shot, but if I get burned even a little bit, I'm seriously going to reconsider how and why I buy comics.
Sunday, April 27, 2008
Wednesday, April 23, 2008
Torchwood
…or why the Speculator household will not be watching season three.
Last July, Mrs. Speculator and I stumbled into a panel for Torchwood at Comic-con, actually more interested in the panel that was to follow. Inside we found a milling throng of fans, most of whom had seen the show from downloads or borrowed DVD copies of episodes. They were enthusiastic and loud, and since the wife and I enjoy the new Doctor Who, we sat back and learned what we could about the new show. The results were good and we determined to watch it when it came on BBC America.
Now, nearly a year later, we've seen seasons 1 and 2 and are a little puzzled about why the show has such a huge following. Our dismay at the show grew with every episode, but we decided we would give it a full run on its season before deciding what we would do. This past weekend, the season two finale aired, and we found it to be a major disappointment, introducing new problems that force us to question what the show is about and continuing the issues that made us doubt in the first place.
Before the season finale, our issues were fairly straightforward. The first, which may be viewed as a peccadillo on our part, was that Captain Jack Harkness (John Barrowman) of Torchwood is not written the same way he is when he is on Doctor Who. Who's Harkness is a rogue, a picaresque hero. He is funny and charming and someone you can depend on when you need to. While he is secretive about his own past, he is open about his plans and priorities. On Torchwood, he is almost the reverse of this personality: he is dour, only funny when it gets him out of a jam, more open about his past, and less open about his plans and priorities. While it is clear he sees the members of Torchwood as a family, his love for them is oppressive, as Gwen (Eve Myles) often points out to him. He expects devotion and trust, but he does not generally offer it in return, instead almost always making demands of those he "cares" for. I'm minded of the Peter Principle, that incompetence rises to its own level. Clearly Harkness is great as a number two, as a right-hand man, but he is a woeful leader and manager. If his team members were not so inexplicably devoted to him, they would revolt. And again, we have seen glimpses of Gwen calling him out on this very topic. The last two episodes of season two have made it clear as he works with other members of Torchwood in the past, he works much better as an agent than as the leader. So, the upshot of this is that Harkness is not the man we got to know in Doctor Who, and while his portrayal is consistent in Torchwood, I don't like the character in Torchwood. I honestly do not believe this to be a flaw with the actor, but how he is written and directed.
And while Jack is larger than life, his status merely exacerbates the weakness of the other characters. Owen (Burn Gorman), Tosh (Naoko Mori), and Ianto (Gareth David-Lloyd) are pale caricatures and rather flat as well. They each seem to have a single emotion that they are asked to portray over and over again: Owen is the irascible rebel, who just mainly appears angry and put out. Tosh is the devoted sycophant, building unhealthy attachments to whomever she is enamoured with this week. And Ianto…well, honestly, I don't know what role Ianto plays other than to be Jack's main squeeze. He serves coffee a lot and looks terrified or surprised sometimes. The attempts to give these supporting characters more life have generally failed or, worse, produced bizarre continuity issues. For example, we've seen Owen in love (or lust, a whole lot of lust…there's a lot of sex and fondling, and clearly we are supposed to think it is love, but there is nothing onscreen that really looks like love) with a woman lost in time. We see him being gentle and loving with her, and melancholy when she is lost, but as soon as the next episode, he's just mean and surly again. Tosh apparently falls in love with anything that moves, including an alien, a man lost in time (hmm, there's a pattern), and inexplicably, Owen. When she is not simpering or pining for her current love, Tosh is a brilliant…well, apparently she can do anything with machines and computers that she wants. Her skills are poorly defined, so she ends up being like Wesley from Star Trek: The Next Generation, doing whatever is needed that falls outside the skill sets of everyone else. You need someone to rest your servers after an alien attack, go to Tosh. How about shutting down a nuclear reactor? She's the one.
The issue is, again, not that these characters aren't played well. The actors are quite fine at their work; the problem is that I find the characters almost completely unlikable. Owen is mean, but Tosh loves him anyway, and that just makes him more mean. And what's worse, when we finally see some flashbacks about the characters in the next-to-last episode of season two, we find that Owen wasn't mean to his fiancée. He was devoted and charismatic, and then he fell into the TV cliché of having his heart turn to stone upon her death. Except when he is not stony, which only makes him seem to suffer from multiple personalities. And Ianto…well, he truly is just a cipher.
The bright spot of the entire series is Gwen. Although she started out as the everyday character that offers us mundane folks a view and a voice in the world of Torchwood, she has become far more than that. She is the conscience of Torchwood, regularly reminding the team to be more human or take into account that there is a bigger picture. She is efficient, she is a real leader, and she is a complete character. She insists on having a life outside of Torchwood, giving us insight into the niches of her personality, which the spotlight episodes for Tosh and Owen failed to achieve for them. And Eve Myles plays her incredibly well, chewing the scenery when it is required but generally remaining understated in her portrayal and thus far more effective. She has her lapses, which again I blame more on the writing than the actor (Why have a dalliance with mean old Owen? Why is she so attracted to Jack?), but generally her character is dependable, both in its actions and in its portrayal.
[there will be spoilers from here on…read at your own peril]
So I'm describing a series with five main characters, three of whom I don't like, one of whom is a complete mystery, and one of which is just brilliant. This seems a deficit that would be difficult to overcome, but if the storytelling is good beyond the personal bits, with interesting plots and engrossing stories, then the show might be watchable, though only teeth-gratingly so. Alas, the stories are not enough to save my interest.
Generally they start with what could be an interesting premise, but only rarely are those premises fulfilled. Often the resolutions are trite and cliché, predictable from the start of the episode. A few rare episodes show what could really be done, such as season two's "Meat" which was tremendously written and agonizingly played out. What happens when greedy, self-absorbed, normal people discover a way to make money from the alien artifacts that emerge from the rift? In this episode, little attention was paid to the personal lives of the team, perhaps so that the full emotional impact of the story would not be diluted. Butchers are selling alien meat that is making its consumers ill, so Torchwood puts together a sting to find the source. Their expectation is to find a herd of alien cattle, but instead they find a single giant whale-like alien with amazing recuperative powers kept sedated in a warehouse. The butchers carve their product from the side of the still-living creature which then heals from its injury. Torchwood is disgusted at such abuse, and probably would be if it were a terrestrial animal with similar capabilities. But then they discover that the creature is actually sentient, and the horror strikes hard and fast. It was a wrenching episode to watch and a risky thing to try, and a real throw-back to the edgier science fiction of the late 60s and early 70s. That they pulled it off with grace without condescension is a real tribute to the cast and crew of the show. Unfortunately, "Meat" was the exception that proves the rule—that the premises often fall short.
The real clincher was the last episode. In the episode before, "Fragments", someone attempts to kill all the members of Torchwood, giving the show an opportunity to do flashbacks to get some back story on the characters we have been following for two years. At the end of that episode, we discover the villain is Captain John Hart, another member of Jack's time agency (about which we know absolutely nothing still) and somehow he has Jack's long lost brother Gray from the 51st century as a hostage (bearing in mind we barely know about Gray, except that Jack has long suffered guilt for losing him). But as the final episode, "Exit Wounds", goes on, we discover the real villain is Gray himself, who Jack lost track of during an alien invasion when he was nine or ten years old. Apparently Gray was captured by the aliens and tortured for years, all for which he blames Jack. In other words, Jack must pay for something he couldn't control as a child. It stretches believability, but it is easier to decide Gray is insane and go from there (although he's really lucid). Ultimately, Gray causes bombs to go off all over the city of Cardiff and somehow lets lose denizens of the rift to terrorize the city, all in an effort to get Jack away from his team and thus fairly defenseless. We discover that while John Hart is a part of these plans, it is because he has somehow allowed Gray to "molecularly bond" a bomb to him and thus he is being blackmailed with his life.
Hart takes Jack to 27 AD, where Gray directs Jack to be buried alive beneath what will eventually become the city of Cardiff. And since Jack cannot remain dead, he will go through a cycle of awakening and dying, all because he failed to take care of his brother when he was ten years old. Gray's revenge extends to destroying Cardiff as well, and so his distraction becomes far more evil as he releases evil aliens across the city. Along the way, Tosh gets shot and Owen is trapped inside a nuclear power plant that must vent its gases before it melts down (Ianto just sort of stumbles around doing nothing important). And Gwen has her moment; in Jack's absence, she commands the powers of the city of Cardiff, dealing with each emergency as it comes up. Everyone recognizes her strength of character and her leadership.
Meanwhile, Jack is found by Torchwood in 1901 because of the signal emitted from a ring John Hart left with him. Somehow, after 1900 years being buried alive, Jack remains completely sane and still feels guilty about his brother's torture. But he also knows that he cannot meet himself, so Torchwood puts him into cryogenic stasis for another 107 years, until he awakens the very day his brother starts terrorizing the city.
Of course, the day is saved, except that Owen (who is actually an animated dead man because of an earlier misadventure in the second season) is roasted by radioactive waste gas and …well, I guess he doesn't die again, but he has no remains to animate and so is gone. Tosh dies of her gunshot wound. Jack is reunited with his brother and hugs him really hard before putting him into cryogenic stasis, knowing full well if he ever escapes, Gray will do everything to destroy him and the things he loves.
I purposely drew out that description of the episode to emphasize how tedious it was to watch. It was pretty predictable within the possibilities portrayed by the show, and the main villain came completely out of left field. And up to now, Jack has been pretty much able to do whatever needs to be done, except that he can't put away his brother (who tortured him for close to 2000 years!). Even Scott Evil knows you don't leave someone like this with an out to come back and hurt you some more. Owen had to die; he was pretty much ineffective after his first death--not only mean, but mopey too. And Tosh was just too pathetic to let live. Why Ianto gets to continue to make coffee, I have no idea.
The door is open for major changes with nearly half the team being replaced. But it wasn't the actors who made the characters unbearable, and so it doesn't really matter what comes along if they are as poorly written as these were. Here is the perfect opportunity for Gwen to assume leadership of Torchwood and use Jack for what he does best, as an agent, but I doubt the show will go in that direction. Ultimately, there was so much potential, from the actors to the pre-existing character, to the premise of the show. And other than Gwen and the rare strong episode, all of that potential was just wasted. And ultimately that's why I won't watch any more of this show until people I trust tell me I need to see a certain episode: I've got better things to do with my hour spent watching this show than be constantly disappointed at the creative decisions it makes.
Last July, Mrs. Speculator and I stumbled into a panel for Torchwood at Comic-con, actually more interested in the panel that was to follow. Inside we found a milling throng of fans, most of whom had seen the show from downloads or borrowed DVD copies of episodes. They were enthusiastic and loud, and since the wife and I enjoy the new Doctor Who, we sat back and learned what we could about the new show. The results were good and we determined to watch it when it came on BBC America.
Now, nearly a year later, we've seen seasons 1 and 2 and are a little puzzled about why the show has such a huge following. Our dismay at the show grew with every episode, but we decided we would give it a full run on its season before deciding what we would do. This past weekend, the season two finale aired, and we found it to be a major disappointment, introducing new problems that force us to question what the show is about and continuing the issues that made us doubt in the first place.
Before the season finale, our issues were fairly straightforward. The first, which may be viewed as a peccadillo on our part, was that Captain Jack Harkness (John Barrowman) of Torchwood is not written the same way he is when he is on Doctor Who. Who's Harkness is a rogue, a picaresque hero. He is funny and charming and someone you can depend on when you need to. While he is secretive about his own past, he is open about his plans and priorities. On Torchwood, he is almost the reverse of this personality: he is dour, only funny when it gets him out of a jam, more open about his past, and less open about his plans and priorities. While it is clear he sees the members of Torchwood as a family, his love for them is oppressive, as Gwen (Eve Myles) often points out to him. He expects devotion and trust, but he does not generally offer it in return, instead almost always making demands of those he "cares" for. I'm minded of the Peter Principle, that incompetence rises to its own level. Clearly Harkness is great as a number two, as a right-hand man, but he is a woeful leader and manager. If his team members were not so inexplicably devoted to him, they would revolt. And again, we have seen glimpses of Gwen calling him out on this very topic. The last two episodes of season two have made it clear as he works with other members of Torchwood in the past, he works much better as an agent than as the leader. So, the upshot of this is that Harkness is not the man we got to know in Doctor Who, and while his portrayal is consistent in Torchwood, I don't like the character in Torchwood. I honestly do not believe this to be a flaw with the actor, but how he is written and directed.
And while Jack is larger than life, his status merely exacerbates the weakness of the other characters. Owen (Burn Gorman), Tosh (Naoko Mori), and Ianto (Gareth David-Lloyd) are pale caricatures and rather flat as well. They each seem to have a single emotion that they are asked to portray over and over again: Owen is the irascible rebel, who just mainly appears angry and put out. Tosh is the devoted sycophant, building unhealthy attachments to whomever she is enamoured with this week. And Ianto…well, honestly, I don't know what role Ianto plays other than to be Jack's main squeeze. He serves coffee a lot and looks terrified or surprised sometimes. The attempts to give these supporting characters more life have generally failed or, worse, produced bizarre continuity issues. For example, we've seen Owen in love (or lust, a whole lot of lust…there's a lot of sex and fondling, and clearly we are supposed to think it is love, but there is nothing onscreen that really looks like love) with a woman lost in time. We see him being gentle and loving with her, and melancholy when she is lost, but as soon as the next episode, he's just mean and surly again. Tosh apparently falls in love with anything that moves, including an alien, a man lost in time (hmm, there's a pattern), and inexplicably, Owen. When she is not simpering or pining for her current love, Tosh is a brilliant…well, apparently she can do anything with machines and computers that she wants. Her skills are poorly defined, so she ends up being like Wesley from Star Trek: The Next Generation, doing whatever is needed that falls outside the skill sets of everyone else. You need someone to rest your servers after an alien attack, go to Tosh. How about shutting down a nuclear reactor? She's the one.
The issue is, again, not that these characters aren't played well. The actors are quite fine at their work; the problem is that I find the characters almost completely unlikable. Owen is mean, but Tosh loves him anyway, and that just makes him more mean. And what's worse, when we finally see some flashbacks about the characters in the next-to-last episode of season two, we find that Owen wasn't mean to his fiancée. He was devoted and charismatic, and then he fell into the TV cliché of having his heart turn to stone upon her death. Except when he is not stony, which only makes him seem to suffer from multiple personalities. And Ianto…well, he truly is just a cipher.
The bright spot of the entire series is Gwen. Although she started out as the everyday character that offers us mundane folks a view and a voice in the world of Torchwood, she has become far more than that. She is the conscience of Torchwood, regularly reminding the team to be more human or take into account that there is a bigger picture. She is efficient, she is a real leader, and she is a complete character. She insists on having a life outside of Torchwood, giving us insight into the niches of her personality, which the spotlight episodes for Tosh and Owen failed to achieve for them. And Eve Myles plays her incredibly well, chewing the scenery when it is required but generally remaining understated in her portrayal and thus far more effective. She has her lapses, which again I blame more on the writing than the actor (Why have a dalliance with mean old Owen? Why is she so attracted to Jack?), but generally her character is dependable, both in its actions and in its portrayal.
[there will be spoilers from here on…read at your own peril]
So I'm describing a series with five main characters, three of whom I don't like, one of whom is a complete mystery, and one of which is just brilliant. This seems a deficit that would be difficult to overcome, but if the storytelling is good beyond the personal bits, with interesting plots and engrossing stories, then the show might be watchable, though only teeth-gratingly so. Alas, the stories are not enough to save my interest.
Generally they start with what could be an interesting premise, but only rarely are those premises fulfilled. Often the resolutions are trite and cliché, predictable from the start of the episode. A few rare episodes show what could really be done, such as season two's "Meat" which was tremendously written and agonizingly played out. What happens when greedy, self-absorbed, normal people discover a way to make money from the alien artifacts that emerge from the rift? In this episode, little attention was paid to the personal lives of the team, perhaps so that the full emotional impact of the story would not be diluted. Butchers are selling alien meat that is making its consumers ill, so Torchwood puts together a sting to find the source. Their expectation is to find a herd of alien cattle, but instead they find a single giant whale-like alien with amazing recuperative powers kept sedated in a warehouse. The butchers carve their product from the side of the still-living creature which then heals from its injury. Torchwood is disgusted at such abuse, and probably would be if it were a terrestrial animal with similar capabilities. But then they discover that the creature is actually sentient, and the horror strikes hard and fast. It was a wrenching episode to watch and a risky thing to try, and a real throw-back to the edgier science fiction of the late 60s and early 70s. That they pulled it off with grace without condescension is a real tribute to the cast and crew of the show. Unfortunately, "Meat" was the exception that proves the rule—that the premises often fall short.
The real clincher was the last episode. In the episode before, "Fragments", someone attempts to kill all the members of Torchwood, giving the show an opportunity to do flashbacks to get some back story on the characters we have been following for two years. At the end of that episode, we discover the villain is Captain John Hart, another member of Jack's time agency (about which we know absolutely nothing still) and somehow he has Jack's long lost brother Gray from the 51st century as a hostage (bearing in mind we barely know about Gray, except that Jack has long suffered guilt for losing him). But as the final episode, "Exit Wounds", goes on, we discover the real villain is Gray himself, who Jack lost track of during an alien invasion when he was nine or ten years old. Apparently Gray was captured by the aliens and tortured for years, all for which he blames Jack. In other words, Jack must pay for something he couldn't control as a child. It stretches believability, but it is easier to decide Gray is insane and go from there (although he's really lucid). Ultimately, Gray causes bombs to go off all over the city of Cardiff and somehow lets lose denizens of the rift to terrorize the city, all in an effort to get Jack away from his team and thus fairly defenseless. We discover that while John Hart is a part of these plans, it is because he has somehow allowed Gray to "molecularly bond" a bomb to him and thus he is being blackmailed with his life.
Hart takes Jack to 27 AD, where Gray directs Jack to be buried alive beneath what will eventually become the city of Cardiff. And since Jack cannot remain dead, he will go through a cycle of awakening and dying, all because he failed to take care of his brother when he was ten years old. Gray's revenge extends to destroying Cardiff as well, and so his distraction becomes far more evil as he releases evil aliens across the city. Along the way, Tosh gets shot and Owen is trapped inside a nuclear power plant that must vent its gases before it melts down (Ianto just sort of stumbles around doing nothing important). And Gwen has her moment; in Jack's absence, she commands the powers of the city of Cardiff, dealing with each emergency as it comes up. Everyone recognizes her strength of character and her leadership.
Meanwhile, Jack is found by Torchwood in 1901 because of the signal emitted from a ring John Hart left with him. Somehow, after 1900 years being buried alive, Jack remains completely sane and still feels guilty about his brother's torture. But he also knows that he cannot meet himself, so Torchwood puts him into cryogenic stasis for another 107 years, until he awakens the very day his brother starts terrorizing the city.
Of course, the day is saved, except that Owen (who is actually an animated dead man because of an earlier misadventure in the second season) is roasted by radioactive waste gas and …well, I guess he doesn't die again, but he has no remains to animate and so is gone. Tosh dies of her gunshot wound. Jack is reunited with his brother and hugs him really hard before putting him into cryogenic stasis, knowing full well if he ever escapes, Gray will do everything to destroy him and the things he loves.
I purposely drew out that description of the episode to emphasize how tedious it was to watch. It was pretty predictable within the possibilities portrayed by the show, and the main villain came completely out of left field. And up to now, Jack has been pretty much able to do whatever needs to be done, except that he can't put away his brother (who tortured him for close to 2000 years!). Even Scott Evil knows you don't leave someone like this with an out to come back and hurt you some more. Owen had to die; he was pretty much ineffective after his first death--not only mean, but mopey too. And Tosh was just too pathetic to let live. Why Ianto gets to continue to make coffee, I have no idea.
The door is open for major changes with nearly half the team being replaced. But it wasn't the actors who made the characters unbearable, and so it doesn't really matter what comes along if they are as poorly written as these were. Here is the perfect opportunity for Gwen to assume leadership of Torchwood and use Jack for what he does best, as an agent, but I doubt the show will go in that direction. Ultimately, there was so much potential, from the actors to the pre-existing character, to the premise of the show. And other than Gwen and the rare strong episode, all of that potential was just wasted. And ultimately that's why I won't watch any more of this show until people I trust tell me I need to see a certain episode: I've got better things to do with my hour spent watching this show than be constantly disappointed at the creative decisions it makes.
Tuesday, April 22, 2008
Forbidden Kingdom
One of my guilty pleasures is Last Action Hero in great part for its metafictional qualities. While situating itself firmly in the action hero genre, it casts a skeptical and sometimes scathing eye on the tropes and clichés of the genre itself. That commentary, pointing out the more ludicrous aspects of what we have to accept or set aside to enjoy the movie, and featuring Mr. Action Hero himself—Ahnold—is just exceptionally smart and telling. And it helps that it is a fairly interesting story in itself. That model also works for Forbidden Kingdom: while setting itself in run of higher-end martial arts epics, like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and Hero, it also comments on the genre from an insider point of view.
Meet Jason Tripitikas (Micael Angarano), lover of the old chop socky movies and fairly stereotypical geek. Jason gets his bootleg DVDs from the local pawn shop and somehow believes that knowledge of all the arcane and esoteric martial arts he has seen in those movies makes him an expert in them. And when he is blackmailed into robbing that same pawn shop and seeing the owner shot and perhaps killed by a local tough, he grabs a weapon to defend himself and flees. Unfortunately, gang members tend to be a little more athletic than nerds and he ends up being tossed off the side of a building.
…and waking up in ancient China, now dressed as a peasant and still carrying the bo staff he has picked up. He soon finds himself mired in the local politics, which have a supernatural basis for their unpleasantness. The Jade Warlord has imprisoned the immortal Monkey King (Jet Li) and as a result, the rightful ruler, the Jade Emperor, cannot return and bring good back to the land. The only way to free the Monkey King is to return his fabled weapon to him, the staff that Jason of course is carrying. Jason meets Lu Yan (Jackie Chan) who claims to be the immortal Drunken Master who decides to help Jason on his involuntary quest.
What follows is a fairly typical story of heroes on the run while the destined hero is trained in the way of magic, or in this case, martial arts. As I think about it, this quest fairly easily parallels the typical quest of high fantasy, but with a Chinese background. Jason and Lu Yan gain companions along the way, one of whom is of course a beautiful young girl, Golden Sparrow (Liu Yifei), for whom Jason swoons. Their path is dogged by the sinister Ni Chang (Li Bingbing) who has promised her master the Jade Warlord that she will bring him the staff and keep the Monkey King imprisoned.
As I write this I realize Forbidden Kingdom sounds very typical and perhaps even predictable. It may be those things, but it is also a lot of fun, with solid performances from all the cast. There is also a sly sense of humor throughout the film as it picks on itself and its genre; for example, when Lu Yan and their other companion, The Silent Monk (another appearance by Jet Li) train Jason to be the hero, they discuss their assumption that their savior would be Chinese. Moments like these are balanced with the brilliant choreography of Yuen Wo-Ping (The Matrix and Kill Bill among others) to provide an easy introduction to the genre of the martial arts epic for those unfamiliar with their sweep and scope and a fun ride for viewers who are familiar with the genre. To further Americanize the film, Jason returns to the modern US, no longer a geek, but a trained martial artist confident in his abilities. When the gang finds him and attempts to bully him into not going to the police to report their earlier crime, of course Jason recalls that he now knows kung fu and quickly dispatches the leader of the gang and winning the heart of the fair maiden.
I particularly like the circles that the paths of most of the main characters’ plot takes. It adds an easy predictability…a familiarity…to a story that a lot of movie goers might find very strange. There is no sweeping music, no tremendous themes or philosophy; there is only solid acting, fine cinematography and choreography, and a fun ride. It’s a kind of candy for those who know and appreciate the genre and perhaps an entry drug for those who are new to it. And seeing Jackie Chan and Jet Li together on screen is really worth it, especially since the script gives them an extended fight scene that hearkens back to those chop socky movies and them takes them to a whole new level, not in the way of The Matrix or even Kung Fu Hustle but somewhere between. You probably won’t pine to see Forbidden Kingdom again, but you won’t regret the time spent laughing and cheering for the archetypal heroes of two cultures.
Meet Jason Tripitikas (Micael Angarano), lover of the old chop socky movies and fairly stereotypical geek. Jason gets his bootleg DVDs from the local pawn shop and somehow believes that knowledge of all the arcane and esoteric martial arts he has seen in those movies makes him an expert in them. And when he is blackmailed into robbing that same pawn shop and seeing the owner shot and perhaps killed by a local tough, he grabs a weapon to defend himself and flees. Unfortunately, gang members tend to be a little more athletic than nerds and he ends up being tossed off the side of a building.
…and waking up in ancient China, now dressed as a peasant and still carrying the bo staff he has picked up. He soon finds himself mired in the local politics, which have a supernatural basis for their unpleasantness. The Jade Warlord has imprisoned the immortal Monkey King (Jet Li) and as a result, the rightful ruler, the Jade Emperor, cannot return and bring good back to the land. The only way to free the Monkey King is to return his fabled weapon to him, the staff that Jason of course is carrying. Jason meets Lu Yan (Jackie Chan) who claims to be the immortal Drunken Master who decides to help Jason on his involuntary quest.
What follows is a fairly typical story of heroes on the run while the destined hero is trained in the way of magic, or in this case, martial arts. As I think about it, this quest fairly easily parallels the typical quest of high fantasy, but with a Chinese background. Jason and Lu Yan gain companions along the way, one of whom is of course a beautiful young girl, Golden Sparrow (Liu Yifei), for whom Jason swoons. Their path is dogged by the sinister Ni Chang (Li Bingbing) who has promised her master the Jade Warlord that she will bring him the staff and keep the Monkey King imprisoned.
As I write this I realize Forbidden Kingdom sounds very typical and perhaps even predictable. It may be those things, but it is also a lot of fun, with solid performances from all the cast. There is also a sly sense of humor throughout the film as it picks on itself and its genre; for example, when Lu Yan and their other companion, The Silent Monk (another appearance by Jet Li) train Jason to be the hero, they discuss their assumption that their savior would be Chinese. Moments like these are balanced with the brilliant choreography of Yuen Wo-Ping (The Matrix and Kill Bill among others) to provide an easy introduction to the genre of the martial arts epic for those unfamiliar with their sweep and scope and a fun ride for viewers who are familiar with the genre. To further Americanize the film, Jason returns to the modern US, no longer a geek, but a trained martial artist confident in his abilities. When the gang finds him and attempts to bully him into not going to the police to report their earlier crime, of course Jason recalls that he now knows kung fu and quickly dispatches the leader of the gang and winning the heart of the fair maiden.
I particularly like the circles that the paths of most of the main characters’ plot takes. It adds an easy predictability…a familiarity…to a story that a lot of movie goers might find very strange. There is no sweeping music, no tremendous themes or philosophy; there is only solid acting, fine cinematography and choreography, and a fun ride. It’s a kind of candy for those who know and appreciate the genre and perhaps an entry drug for those who are new to it. And seeing Jackie Chan and Jet Li together on screen is really worth it, especially since the script gives them an extended fight scene that hearkens back to those chop socky movies and them takes them to a whole new level, not in the way of The Matrix or even Kung Fu Hustle but somewhere between. You probably won’t pine to see Forbidden Kingdom again, but you won’t regret the time spent laughing and cheering for the archetypal heroes of two cultures.
Wednesday, April 16, 2008
Eli Stone
I probably should have been talking about this television program before now, but I've gotten into a mode of thinking about what I am reading as blog material and not the things I am watching. And it's made easier by television programming being on every week, such that it becomes standard, while reading a book changes every time I pick up a new book. But given the lack of good science fiction or fantasy on serial television, it's important to talk about the good stuff.
Until the latest episode of Eli Stone, I might have had trouble supporting my claim that it was good stuff. But the show required patience, building up slowly to one of the best moments in television this season. Honestly, the show started whimsically, introducing us to the title character, a brilliant young corporate lawyer (played by Jonny Lee Miller) who is the heir apparent to a partnership in a prestigious San Francisco law firm. Things are looking great for Eli: he's engaged to the senior partner's daughter, that same senior partner envisions big things in his future, and everyone recognizes Eli's brilliance in defending corporate clients. And then the visions start.
Eli finds himself watching George Michael perform "Faith" in his office lobby. Then Michael appears in his living room. And Eli jumps to the conclusion that he's becoming his father, who apparently suffered delusions throughout his life, making Eli's young life miserable as his father repeatedly embarrassed him in public and required special attention. But Eli's brother goes further and, as a neurologist, recommends that Eli get a CAT scan. They find that Eli has a brain aneurysm, and that his visions are in fact hallucinations. Except that the hallucinations Eli has predict the future, and they have the disconcerting habit of coming true.
At this point, Eli Stone could have gone down a road similar to Medium, which until recently made a weekly episode out of its main character predicting the future and no one believing her, not even the people who hired her to use her psychic powers to fight crime…and sometimes not even her husband. Instead, Eli Stone becomes a story about the maturing process of a lawyer, who comes to realize many things, but perhaps most importantly that law is not intended to be a refuge for corporations, but support for individuals. As a result of his visions, Eli takes on more and more improbable cases, causing his coworkers and friends to rethink who Eli really is. And because Eli is a brilliant lawyer, he almost always wins, aggravating his bosses who want him to back to his money-making ways. Particularly infuriated is the senior partner, Jordan Wetherby (played wonderfully by Vincent Garber), who is legally bound to keep Stone hired but uses that tie to make Eli's life miserable the further he goes from the firm's corporate policy. At one point, Stone assists a client to sue one of the firm's large corporate clients, which is maddening enough, but then Stone wins.
As I reread this, I recognize that these are the kinds of things that created a sort of mainstream veneer to Eli Stone, making it appear to be a slightly quirky lawyer show. But there's much more going on underneath the surface. We find out that Eli's father suffered from the same kind of aneurysm, perhaps in the exact same place, and that those moments that most embarrassed Eli were the results of his father being enmeshed in hallucination or drunk as he tries to deal with the hallucinations that he cannot control and medical science cannot cure. Eli's understanding of his father is completely altered and he learns to love his now deceased father as his own aneurysm-induced visions cause flashbacks and insight to moments he has shared with his father. Anger and embarrassment give way to sympathy and understanding, and Eli discovers that his father tried to tell Eli how he was suffering and that Eli would eventually have the same affliction.
Eli also gains a friend in Dr. Chen, an acupuncturist he sought to help him end the hallucinations when he first got them. Stone and Chen have discussions about the nature of Eli's hallucinations—are they the symptoms of a debilitating disease or has Eli been selected to be a prophet. As Eli begins to make discoveries about his father, Chen reveals that he knew Eli's father and was told by him to help take care of Eli when Eli shows up for treatment.
So slowly and surely, Eli begins to convince the people around him that whatever is causing his visions is also showing him the future. The difficulty in believing this proposition is well played by the actors and writers of the show, but ultimately, Eli being correct every time has to win him converts. And yet Eli is torn; his visions help people and give texture and meaning to his own past, but they are ruining his career as a corporate lawyer and they are uncontrollable, afflicting him in the most awkward situations, and around people who don't know his condition. The latest episode returns to Eli's sole failure, a prediction of an earthquake crippling San Francisco, a prediction that was too big for anyone to believe and which forced Eli to cheat at a trial in order to protect people who were going to have their lives destroyed by having them evicted from their homes at the epicenter of the earthquake he saw coming. At the end of that first episode, the earthquake has not arrived and doubts creep in, both for Eli and the people who know him. But the vision returns, and Eli is convinced San Francisco is about to be ravaged by an earthquake.
Eli again takes extreme measures to protect the people, suing the city to close Golden Gate Bridge, ultimately losing the case but wining the attention of the mayor's office which takes him seriously. And he stands on a desk in the center of his firm, admitting to anyone who will listen that he is ill and that he knows they may not all believe him, but for their own safety, they need to get out of the building. Some leave, others stay behind. Then the earthquake strikes, and we see the destruction of the Golden Gate Bridge.
I imagine for some people, this could be a "jump the shark" moment. But for me, this is when the show excelled. Suddenly it's clear that Eli Stone is a high fantasy set in modern times. Eli has a gift, an unwanted gift, but a magical gift that he uses to help those less fortunate than himself. And he has inherited that gift from his father, a man who couldn't use the gift so well but saw that his son would and apologized to him when he learned the burden it would be. And like those high fantasies, Eli Stone is about its main character maturing, actually running through the stages of grief as he deals with his illness which helps so many others. As Eli matures, so do the people around him; the lawyers who are sometimes caricatures of everything stereotypical about lawyers are becoming fully realized. The lawyer who was too young and too busy to properly defend a client years ago, comes back to that client and works with him to get fair treatment and aid. The corporate shill who is only in it for the money grows a conscience and, while still sometimes being a jerk, finds he can be a good person to those around him. And the senior partner, Jordan Wetherby, rediscovers through Eli his passion for law, not for just how much money it brings to him but for the good it can do in other people's lives.
I realized watching the last episode that we were watching a true serial, one that required patience (and maybe even some filler episodes) to get us to where the story wanted to be. And while my description of the Golden Gate Bridge falling appears to describe a ratings stunt, it actually is the culmination of a long thoughtful process. And I couldn't see what was coming soon enough to let people know this was something worth watching. Unfortunately, there is only one episode left this season, and I suspect Eli Stone will not be returning next season—the ratings are not very good, perhaps because it required patience to see where it was going. American television viewers are not renowned for their patience. So, I bring this show to your attention, probably too late. I can hope for another season, but if that fails, I would recommend finding a DVD set of it when it comes out. For Eli Stone offers its viewers hope, for growth and renewal. It has promise and works hard to deliver it, and I'm glad I got to se it achieved.
Until the latest episode of Eli Stone, I might have had trouble supporting my claim that it was good stuff. But the show required patience, building up slowly to one of the best moments in television this season. Honestly, the show started whimsically, introducing us to the title character, a brilliant young corporate lawyer (played by Jonny Lee Miller) who is the heir apparent to a partnership in a prestigious San Francisco law firm. Things are looking great for Eli: he's engaged to the senior partner's daughter, that same senior partner envisions big things in his future, and everyone recognizes Eli's brilliance in defending corporate clients. And then the visions start.
Eli finds himself watching George Michael perform "Faith" in his office lobby. Then Michael appears in his living room. And Eli jumps to the conclusion that he's becoming his father, who apparently suffered delusions throughout his life, making Eli's young life miserable as his father repeatedly embarrassed him in public and required special attention. But Eli's brother goes further and, as a neurologist, recommends that Eli get a CAT scan. They find that Eli has a brain aneurysm, and that his visions are in fact hallucinations. Except that the hallucinations Eli has predict the future, and they have the disconcerting habit of coming true.
At this point, Eli Stone could have gone down a road similar to Medium, which until recently made a weekly episode out of its main character predicting the future and no one believing her, not even the people who hired her to use her psychic powers to fight crime…and sometimes not even her husband. Instead, Eli Stone becomes a story about the maturing process of a lawyer, who comes to realize many things, but perhaps most importantly that law is not intended to be a refuge for corporations, but support for individuals. As a result of his visions, Eli takes on more and more improbable cases, causing his coworkers and friends to rethink who Eli really is. And because Eli is a brilliant lawyer, he almost always wins, aggravating his bosses who want him to back to his money-making ways. Particularly infuriated is the senior partner, Jordan Wetherby (played wonderfully by Vincent Garber), who is legally bound to keep Stone hired but uses that tie to make Eli's life miserable the further he goes from the firm's corporate policy. At one point, Stone assists a client to sue one of the firm's large corporate clients, which is maddening enough, but then Stone wins.
As I reread this, I recognize that these are the kinds of things that created a sort of mainstream veneer to Eli Stone, making it appear to be a slightly quirky lawyer show. But there's much more going on underneath the surface. We find out that Eli's father suffered from the same kind of aneurysm, perhaps in the exact same place, and that those moments that most embarrassed Eli were the results of his father being enmeshed in hallucination or drunk as he tries to deal with the hallucinations that he cannot control and medical science cannot cure. Eli's understanding of his father is completely altered and he learns to love his now deceased father as his own aneurysm-induced visions cause flashbacks and insight to moments he has shared with his father. Anger and embarrassment give way to sympathy and understanding, and Eli discovers that his father tried to tell Eli how he was suffering and that Eli would eventually have the same affliction.
Eli also gains a friend in Dr. Chen, an acupuncturist he sought to help him end the hallucinations when he first got them. Stone and Chen have discussions about the nature of Eli's hallucinations—are they the symptoms of a debilitating disease or has Eli been selected to be a prophet. As Eli begins to make discoveries about his father, Chen reveals that he knew Eli's father and was told by him to help take care of Eli when Eli shows up for treatment.
So slowly and surely, Eli begins to convince the people around him that whatever is causing his visions is also showing him the future. The difficulty in believing this proposition is well played by the actors and writers of the show, but ultimately, Eli being correct every time has to win him converts. And yet Eli is torn; his visions help people and give texture and meaning to his own past, but they are ruining his career as a corporate lawyer and they are uncontrollable, afflicting him in the most awkward situations, and around people who don't know his condition. The latest episode returns to Eli's sole failure, a prediction of an earthquake crippling San Francisco, a prediction that was too big for anyone to believe and which forced Eli to cheat at a trial in order to protect people who were going to have their lives destroyed by having them evicted from their homes at the epicenter of the earthquake he saw coming. At the end of that first episode, the earthquake has not arrived and doubts creep in, both for Eli and the people who know him. But the vision returns, and Eli is convinced San Francisco is about to be ravaged by an earthquake.
Eli again takes extreme measures to protect the people, suing the city to close Golden Gate Bridge, ultimately losing the case but wining the attention of the mayor's office which takes him seriously. And he stands on a desk in the center of his firm, admitting to anyone who will listen that he is ill and that he knows they may not all believe him, but for their own safety, they need to get out of the building. Some leave, others stay behind. Then the earthquake strikes, and we see the destruction of the Golden Gate Bridge.
I imagine for some people, this could be a "jump the shark" moment. But for me, this is when the show excelled. Suddenly it's clear that Eli Stone is a high fantasy set in modern times. Eli has a gift, an unwanted gift, but a magical gift that he uses to help those less fortunate than himself. And he has inherited that gift from his father, a man who couldn't use the gift so well but saw that his son would and apologized to him when he learned the burden it would be. And like those high fantasies, Eli Stone is about its main character maturing, actually running through the stages of grief as he deals with his illness which helps so many others. As Eli matures, so do the people around him; the lawyers who are sometimes caricatures of everything stereotypical about lawyers are becoming fully realized. The lawyer who was too young and too busy to properly defend a client years ago, comes back to that client and works with him to get fair treatment and aid. The corporate shill who is only in it for the money grows a conscience and, while still sometimes being a jerk, finds he can be a good person to those around him. And the senior partner, Jordan Wetherby, rediscovers through Eli his passion for law, not for just how much money it brings to him but for the good it can do in other people's lives.
I realized watching the last episode that we were watching a true serial, one that required patience (and maybe even some filler episodes) to get us to where the story wanted to be. And while my description of the Golden Gate Bridge falling appears to describe a ratings stunt, it actually is the culmination of a long thoughtful process. And I couldn't see what was coming soon enough to let people know this was something worth watching. Unfortunately, there is only one episode left this season, and I suspect Eli Stone will not be returning next season—the ratings are not very good, perhaps because it required patience to see where it was going. American television viewers are not renowned for their patience. So, I bring this show to your attention, probably too late. I can hope for another season, but if that fails, I would recommend finding a DVD set of it when it comes out. For Eli Stone offers its viewers hope, for growth and renewal. It has promise and works hard to deliver it, and I'm glad I got to se it achieved.
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