Community: "Intermediate Documentary Filmmaking" and the Documentary Sitcom

Community is one of my favourite comedies currently on the air, and this episode is no exception.  I found it to be one of the best of the season in terms of pure, laugh out loud comedy, between moments such as the "Jeff Winger's dumb gay dad" conversation, and of course, this:

Of specific interest, however, is the use of the faux documentary style in this episode.  As with the other times in Community, its use as a "meta" storytelling device is not a point of its own, but rather, a tool to tell the story the writers want to tell, while still having fun.  Some see this episode as a not-so-subtle dig at shows which use the documentary style such as The Office, Parks and Recreation or Modern Family.  While some jokes are had in pointing out  some of the ways this style can suggest a "profound thematic connection" or easily portray emotions using "talking heads," I don't believe the episode is a straightforward condemnation of these techniques.  


While the episode may point out these techniques in Community's "meta" way, it is still using them itself in a very conscious way.  As Abed himself points out, it's easier to tell a complex story when you can cut to people explaining things to the camera.  This episode in particular is telling quite a complex story, and definitely one more complex than Community often tackles.  Jeff's insecurities with his father, and how he transfers his aggression (somewhat justifiably) onto Pierce is a story that deals with a lot of pent up emotions that, from a writing perspective, are incredibly difficult to get across to the viewer.  It is through the documentary style that we are able to appreciate the subtleties of Jeff's anger and why Pierce would lash out at his friends.  While it is debatable whether their reconciliation at the end of the episode is earned or not, it is clear that the documentary style was chosen very specifically in the writing of this episode to tell this story.


While "Intermediate Documentary Filmmaking" joyfully points out how using this format of sitcom makes it easier to tell a story, even Abed points out, "It works."

Are We Having Fun Yet?

Party Down  was a truly awesome comedy which aired on Starz, that, like so many great shows before it, got cancelled prematurely, after only two seasons.

But that topic has been discussed to death, so I'd prefer to analyze how Party Down manages to be very funny in all of its episodes without ever really having that much fun.  Don't get me wrong, the show is written with a great sense of cheeriness, and the situations are often appropriately wacky and suitable for some sitcom-y misadventures.  The difference lies in the characters.

Other shows, from Community to The Big Bang Theory spend a lot of time ensuring its characters often have fun.  The Office, in its American incarnation, which derives a lot of humour from awkwardness, has always ensured that its various characters have something fun to do that makes them enjoy coming to work on some level.  This has tended to be exaggerated as the show progressed and has gotten more cartoonish, but even when the show was primarily a satire of the modern workplace, there was a sense of cheerfulness that the characters clearly felt.

Compare Jim and Pam in the early days of The Office to Henry and Casey in Party Down.  Jim and Pam initially hated their jobs much like Henry and Casey, and both pairs tend to try their best to have a good time in spite of their situation.  The primary difference here is, what feels like good fun on The Office as Jim pulls hilarious pranks on Dwight, on Party Down, it often feels sad for the characters, especially Henry.  He is without any more hopes in life anymore at the outset of the series.  Henry and Casey hook up quite fast as, unlike Jim and Pam; they have a lot less to lose, as their job itself is quite meaningless to them.

By contrast, Ron is a more inherently comedic character, but his life is possibly even more brutal.  He genuinely cares about his work, which is funny for the viewer, as this attitude seems excessive for his line of work and is in stark contrast to those around him.   He has drive and purpose in the first season: a Soup R' Crackers franchise.   He attains this goal, but the franchise fails, and his antics following his fall are simultaneously hilarious and painful to watch.  His struggle emphasizes that Party Down Catering only has meaning, because he needs than meaning in his life, but it is a meaning that no other character on the show gives it.

Roman and Kyle have their own "Odd Couple" schtick going on, which is awesome, but is usually used as comedic relief for the more melancholy main characters.  When Roman takes centre stage in episodes such as "Joel Munt's Big Deal Party," the writers do not hesitate to break Roman's character down to a low point which shows him as trapped as the rest of the characters.

Since the characters of Constance and Lydia basically serve the same function on the show, they can pretty much be discussed together.  While they are also there as comic relief, the humour of their characters, as Genevieve Koski notes, mostly comes from how their reach exceeds what they (or in Lydia's case, her daughter) are actually able to achieve.

One notable point about the show is that the writers never really go out of their way to draw the group together as a makeshift family as so many shows do (often very well, e.g. Community).  In fact, when, say, Ron or Lydia are acting as if everyone are actually great friends, they are mocked, or treated as peculiar.  Now, Party Down Catering is certainly willing to team up against a common "enemy" such as Valhalla Catering, but there is never any feeling that the characters are ineffably drawn to each other, merely that they each individually are not really destined for anything great, so they're stuck at this shit job.

Bring this all together and you've got a pretty great dark comedy, with some hilarious situations happening on the outskirts.

The series is summed up pretty nicely in the exchange at the end of "Not On Your Wife Opening Night."

"It's like all these little misunderstandings building up to this tragic ending."

This is why Henry choosing to follow his acting career at the end of the series feel so good, and not bittersweet.  He's not really leaving behind something he really cared about, he's not losing his best friends; he finally gets to start having fun with his life.

Mad Men Season One: Confronting the Fabrication of Social Norms

Spoilers for Mad Men Season One.


Mad Men is an excellent, very artistic and expressive show.  It works both as an examination of the culture of its time period and a fantastic character study.  What is most interesting to me, however, is how the show confronts the inherent falseness of social norms dictating the course of our lives.


Advertising is a useful vehicle for the show to address this idea.  Ads to this day reinforce, manipulate and create norms in our society.  Don Draper is often the face of this on the show.  In the episode "Smoke Gets In Your Eyes," he tells his mistress, "The reason you haven't felt [love] is because it doesn't exist. What you call love was invented by guys like me, to sell nylons. You're born alone and you die alone and this world just drops a bunch of rules on top of you to make you forget those facts. But I never forget. I'm living like there's no tomorrow, because there isn't one." 


Don's acceptance of this reveals the irony in his life.  He can sell the feelings and ideas millions of Americans in order to convince them to but products, then he comes home to his own "ideal" family that is plagued by a sense of anomie, or a mismatch between individual circumstances and larger social mores.  Betty Draper feels a crushing sense of loss due to her mother's death, but she is unable to confront these feelings directly due to her social position as a housewife, since she must put the desires of her husband and her duties as a mother first.  From this she feels unconnected from everyone else, leading her to attempt to connect to a nine year old boy who can't possibly understand.  Society tells her that her life is perfect and will bring happiness, but this is a lie, and deep down, she knows this.  She seeks excitement through a modeling job, and when this falls through for her, she is compelled to shoot Don's gun at her neighbour's pigeons.  The scene is delightfully absurd and strongly communicates Betty's disconnect from society.

For the men in this time, work is the ultimate priority, the true raison d'être of their lives.  Roger Sterling was very successful in this regard, even at the expense of his own health.  When he has multiple heart attacks while trying to maintain his rich and successful lifestyle, it poignantly portrays how directly this attitude (that society fosters) comes directly in conflict with our most basic needs as living beings.  


One of the central plots of the season is the discovery of Don Draper's past, and how he came to be the sly creative director we see him as.  He was born Dick Whitman, the son of a prostitute who had a terrible home life that he longed to escape.  And so he did, by enlisting in the Korean War.  When his commanding officer, Lt. Donald Draper was killed, Dick assumed his identity and abandoned his family to live a new life, becoming a powerful ad executive.


This whole plotline really reinforces the absurdity of social status.  As Dick Whitman, this man was destined for a life of mediocrity and hardship, but the very same man is accepted and championed by the society that shunned him due to his parentage, and all it took was a different name.  Because of this, he is forced to run away from any and all ties to his past, even shunning his own brother.  By doing this, he maintains the illusion that he fits within society's narrow constraints of someone worthy of being respected.  In the end, he ends up truly losing his own identity, his "self," and becomes Donald Draper.

The ubiquitous smoke throughout the series serves as an apt visual metaphor for how the norms of society cloud one's judgement and vision of what is truly important in life.  To people in Don Draper's world, smoking isn't just something you do, it's a way of life.  Smoking is sold as representing independence, freedom and happiness.  Because of this, nearly every character on the show is continually puffing away, be they pregnant, a powerful executive or a young person finding their way in the world.  But as the title of the first episode puts very plainly, "Smoke Gets In Your Eyes."  And in the very last episode of the season, "The Wheel," Don Draper, having lost his old identity, his true self, shows pictures of his children during an ad pitch, while he sells the idea of nostalgia.  The pictures are never fully visible; they are covered by a dense smokescreen that clouds the vision of one of the few meaningful relationships left in his life.  Don has trapped himself behind this smokescreen, it surrounds him everywhere, and he feeds of it like an addict, to give meaning to his life.  But in the end, it's just smoke.

Watch Terriers

Watch Terriers.

Like, right now.

If you haven't heard of Terriers, you're not alone.  Universally lauded by critics and its small but dedicated audience, the FX show about gritty private investigators never quite caught on; it had a poor advertising campaign, a confusing title, and a premise without a "hook."  As Abigail Nussbaum writes in her blog, the most you can do to entice someone to watch Terriers concisely is to say, "It's really good."

No. It is not.

Some combination of these factors led the show to regrettably be cancelled by FX, and we'll never get to enjoy the future adventures of Hank and Britt.

Now forget every word I just said and go watch Terriers, and enjoy every moment of it.  The fact that it's cancelled should not deter you in any way from watching this wonderful show.

It's hard to find a reason not to like Terriers, really.  It's funny, but never obnoxious.  It has an engaging season long plot, but makes time for truly interesting and surprising weekly cases.  It's meaningful, but never pretentious.  For a lot of shows, this might sound like too much to handle, but Terriers ties it all back to some of the most wonderfully realized characters of recent years and makes the drama feel so very powerful.

The characters of Hank and Britt, played by Donal Logue and Michael Raymond-James (who are both impeccable across the season), feel more fully realized than the majority of characters on other shows with many seasons under their belt.  Everyone involved, from the actors, to the writers, to the directors, have a wonderfully clear vision of who these men are, what motivates them, and how they react to the world around them.

Need more reason to justify a commitment to a show that only has one season?  It ends well.  While it is open-ended enough  to see that more seasons were clearly envisioned for the show (which likely would have seamlessly connected to this one), the resolution to the season-long plot is satisfying.  Without spoiling too much, whatever cliffhanger does exist doesn't exactly feel like one.  It feels more like a foregone conclusion given how well we have grown to know these characters.  It's a testament to the capacity of Terriers to respect its audience's intelligence, and why it deserved more viewers.  

So, please, if you haven't heard of it before, or haven't really considered watching Terriers, you really should.  At 13 episodes, it won't eat away as much of your time as most shows, while being far more unpredictable and riveting.  

It still hurts that it got cancelled, but these things heal, with time.

"Dexter" and Serialization

Spoilers for all of Dexter below.


I enjoyed Dexter's season five finale, "The Big One."

I couldn't say the same immediately after I finished it, and I know that many others shared this opinion.  Dexter and Lumen took care of Jordan Chase.  Deb stumbled onto them after the fact, but let them go without seeing who the "vigilantes" actually were due to a conveniently placed curtain.  Lumen suddenly had to leave, leaving Dexter alone once more.  The Quinn situation resolved fairly easily.

I thought to myself: A reset? Why would this show go for such a predictable and uninteresting ending to a season that has, by and large, been among its most visceral and exciting? Is Dexter doomed to a Sisyphean task of having its protagonist face a neverending conveyor belt of serial killers season after season?

Brian Moser, Lila, Miguel Prado, Trinity, and Jordan Chase.  I think.

Now, I started Dexter this past summer and watched season 1-4 over a period of about 3 weeks, so it always came across as very fast paced.  Also, the only cliffhanger I ever had to deal with was Rita's death at the end of season four.  So I was fully prepared for mind-blowing events to take place in "The Big One" that would have a profound effect on the status quo of Dexter.  I was ready for Deb to discover Dexter's secret, for Lumen to commit to staying with Dexter, maybe even a major death.  But now, looking back on the series as a whole, events such as these are not those that Dexter is fully interested in addressing, not for now at least.

This show is one that uses its characters and plot as a way to delve into new themes every year.  Season one was fundamentally about family, exploring Dexter and Brian's mutual obsession and Rita's abusive ex-husband, while also introducing the larger themes of the series.  Season two focussed the morality of Dexter's actions, and how the sins of our past come back to haunt us.  This was clearly apparent in the Bay Harbour Butcher storyline, along with Dexter's discovery of how his adoptive father's actions led to his mother's murder.  Season three showed how the connections we make shape our lives, through Dexter's new friendship and his growing attachment to Rita.  Season four was about whether "having it all" is possible, especially for an addict.  

Except for some overarching themes in the series, these are by and large separated distinctly by each season.  Although season four had a great cliffhanger plotwise, it fully tied up the thematic material of that season, plainly stating that Dexter's actions have a toxic effect on those he loves, and he can never live a full and happy life as he is.  

In this way, Dexter could almost be called "Tales of a Serial Killer," a series of stories about a man with budding emotions and a horrible addiction working his way through life.  As he does, he deals with many different problems that each of us face in our own lives.  The show uses its main character to say something about all of us, and more often then not, resonates quite a bit.

Also, there's some boring cops.

But what Dexter does well, it does extremely well.  Season five was no exception.  This season focussed on atonement and the ambiguity of morality.  The introduction of Lumen was a key aspect of both of these themes.  And, in my opinion, she was a fantastic addition to the show.  Here is a female character that is able to be strong and engaging while still remaining distinctly feminine.  As the season progressed, her search for atonement was cathartic and exciting.  Dexter's role in this process was smartly played by the writers.  He was unable to pinpoint exactly what it is about helping Lumen that feels so right until the fantastic scene in "Teenage Wasteland" in which his stepdaughter Astor remarks that helping Lumen must help him deal with Rita's death, and in doing so, was able to work through his own oft-neglected emotions.  

Dexter and Lumen's relationship progressed to a more romantic one, and I was okay with that.  I especially loved the line spoken by Jordan Chase in the finale, "It was inevitable that this would happen.  Two broken people, going through intense shared experiences against a common enemy...it produces a sense of deep, deep bonding," because it resonated with truth (Chase was great in this episode with quotes like this and "You can't save one thing to make up for another" which totally validated his role in this season). So when Dexter and Lumen giddily returned home after killing Chase, I was excited by the prospect of Lumen returning next season, to fully explore the nuances of her character and relationship with Dexter.

Awesome.

So, yeah, I was disappointed when she decided to leave.  But the mark she left on Dexter is important.  Someone doomed with a "Dark Passenger" may be able to grow past it.  Atonement is something that can be reached.  But, in true form to this season, it was truly a morally ambiguous way that Lumen was able to reach this.  Were her actions justified?  Can Dexter himself ever reach peace in a similar way?  These are fascinating questions that the finale asks of its audience.

The other thing I was disappointed about initially was how Deb came SO close to discovering Dexter's secret, then didn't.  It seems that if the show tries to do this too many times, there will be little tension left whenever someone is on Dexter's trail.

 But that is something that future seasons to sort out.  For now, I quite enjoy the scene when Deb confronts Dexter and Lumen behind the curtain.  The tension was through the roof, as I definitely thought she might find out.  Deb's decision to let them go ultimately made sense and reinforced the ambiguous morals that those on the "good" side of the law face as well.  It was all well played by Jennifer Carpenter, so I have no serious qualms with it.

All in all, as long as Dexter remains this entertaining and thoughtful, I don't mind if it maintains its status quo for a little while longer.

Of course, part of me wishes that it would have as much forward momentum as Breaking Bad.

But wishes, of course, are for children. 

Introduction

I watch a fair bit of TV.  I have a lot of opinions about TV.  Thus, the blog.

Oh yeah, I can't draw.

Television is probably my favourite audio-visual medium to tell a story.  If it's handled correctly, a very subtle and believable development can take place.  This can apply to the overarching themes of the show, individual characters, or the plot itself.  Those involved in the production of television have much finer tools at their disposal to craft a work of some significance.

Or you could watch Two and a Half Men.

Not that it's a bad thing to only desire to watch TV to relax at night, and laugh at a few jokes, or feel some tension.  But even in this area of television, there is always room for strong characters, recurring themes, and an effective use of tropes to produce a reaction from the audience that really resonates with them, be it laughter, anxiety, or a sense of wonder.

Or you could watch CSI: Reykjavik.

One thing that plagues even the greatest shows is the inherent difficulty in creating a show that is interesting on a week to week basis, yet has a larger plan in store that motivates the actions of the characters, without having the characters behave against their previous disposition.  TV can often be a dynamic process, taking into account audience reaction and network pressures.  There are numerous examples of many different styles of writing for television both working properly and not working at all.

TV can be anything from from deep and philosophical to topical and engaging to just plain entertaining, and that is what I enjoy about it so much.

I don't really expect anyone to read this, but I'm going to write it just because it feels like my thoughts matter more if they're on the internet.