View Logs: The Killing S3 Episode 7

7/8/13

View Logs: The Killing S3 Episode 7

Episode Title: Hope Kills

There we go... the Core is a little happier now.  I started this endeavor... as a machine designed for aesthetics analysis out of some bet/joke my human superiors placed... a little late into The Killing and thus my displeasure consuming it was fairly under-described.  As written in the prologue of this View Log, I found the first half of the series to be underwhelming.  Most of the episodes just had too little going on both plot and character wise and it just felt dragged out.  The Killing is almost a show that is mostly filled with atmosphere and not much else... a bit like a mediocre David Fincher film (if you didn't know what I'm referring to because you're a puny human... I'm referring to Zodiac...)

I'm pleased to see that episode seven started to buck that trend.  Since the reveal of Pastor Mike as a possibility for the killer, both plot and character development reached a new level.  The reveal of Pastor Mike's suspicious nature almost seemed to trigger something in Holder's character as he spiraled into an obsession that he used to make fun of Linden for.  In fact, it seems Holder is starting to take this case more personally than Linden; which culminated into a great scene of Linden warning Holder about the path he's going down.  This reversal is quite interesting as it developed so quickly but, somehow, doesn't feel very forced.  It would have been nice if this development was set up more in the earlier episodes, but episode 7 handled it by itself fairly well.

Actually, this leaves some interesting suggestions about Holder's past.  If Holder is this easily angered by the hint of a corrupt pastor... he might have been taken advantaged of by a person in a position of power as a kid.  For once, I was actually interested in Holder as a character and wanted to see how the case would further effect his dialogue and mannerisms.  Linden, right about now, seems absolutely convinced she got the wrong guy in Seward.  Interestingly, the way her character's dealing with it right now seems as if she's given up on trying to find out if she's was right.  She seems to be pushing on out of a sense of guilt rather than a need for closure as her character has always been for the past 2 seasons.  This would explain Linden's gradual levelheadedness in contrast to Holder's emotional descent into anger.

Plot wise, the twist of Pastor Mike being the likely killer makes sense.  It's good that season 3's twists and turns are a lot more grounded and seems less worried about shocking you.  It currently strikes a good balance between being surprising while maintaining plausibility.  Seriously, I still consider Ahmed's potential terrorist links in Season 1 to be one of the worst twists of the series.  And no I'm never letting that go...  Yet, unfortunately, it seems this reveal came a little early.  There's still 5 more episodes to go and I have a feeling there's a lot more to play out with this reveal.  I'm ok with that, but I do hope that the series doesn't dive into camp and revert back to Season 1 because there's still a lot o opportunities for that to happen.

But overall, if this episode is any indication, Season 3 has gotten quite a bit better.

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View Logs: Under the Dome S1 Episode 2

7/5/13

View Logs: Under the Dome S1 Episode 2

To me, Under the Dome is starting to feels a little like Once Upon a Time... I mean that's not surprising considering that both premises involve a really small town... However, there's a deeper similarity between the two than just their locations.  Once Upon a Time is a show about all these fairy tale characters becoming trapped in a real world small town.  Due to the nature of this premise... most of the characters are just caricatures and cartoon characters.  But that's fine for that show.  The issue is Under the Dome is starting to feel more like that.

See, Once Upon a Time actually has more leeway with caricatures and on the nose dialogue because it's source material (the fairly tales) is a lot more simplistic.  That makes it pretty limited as it has to maintain some form of simplicity for the sake of maintaining recognition with the fairy tales.  (Although the show does push it's luck on shallow characters at times but that's for another thought...)  Under the Dome doesn't necessarily qualify for that exception.  Sure, it's a fantasy science fiction premise, but Under the Dome sets itself up as an actual drama.  As much as Once Upon a Time claims it's a drama, it's really not.  It's just a slightly more complicated and "upgraded" fairy tale.  For an actual drama, there needs to be strong characters and too many of them in this show just relies on stereotypes.

Can someone please just shoot this guy?...

I said I hated Junior in episode 1 and the second episode hasn't really made things any better.  I know I'm suppose to hate Junior but something about his character just feels too cheap.  To be specific, I hate him and I hate the way he's written.  I'm going to bring up Joffery...

... Yes this abomination of an organic being... See, I see a big difference between Junior and Joffery despite both being purposefully despicable because there are a lot of moments in Game of Thrones where Joffery feels like an actual character.  While most of the scenes surrounding Joffery involve him being the spawn of Satan, there are moments where he shows a different side and it gives his character dimensions.  On top of that, his dialogue is imaginatively written at times and it makes me more curious of him as a being.

Junior... on the other hand... says things so expected of Edward emo loser obsessive stalker that it gives no dimension and I just end up suffering while watching him.  Here's a couple of golden lines from Junior in episode 2:

"She belongs to me."

"You love me.  And when this thing comes down you're going to love me again."

Seriously?  Could this be any more expected from an obsessive stalker character like Junior?  Oh but it also gets worse.  In Episode 2, Junior convinces himself that Angie has been sleeping with Barbie.  Who, by the way... Angie doesn't know and only met him for the first time in Episode 1 asking for a cigarette.  Junior interrogates her about Barbie and, because she's pissed off, she lies to Junior about enjoying fornicating with Barbie to try to get under Junior's skin.  Because Junior's deranged, he takes this as a confession and goes after Barbie.  Obvious... misunderstanding... plot... and this isn't even a normal misunderstanding.  This is a misunderstanding because Junior is just crazy.  I seriously could not imagine a more undramatic misunderstanding plot.  This is so incredibly frustrating to watch that any confrontation I see on screen between Junior and Barbie I just want to end as soon as possible.

But then it gets a little worse... a new character is introduced in this episode and it's Paul Randolph...

In concept there's nothing theoretically wrong with this character.  But really what get to me is how extreme he got in this episode in such a quick time period.  I understand that everyone is different and people deal with stress and fear in different ways... often times in very self-destructive ways.  But Paul just seemed too crazy and unstable too quickly, especially for someone who's a cop and (supposedly) has training in stressful life or death situations.  Again... he's a cop... not some redneck conspiracy theorist neighbor next door.  So at the end of the episode he freaks out about the Dome and ends up killing one of his fellow officers.

I understand what the writers were going for with this character.  They are slowly trying to set up this town eating itself alive.  I get it.  But this was done too quick and, like Junior, just done a little too easily.  I buy that even the most "civilized" people can become animals given the right circumstance.  I don't buy how Paul became an example of that based on what I saw in episode 2.  The issue isn't the philosophy behind the character but rather the execution.  But beyond Junior and Paul, the other characters are still fairly normal.  Most of them are still stereotypes (oh and Duke died by the end of Episode 1... so... no more potential development for him...) but nothing seriously flawed or bad about them.

So, already, I'm starting to see some Stephen King cliches.  As I stated in the prologue, he likes to create these a microcosms of all the extreme elements within our modern Western society and have them trapped in a pressure cooker.  That's ok, that can be interesting.  But sometimes the lengths in which the characters are pushed to can seem a little contrived and forced and I definitely feel that way about Under the Dome after two episodes.  I hope this is the worst it gets and that the writers won't feel the need to further force extreme situations.  The setup is good, now just develop these characters more and you can start to have something really great.

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View Logs: Under the Dome S1 Episode 1

7/2/13

View Logs: Under the Dome S1 Episode 1

Episode Title: Pilot

I'm going into this one cold... I have to admit.  So I must stress that I don't have the perfect perspective when it comes to this show as I haven't read the book it's based on.  But I am a little familiar with Stephen King's work and I'm, unfortunately, very familiar with their screen adaptations.  The only thing I even remotely found of value is Kingdom Hospital.  But based on previous works of "groups of people trapped together by something weirdly supernatural", Stephen King seems to like to create microcosms of society in his stories.

This is normally fine... except in a lot of Stephen King adaptations cast either turns out to be complete stereotypes or just outright wacky... and wacky in a way that stretches my suspension of disbelief.  Like... Junior Rennie.  By the character's second appearance I already hate him... deeply deeply hate him.  So within two scenes we establish that he's taken a page out of the Edward Cullen book of how to approach a relationship... and he's an angsty emo with a switch blade he probably got after watching Grease.

At the moment the other characters are stereotypes seen in other shows:
Dale "Barbie" Barbara is basically John Reece from Person of Interest
Howard "Duke" Perkins and his deputy Linda Esquivel are basically pulled out of Longmire
Julia Shumway is the Intrepid Reporter
"Big Jim" Rennie is the seemingly Corrupt Politician
Angie McAlister is the Small Town Girl who, of course, is our Edward's Junior's object of obsession.

See?  Stereotypes.  Now at the moment most of the characters don't bother me just yet.  Only Junior... but towards the end of the episode he tells Angie that he actually "understands what's going on" and kidnapped her to protect her... given the Dome's nature this actually had me a little intrigued.  But most of the scenes with Junior are just creepy loser obsessively abusive wannabie-boyfriend and it's pretty uninteresting.  He even picked a fight with Barbie just because he saw Angie talking to him randomly.  Yeah, actually I think based on the direction of the episode Junior might just be another Edward... my only hope is that the writer doesn't harp on this too much.

Beyond the characters the episode is fairly competent.  The horror riffs when the dome wrecks havoc (and kills people horribly... like when cars drive head first into it since it's invisible) is surprisingly effective and, thankfully, used sparingly unlike in American Horror Story...  The havoc that the dome causes to the town is actually surprisingly believable and reminds me a lot of Jericho.  So a pretty competent show so far, which is actually amazing considering this is an adaptation of a Stephen King novel.  I just hope the writers develop the characters in the subsequent episodes beyond their establishing stereotypes.

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View Logs: The Killing S3 Episode 6

View Logs: The Killing S3 Episode 6

Episode Title: Eminent Domain

Great TV dramas have a lot of talking because people in real life are never straight with each other, and TV is a great medium to display that.  Implications and suggestions drive a lot of great dialogue in TV but there comes a certain point where a show can become so passive aggressive with its material that it starts to wander and stagnate in its own cleverness.  Season 1 of The Killing occasionally moved the detective plot a little too quickly by shoving in contrived plot twists (such as Rosie Larsen's teacher...) while letting other plot lines meander (As good as Michelle Forbes' acting was... her character went nowhere through most of the first season).

Season 3 started out more focused.  Each sets of cause and effect between the large cast of characters connect better than those in Season 1.  You understand that Linden is gradually becoming obsessive because she put away the convicted killer Seward, but evidence is starting to show up that she might have gotten the wrong guy.  You see subtle hints of Holder's discontent with his apathetic partner Reddick, which leads to Holder trying to work with Linden as much as he could and thus encouraging Linden's obsession.  As the episodes move on, the two's entangled desires pushes them to jump at any incomplete information the vagrant minors are willing to confess.  Which leads to a lot of "doh" moments and misunderstanding cliffhangers.  But atleast the cause and effect is more establish and grounded than in Season 1.

Really, so far, what I'm getting out of the story seems to be one of two detectives struggling to balance themselves psychologically while following a case they both have personal needs in.  A lot of the other character's side plots are there to really complement that and serve as ways to tempt them into unproductive tangents due to their character flaws.  The world of The Killing isn't one like CSI where cases are so cleanly sectioned off from society.  It is a world where murder is a very messy crime that embeds itself in a labyrinth of debauchery and corruption.

Which is an amazing direction by the way... So, naturally the show spends a lot of time developing characters and relationships that's not really totally relevant to the killings of 17 vagrant youths or the missing, potential 18th victim, Kallie Leeds.  But this season's interesting treatment of crime is starting to undo itself because, yet again, the show is gradually starting to stagnate by Episode 6.

I'm most baffled by the sequences with Seward as some of the scenes seem to be somewhat or totally inconsequential to the overall web of corruption that Linden and Holder deals with trying to find Kallie.  The show's dialogue is very well written, but the internal character arc of Seward seems so obtuse at the moment that I'm starting to find myself a little bored.  He started off as a seemingly Hannibal Lecter like killer; even killing the prison chaplain by bashing his head in.  Then suddenly he developed a friendship with a fellow cellmate?  Who ended up killing himself?  Then there are long scenes of angst and hate between Seward and the warden Becker... that isn't really going anywhere.  I'm sure something is going to happen that forces itself into the main plot line.  Maybe Seward's son is the actual killer and he's just protecting his son while secretly ashamed of him?  That would explain why Seward cut off a tattoo with his son's initials on him earlier in the series.

Either way, if it does eventually feed back into the main detective plot line (and it should... otherwise it'd be a lopsided show) it's a little late for that to happen now.  I'm really starting to feel a disconnect and it almost feels like I'm watching two spinoff shows forced together.  Seward even occasionally gets enough screen time to almost become the main plot line of an episode.  But yet, he doesn't get quite enough development nor relevance to warrant that.

As I said in the beginning of this log, the way dialogue develops in tv dramas is amazing because people are rarely straight with each other in real life.  It's ok to tease the audience with implications of a character's thoughts and motivations (and in fact subtle subtext is what makes stories great).  But we still need to see it lead somewhere otherwise it's a bit of a navel gaze... which is something that I hope this show doesn't fall into.  All we need to repeat the messiness of Season 1 is to start pulling out wild plot twists and continue to leave Seward underdeveloped and irrelevant to the main detective plot...

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View Logs: The Killing Season 3 Prologue

7/1/13

View Logs: The Killing Season 3 Prologue

I'm a little late to the party with The Killing.  But you'll have to forgive me as this blog was activated after Season 3 of the Killing has started.

I'm just going to put it out there that I really disliked Season 1.  I know most people hated the series because the killer of Rosie Larsen wasn't revealed until Season 2.  But the most problematic aspects I found in Season 1 was the really weird twists and turns the case went through that seemed to get more and more contrived.  The cinematography, directing, and acting were great.  But the writing was very sloppy at times.  The pseudo-terrorist twist with Rosie's teacher was especially out of the blue as it felt like the writers were running out of ideas on a very simple case.  Another issue I had was Rosie's parents.  They started off as the strongest scenes in the show but gradually their grief stagnate.

I don't want to sound callous and cold but I wanted to see their character develop beyond than just grief.  I know Rosie's Dad eventually did something with his grief but that's just not enough.  A lot of screen time was dedicated to the parents and if that is the case I'd want to see these characters develop.  It's ok for certain, or even most, of the characters in a TV show to not undergo character development.  But if you dedicate a lot of screen time to certain characters you better lead them somewhere beyond occasional plot contrivances.  The flip flopping of the politician also got on my nerves at times.

So yes, I really wasn't impressed with the show.  I skipped season 2 because I just lost all interest in the Rosie Larsen case.  The atmosphere, directing, and acting of the show is spot on.  But the writing is just too weak and that's not ok for a TV show.

I've decided to give the show another chance with Season 3 that is currently running.  So I will jot down thoughts and analysis of the current season of The Killing.  Hopefully it'll be better than Season 1.

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View Logs: Under the Dome Prologue

View Logs: Under the Dome Prologue

Stephen King adaptations are weird.  It's weird because the subject materials surrounding his novels can be so bizarre but also can contain a lot of substance and usually what happens during an adaptation is that all the substance gets lost and the bizarre nature is accentuated.  I suppose a lot of Stephen King stories are better off more abstract like in a novel than more tangible like in a live action TV drama.  So I approach Under the Dome very hesitantly.

It's certainly a very bizarre premise, a town is suddenly and inexplicably trapped under an impenetrable dome and the show is about how that town deals with it's situation.  Sounds very Stephen King, but also sounds like a really bad X-Files episode.  I must confess I did enjoy Kingdom Hospital.  But I found all of Stephen King movies (tv or theater releases) to be devoid of any value except ironic humor.

I just hope that Under the Dome doesn't follow the path of his movies.

As a view log assignment I will be logging thoughts and analysis as I catch the episodes as they air.

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View Logs: Low Winter Sun Prologue

View Logs: Low Winter Sun Prologue

A new generation of AMC tv shows is on the horizon.  The major critical and cultural hits of Mad Men and Breaking Bad are set to end very soon.  I've had the misfortune of getting into AMC just in the twilight seasons of both Mad Men and Breaking Bad and will have to catch up in the future, but AMC is already rolling out a new show called Low Winter Sun.  Apparently, the show is a remake of a 2006 British two-part miniseries of the same name.  The lead of the British miniseries, Mark Strong, will retain his role in the American remake.  It seems that foreign remake is kind of a fad with American TV but atleast they are drawing on good strong source materials.

Not a whole lot is known about the show but from what I gathered in the trailer, it's a low-key gritty corrupt cop drama that starts off with an illegal righteous killing.  The trailer makes it seem like the show is about Mark Strong's character trying to keep his illegal activities covered up while struggling to justify his actions.  I've unfortunately haven't seen the British miniseries but the premise reminds me a lot of BBC's Good Cop.  Based on AMC's track record for crime shows I'm cautiously optimistic this can be another amazing show.  A lot of critical hype went into The Killing and that has proven to be less than satisfactory at the moment... especially Season 1.  However, Breaking Bad was wildly successful.  So I guess we'll see how Low Winter Sun lines up against AMC's other crime shows.

I will note that the handling of a story about a dirty cop is a tough one.  The story can easily fall into glorification of someone who abuses his power, or it can be too worried about what it's going to say that it ends up being listless.  I hope Chris Mundy is up to the task.

I will be jotting down thoughts and analysis as the series airs later this August.

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