Daredevil Title Sequence

Firstly, thank god someone took another crack at this franchise. For a while there, I thought that Ben Affleck’s movie has tainted it beyond repair. The Netflix series is a much appreciated palette cleanser which hopefully will allow all of us to enjoy the adventures of the man without fear without cringing.

Secondly, I love that this series is part of the MCU and thus allowed to reference the events of The Avengers movies. It is a small thing, but it makes me happy when characters in a superhero story mention other costumed crime fighters. It is also worth mentioning that some of the plot threads in the series thus far might be tying into the upcoming Iron Fist also produced by Marvel/Netflix. The fact that everything in the MCU is interconnected, and only will become even more tightly intertwined in the upcoming years fills me with a nerdy glee. And of course it will be fun to watch young geeks who grew up on MCU have a complete meltdown when the Disney/Marvel decide to reboot the entire universe a decade from now. But that’s a topic for a whole other post.

I found the pacing of the series a bit odd. It works as a cohesive whole, and in retrospect I do appreciate the amount of effort put into making this into a dual origin story. We not only get to see how Matt Murdock became the Daredevil, but we also see the downfall of Wilson Fisk and his transformation into Kingpin. The fact that the series could take thirteen episodes before Murdock actually dons the iconic horned costume is probably a unique function of the Netflix production format. Netflix knows that people use their service to binge watch series, so they could hold back the costume, and the big revelations until the very end of the season.

When I was watching it, however I had my doubts. For a time I was worried that they are going to go the Arrow route and act like they are slightly ashamed of the source material. For the record, I only seen the first season of Arrow and while watching it, I was amazed how much effort the writers put into making sure that the words “green” and “arrow” would never be uttered without at least few buffer words in between. Nine episodes into the thing I was really worried that in this reality the man without fear will just be “The Man in Black Mask” whose nemesis is entrepreneur Wilson Fisk. Which, let’s face it, does not have the same ring as “Daredevil vs Kingpin”. Especially since this is MCU we are talking about: a shared universe in which costumed heroes already exist. When you’re part of MCU being afraid of colorful spandex tights seems silly.

Fortunately, my fears were unfounded and the slow ramp-up paid off in the satisfying finale. Granted, the mask might need some work… I honestly don’t know why the Marvel costume designers are still so reluctant to do faithful reproductions, and insist on sticking armor pads, belts and pouches on every outfit. I mean, Spiderman has been rocking spandex since he got his big break in the movies, and no one complains. As much as I hated the Ben Affleck movie, I think that costume was pretty OK, all things considered. But that’s just me.

The pacing issue is probably my biggest gripe with the series. I almost feel like they could have wrapped the entire arc around episode six or seven and then move onto something more interesting. But I guess they really wanted to have the status quo of the Daredevil universe established in the season finale, and so we got bunch of filler to pad out the episodes. It is the good kind of filler, mind you, full of character development and foreshadowing.

My other complaint would be that the story in general, seems a tad redundant. The city is drowning in crime, and one honest man decides save it against impossible odds. If it sounds familiar, it is probably because you have already seen it in the Dark Knight, Arrow and Gotham. Then again, this is the archetypical masked vigilante origins arc, and it does to a degree follow Frank Miller’s Man Without Fear series. There is a lot of interesting stuff in the Daredevil lore they could have tapped into, like the crazy ninja clans for example. They did touch upon some of that, and hints were dropped, but it was not necessarily a major focus of the Season. Perhaps they were afraid of diluting the main story arc with too much weird stuff at once. So I kinda understand why they chose to tell this particular story and not the other.

One thing that separates this series from all the other ones that I mentioned is the fact that when Matt Murdock takes a beating, it really does feel like he is getting hurt. The fight choreography is excellent in that it succeeds both at conveying the idea that Matt Murdock is an exceptionally skilled martial artist, but also every single fight feels like a brutal, bloody and painful slug fest. Most on-screen heroes will take a punch, or get their wind knocked out of them now and then. Matt Murdock gets bloodied and bruised every time he dons his suit. This makes what he does all the more dramatic, and his wins all the more earned. I especially enjoyed the corridor fight from one of the early episodes, which (I think) was a homage to the iconic fight scene in Old Boy.

I already mentioned that the series heavily focuses on Kingpin and Vincent D’Onofrio is doing an excellent job portraying him by threading the line between awkward and imposing. He is sufficiently different from the now iconic Michael Clarke Duncan incarnation (general consensus is that Duncan’s Kingpin was the only good thing about that film) to seem like a separate character rather than an off-brand knock-off. D’Onofrio’s kingpin actually seems more dangerous because of how unhinged and disturbed he is, compared to the calm and self-assured Duncan version. He reminds me of Penguin from Gotham in that he can be both relatable and repulsive at the same time.

Deborah Ann Woll does a commendable job in a supporting role as Karen Page, though I keep expecting her to sprout fangs at any minute. I think it will take quite a while before I stop seeing her as “Vampire Jessica”. But that’s probably because I just finished catching up on two last seasons of True Blood a few weeks ago. I had to keep reminding myself that her character can’t just rip people’s heads off at a whim. I do like that Karen is driven, has her own arc and turbulent past, instead of being stuck with a “love interest” or “plucky secretary” type role, although for a few episodes it almost seemed like they will go that way with her.

I also like Vondie Curtis-Hall as the grizzled investigative reporter. When he showed up, I thought he will end up trying to expose Daredevil and end up in a quasi antagonist role, but was pleasantly surprised that this was not the case.

That said, it is worth noting that in mere 13 episodes, the series managed to kill off a number of prominent characters. It seems to be one of those shows that is not afraid to take risks and re-shuffle the deck to keep viewers on their toes. Unfortunately it does not help that most of the actors that won’t be coming back for Seson 2 gave really strong performances thus far. Let’s hope that Daredevil did not hobble themselves by removing too many interesting allies and villains too early.

I enjoyed the series. I wouldn’t say it is the greatest thing I have ever watched, and it is not the best of what Netflix has to offer, but it is pretty damn decent and entertaining. But regardless of what any of us may think about the series, Daredevil is now officially part of the MCU and that’s undeniably a good thing. Every hero they add to the roster makes the shared universe more interesting. Once a hero is enshrined in the movie cannon, they will never really go away, even inf their solo endeavor fails completely. Even if the Netflix series is a bust (and I don’t think it will be) Marvel probably won’t write off the hero. They will re-cast him and toss him into an ensemble feature, and leave it to their top tier writers to figure out how to re-contextualize him into something more palatable. This is exactly what happened to The Hulk. His solo movie tanked, but Joss Whedon managed to figure out a way to make the fans love Bruce Banner and his mean, green alter ego all over again in Avengers. So the man without fear has now a Joss Whedon rescue clause going for him.

Are you watching the series? What do you think?

Let me give you a few examples. Every once in a while there comes a TV series that imprints itself on popular consciousness. A few years past, that series was The Sopranos – a gritty but often touching drama about the lives of New Jersey gangsters and their families. Today that series is Game of Thrones – a high fantasy series taking place in a completely fictional setting featuring dragons, knights and sorcery. Just about everyone I know is watching it, including my co-workers. That one fateful Monday everyone had something to say about The Red Wedding – starting with the CEO and ending with the janitor. This is quite a bit of a cultural shift, don’t you think?

Can you believe that this show is more popular than Sopranos?

Similar thing happened to super heroes. Once upon a time, following adventures of costumed crime fighters was the epitome of geekdom. But thanks to Marvel’s Avenger’s series, all kinds of people feel comfortable loving characters such as Iron Man or Captain America. The movies are not merely accepted or tolerated, but instead celebrated and beloved by the mainstream audiences. People who never read comic books are just as excited to see the next big Marvel movie as life long comic book nerds. In fact, because of the movies reading comics is no longer as stigmatized as it used to be.

Chris Hardwick has a talk show that airs after the critically acclaimed AMC series The Walking Dead where he invites various celebrities to discuss that nights show. It is quite an unusual show because the guests are actually not allowed to promote their own work – they are there to geek out on live TV and discuss the current episode. Most guests openly admit to being fans of the comic book on which the series was based.

Technology itself has also become much more mainstream and public. Everyone is more connected and engaged in social media and being adept at exploring and exploiting the benefits of these software platforms is no longer considered geeky or nerdy. Mobile hardware such as phone and tablets are coveted status symbols for everyone, and whenever a new version is released just about everyone gets super excited.

There are fewer and fewer things that can still be considered truly geeky. Being a Trekkie used to earn you an automatic geek badge, but nowadays TNG and DS9 fans typically can get a free pass because the J.J. Abrams movies. When I was growing up the only people who knew about Tolkien were fellow nerds and literary buffs, but thanks to Peter Jackson he is now a household name known and beloved by just about everyone.

Some people bemoan and complain about this appropriation and dilution of the true nerd culture, but I personally celebrate it. I think it is great that the things I like are finally being appreciated and accepted by the mainstream audiences. I love the fact that I can now talk about my favorite things with people who just a few years ago would just roll their eyes and scoff – but who now are totally into this stuff. It is a wonderful thing and we shouldn’t be hipsters about it.

Unfortunately our media is still refusing to accept this cultural shift, and nerd shaming series such The Big Bang Theory still exists. Both Hollywood and TV studios still cling to the outdated nerd stereotype: poor social skills, pocket protector, taped up glasses, etc. Most “nerd” characters are one-note, shallow, uninteresting and used primarily for comic relief. Producers and directors are still absolutely terrified to even briefly comment on anything that could be considered geeky or nerdy, unless it is to mock it. And so the stereotype of a nerd as a reclusive shut in, and a social leper who is to be shunned is perpetuated, but only on the silver screen. This demonized and much maligned TV nerd does not actually exist in real life.

Actually, that’s a lie. There are some series out there that not only do acknowledge this shift, but also create compelling and interesting nerd characters. For example, in one episode it is revealed that most of the characters on NBC’s Parks and Recreations are actually fans of Game of Thrones:

Game of Thrones reference on Parks and Rec

The typical TV series approach would be for one character to admit to liking a fantasy series and then shun and belittle said character because of it for comic relief. Parks however cleverly exploits the fact that GoT is about as mainstream as you can go right now, and instead chooses to invert the trope and poke fun at the character who does not watch the series.

That same series also has one of the most positive and interesting “geek characters” you can currently find on TV: Ben Wyatt played by Adam Scott. Ben is most definitely the nerdiest of the characters on the show, in probably the most classical way possible: he enjoys science fiction, reads comic books, obsesses about TV series, voices his strong opinions about Peter Jackson’s interpretation of Lord of the Rings and J. J. Abrams’ take on Star Trek. When he is depressed and his friends encourage him to treat himself to something nice and expensive he buys a Batman costume. That said, his geekiness is not actually the focal point of his character.

Ben Wyatt after getting food poisoning from his favorite dish.

While his nerdy interests and obsessions are frequently used as punch-lines, he is actually a pretty well rounded character. Unlike for example Big Bang Theory’s Sheldon who is mostly a one-note joke delivery robot, Ben actually has life, goals and worries that have nothing to do with his interests. If anything, he is actually one of the most competent, level headed and capable characters on the show and his nerdiness is only one of his many quirks: some of the others being his weird obsession with calzones or his failed political career as the youngest and worst mayor in history.

The thing I really like about how Parks approaches this character is that even when Ben has an outburst of geeky monologue the audience is typically expected to laugh with him rather than at him. Whenever Sheldon has a bout of verbal diarrhea, there is usually a considerably less nerdy character in the frame who is instructed to roll his eyes and make exaggerated sighs. When Ben does the same he often gets the upper hand, or at most gets a shrug and then the scene moves on to something else. In fact, compared to characters like Ron Swanson, April Ludgate or Tom Haverford, Ben’s interests and obsessions actually seem normal and rather mundane.

Which is how it should be. I think this is how nerds should be portrayed in sitcoms: as actual people with varied interests, goals and desires rather than one-note joke characters devoid of depth and nuance.

Can you name other TV or movie characters that can be considered geeks/nerds but without falling into the usual “OMG, what a nerd – let’s laugh at him/her” trope? What are other examples of positive, non-mocking portrayal of geek culture in the media? Can you name any?

Season 4 of Arrested Development is special because it is the first ever attempt to resurrect a series that was cancelled at the height of it’s popularity, on a purely digital platform. As it is right now, the new season is only available through Netflix which is more or less ground breaking for several different reasons.

In the recent years online distribution services such as Netflix and Hulu have seen their business falter. Before that they have enjoyed a steady growth and all but killed the brick and mortar movie rental business. Blockbuster simply could not compete with a company that could deliver movies into your living room instantly at the fraction of the price and with almost no expense on their end other than the flat overhead of monthly bandwidth and server maintenance. Digital distribution won and it seemed it was destined to all but replace traditional channels… Until of course studio execs noticed how little money companies like Netflix had to spend to operate their business and decided they could technically set up bunch of their own servers, and this way they wouldn’t need to share steaming profits with anyone.

And so, motivated by greed major studios started pulling out their big, recognizable films and series from all of the popular distribution services and creating their own, limited streaming services. Of course most of these digital initiatives failed, because the executives failed to realize what made Netflix so popular in the first place. A service to which you can subscribe and get access to all the latest movies and TV series has a tremendous amount of value to an end user – a studio specific services that offer only a narrow selection of moivies does not. No one wants to subscribe to seven or fifteen different streaming sites just so they can keep up with all the latest releases.

So greed and hubris of content producers shook the digital distribution platform. Profits of Netflix and their competitors took a dive. The dedicated streaming platforms studios planned to put together either never saw the light of day, or were rolled up soon after they were put online due to a dire lack of subscribers. The only people who profited from this shake-up were companies like RedBox who figured out a loophole in the Hollywood digital distribution strategy: they found a way to run a brick-and-mortar distribution network while offering rentals at digital distribution prices by using vending machines.

The problem Netflix had was that their business model was basically that of a middle man. This has worked well for them when the physical distribution channels were relevant. Middle men could always find business in the brick and mortar world because content creators typically never had the reach or resources to sell their products directly to their customers. Digital distribution is much less resource intensive because you don’t actually need a lot of man power (save for a few network admins) or geographical coverage. And so, sooner or later people start trying to cut the middle-man out to decrease their overhead. For Netflix and Hulu this meant that the people who hired them to distribute their wares became their competitors almost overnight. That’s a rather shitty position to be in.

So what do you do when you are a content distributor with a rapidly shrinking library and subscriber base? Well, there is a few things you can do: you can close shop, you can refocus or… You can start creating your own content.

This is really why most people subscribe to premium TV channels such as HBO or Showtime isn’t it? Yes, the movies are really great, but the real selling point of these networks is not their movie catalog but their original series. It’s Sopranos, Game of Thrones, Dexter and etc.. So if Netflix could start producing exclusive series that would only be available to their subscribers they essentially could become the online version of HBO. They could retain and increase their user base, and eventually content providers who pulled their movies from their service to prop up their own failing steaming initiatives would come crawling back.

And what better series to produce than a critically acclaimed, internet darling sitcom that has a huge (if not fanatical) built in audience and a cast that is ready and willing, ready and able to make it happen. It sounds like a slam dunk on paper…

Arrested Development

Unfortunately, the execution is a little flawed. Part of it is the format of the series which diverges from what fans knew from previous seasons. It is partly driven by production problems. As it usually happens when a popular series wraps up, the cast of Arrested Development has moved on with their own careers. Almost everyone who was involved with the show has had a more or less successful career. There were a lot of scheduling conflicts for the cast and it was impossible to have the whole gang there for the full duration of the shoot.

The show creators figured out a rather brilliant way to make it work: they essentially wrote the entire season’s story arc around the conflicting schedules. The inability of all the actors to be in a single room became an integral part of the plot: it influences both the events that happen in the series and also how they are presented.

Arrested Development has always been one of the very few shows that borrowed a literary mechanic known as the omnipotent narrator and used it with a great deal of success. In Season 4 Ron Howard returns as the narrator but the series borrows another literary mechanic: subjective point of view storytelling. Each episode of the new season is told from the perspective of one of the characters. Instead of cutting away to other members of the Bluth family, episodes tend to follow one or two key characters rather closely. While the narrator is still all-knowing and still provides necessary exposition and info-dumps, this time around he has a much narrower focus and doesn’t tell the viewers everything.

The storytelling is not linear, but rather jumps back and forward in time revealing what happened to the Bluths in the five years since the events of season 3 finale. Since every family member gets one or two episodes from their POV, the viewers get to revisit a number of big plot events numerous time. The fun part is that each time we have more knowledge of what happened before and after and frequently rather innocent conversations or mundane events turn to hilarious misunderstandings or big gotcha moments.

The main problem with the season is that it starts very slow. The first five episodes do most of the heavy lifting establishing the basic timeline framework over which the remaining 10 episodes will be looping around. Unfortunately, in an effort not to tip their hand too early they exercised a lot of restraint with these. The jokes are a little sparse, the plot is a little thin and editing seems a bit less snappy. Some jokes simply drag on far too long, whereas the original seasons have always had implacable timing cutting away right after the punchline, or letting the audience figure out the funny bit. The early episodes also rely a little bit too heavily on Ron Howard’s narration to provide exposition, framing and keep the convoluted timeline straight. There were times I genuinely wished he would shut up and let the characters talk for themselves.

Arrested Development Posters

Most of these problems are resolved in the later episodes which build on top of the initial frameworks and fill in the blank spots. What seemed like a joke that has overstayed it’s welcome now becomes twice as funny now that we know characters are having one of the classic, convoluted misunderstandings that the series was famous for. What might have seemed like a missed opportunity for a funny joke turns out to be a conscious omission – the second or third time around through the scene the anticipated punchline not only arrives, but is delivered from the direction you didn’t necessarily expect.

The real payoffs do not come until the much anticipated Maeby’s and George Michael’s episodes and the season finale which actually fill out a lot of missing pieces and tie the story together. In the end the season is full of the same kind of hilarious clusterfucks, misunderstandings, betrayals and absurd satire as before.

I thoroughly enjoyed The Social Network riff they did with George Michael’s story. Especially the conclusion and the payoff near the end of the season that reveals that for all of his innocence and strong moral convictions the young Bluth is his father’s son plagued with almost the exact same set of character flaws and same propensity to lie, scheme and cheat as the rest of the family. I loved seeing Michael somehow find himself in the middle of another love triangle train-wreck. I liked the unexpected twists in Gob’s story and the fact that Tobias who still can’t utter a single sentence which is not a homosexual innuendo was actually not the gayest Bluth in this season. There are a lot of laughs to be had, and a few heartfelt, poignant moments in there – the problem is that they are almost all near the end. The series is bottom heavy with very little to show in it’s opening act.

After watching all 15 episodes back to back, I can honestly say it was a very decent effort. It works well as a whole, but individually the episodes can be weak at times – especially the second episode featuring George Sr. and Oscar running cons employing a sweat lodge and trying to build a wall on the border between US and Mexico. While structurally important to the story this was likely the weakest episode of the entire series. But it does get better. If you give it a chance the ending is rather satisfying, and open ended leaving some story-lines open so that they could lead into a theoretical season 5 which Netflix said they would be interested in funding if the cast and crew have any jokes still left in them.

It is definitely not the same series anymore – everyone is older, the jokes are subtly different and the format feels nothing like the past seasons. Still, you have to give the series creators credit for working with a hard schedule, and yet still striving to keep the series fresh and innovate. They could have easily revived the series by simply re-hashing old jokes and creating 15 episodes of self-referential circlejerk but they decided to do something else. They decided to tell a new story that is markedly different from anything they have done before, and yet at the same time very familiar and very Arrested Development. I think the series as a whole is better for it, and for one I hope they will make another season.

Protip: re-watch the first five or six episodes after you’re done with season finale – they are suddenly 50% more funny. Also, pay attention to the way characters phrase their lines sometimes. There is an incredible amount of foreshadowing and forward referencing in the places where you least expect it.

One thing is certain: for Netflix the project was a success and also a small victory they can rub into content providers faces. According to the same kind of unreliable estimates Hollywood studios use to show how many sales they lose when people pirate their shows and movies, there were actually more people who paid to see Arrested Development in the first week than who pirated it. This is something virtually unheard – none of the TV shows currently aired on cable, network and premium channels had ever even came close to such low piracy numbers. Why is that? Well, the truth is that if you give people an affordable, easy and hassle-free way to access the shows they like they will be more than willing to pay for it. Netflicks can deliver original shows directly to their customer, whereas content producers such as HBO do not have a direct relationship with the consumer but must rely on Cable companies to negotiate that relationship for them.

How does it all stack up? Does it tell a cohesive story? Or is it as many successful series a meandering, formulaic aimless mess.

Tonight is the night…

These were the words Michael C. Hall uses to invite and introduce new viewers to the dark, strange universe of Darkly Dreaming Dexter. A loose adaptation of crime drama novels by Jeff Lindsay. A bold, unprecedented prime time series where the protagonist was the bad guy and the hero at the same time. A series which makes you root for the serial killer because he is such a nice, well meaning guy.

Dexter starts just like any other new series – without an established formula, fan-favorite characters, fan service, continuity nods or persistent status quo to which the series reboots itself after each episode. Everything is fresh and new – anything can happen, anyone can die. The hero is actually a raving psychopath with extremely violent urges and tenuous grip on his own sanity. The viewer is never certain if the protagonist is actually in control, or if he is having some disturbing Jekyll and Hyde situation going on.

Season 1

The name of the game is tension – the show keeps you on the edge of your seat, and slowly ramps up the pressure with each episode. The mysteries of Dexter’s past are unraveling before your eyes and his world begins to crumble. The action reaches a crescendo in a shocking twist finale leaving you yearning for more. Dexter’s little crime drama gone wrong sucks you in with its strange allure.

The second season comes along and it is just as good. The writers turn the pressure valve so hard it becomes unhinged. By now the viewers know the protagonist is a good guy (at least in some degree). But then the entire body of his work is revealed, arousing shock and disgust. The series threads a careful balance between displaying Dexters victims and him playing house with his girlfriend Rita and her kids. On one hand there are rows upon rows of mutilated bodies, on the other a nice guy playing with kids and trying to protect them from an abusive father.

This time there is no villain who opposes Dexter. He is by far the biggest monster of the season. He is the person sought by not only the Miami police but also the FBI. The main conflict of the season is an internal one. Dexter is torn between his instinct of self preservation and his code of conduct. Will he break his code to get out of trouble? What would that make him though? Could we still root for him then? It is riveting, ground breaking stuff.

Season 2

In season 3, things change. The show catches it’s stride, the ratings explode, the money starts rolling in. Some writers leave, other writers are brought on board. The show changes focus. The producers decide start playing it safe. They have found a goose that lays golden eggs, the last thing they want to do now is to change it into something else. They find a magic formula for breaking ratings records and printing money.

The Formula

The Dexter formula is very simple: you crib main plot line either from season one or season two. If it’s season one your replicating, then you pit Dexter against a big bad guy who is either elusive and clever or who has some sort of leverage over Dexter. If it’s season two, you introduce Lila or Dokes surrogate – someone who gets dangerously close to the hero, but who does not meet the code and cannot be easily disposed. You also kill, maim or torture Deb’s current boyfriend (this happens every season without fail).

Season 3

Don’t believe me? Big bad villains: Skinner, Trinity, Jordan Chase, DDK. Friends who got to close: Prado, Lumen, Hannah. Dokes replacements: Quinn, LaGuerta. Every season has at least one of these elements. Some have multiple. Almost invariably someone ends up on Dexter’s table which somehow resolves all the tension and restores status quo. Dexter skids under the radar and survives to kill another day

Which is not to say the formula is always bad. Season four for example is absolutely fantastic.

It features the the best villain in the entire series: Trinity Killer played by John Lithgow. A remarkable actor, portraying a complex and interesting character. Trinity is exceptional because he functions as a living mirror in which Dexter discovers truth about himself. He is what our hero could have become – or may yet become depending on circumstances. Like Dexter, he is a social chameleon who blends in, and hides in plane sight. Like Dexter he uses a family as a distraction and cover for his less than legal activities. Like Dexter he is considered to be an upstanding citizen, and an respected member of community. But Dexter is faking all of it, whereas Trinity really seems to live the dream. Or at least so it appears at first.

Dexter sees him as a mentor figure – someone he could learn from about being a husband and a father. It shocks him to the core to discover that Trinity is more like him that he ever expected. Trinity is Dexter without Harry’s code. A monster without a conscience, an abusive father and a wife beater. Dexter’s wish to learn from him was foolish, and ultimately it becomes his downfall. His attempt to become a better husband and father is what dooms his family, gets his wife killed and exposes his son to the same kind of trauma that awakened his dark passenger. It is tragic, deeply ironic and masterfully executed.

Season 4

Imagine my disappointment when Rita’s death is treated as mere afterthought in season five. Dexter grieves for exactly one episode, then gets busy doing what he does, neglects his family and finds a new girlfriend.

Broken suspension of disbelief…

The fifth season is when Dexter’s incredible knack for avoiding capture starts to slowly grate on me. Months of waiting to find out what will become of the hero and his family in aftermath’s of Rita’s death result in a disappointment. Excellent opportunities for character development, and serious paradigm shift are squandered. All in the name of the all-mighty formula.

The writers pay a little bit of lip service to what should have been a life changing event, and then get back on track. They hook Dexter up with a new villain (Jordan Chase), give him Lumen – a new secret confidante in the style of Lila and Prado and set up Quinn as the new Dokes. We are off to the races again – there is a little bit of suspense, little bit of action and then things go back to normal. Quinn backs off, Chase ends up on the table and Lumen gets on the bus and leaves town.

There is a scene in season five that broke the series for me. When Dexter and Lumen team up to kill Jordan Chase, Deb is hot on their tracks. She walks in on them while they hover over still warm cadaver. She can hear their voices but a thin sheet of plastic obscures their faces. She pulls out her gun, then reconsiders and leaves never even pulling down the cover. Why? Because of some contrived idea about love, devotion and some other bull-crap that the ever-competent detective that she is should not and would not care about. For me that’s the straw that broke the camel’s back. My personal shark has been jumped.

Season 5

From this point on, I am no longer an immersed participant of the story. I no longer inhabit Dexter’s Miami. From this point on I am merely an impartial observer, suddenly aware of every plot hole, loose end and annoyance.

The worst season

Season six is a travesty. It is an affront. It is a betrayal. No, worse – it is padding. And yet, I watch it just the same because I still hope against hope they can pull this plane out of it’s nose dive.

The series takes a few months leap in time, trying to distance itself from Rita’s death. An event that should have changed Dexter’s world forever, but instead merely registered as a tiny blip on the radar. Dexter sends his late wife’s kids to live with their grandparents and hires a full time nanny for his own son so that he can get back to living the way he lived in season three and four. The writers pressed the plot reset button so hard that the bottom fell out

If Trinity was the best villain of the series, then DDK was the worst. Despite attempts by Edward James Olmos to breathe some life into this character, it becomes almost a joke. Three episodes into the season the entire internet already knows that the two Doomsday Killers: James Gellar and Travis Marshall are actually just one guy with a split personality. There are memes, mash-ups, and jokes floating all about but the show plays it straight for dozen more episodes, until it plays it off as if it was a big reveal. It is the laziest kind of writing I have seen on the series. They use the cheapest plot twist taken directly from shitty soap opera play book, and they try to pass it off as a great revelation.

Season 6

I’m not even sure if Travis Marshall actually meets Dexters’ code. What does Harry say about people who are actually criminally insane, and not in control of their on actions? Marshal has hallucinations, delusions of grandeur, and suffers from extreme paranoia. Does he actually deserve the table? Next to Brian Moser, Trinity or even Jordan Chase, Travis’ case seems rather sad and pathetic.

The main themes are similarly ill chosen. Dexter, a staunch atheist and a man of science suddenly dabbles in religion, and looks to it for answers. His sister has an incestuous fixation an a mental breakdown, and a bunch of new faces appear at Miami homicide to distract from the fact that all the established characters are running on full auto-pilot, deathly afraid to deviate from their traditional roles and routines.

Season six not only fails to do anything interesting with the main cast – it also brings some of worst recurring supporting characters: Brother Sam and Louis.

The former is an ex-convict, turned holy man. A guy who took his gang-banger bravado and replaced it with holier-than-thou shallow, insufferable religiosity. A man without an original thought in his head. His mind a void filled with undigested and unreconciled dogma and self-satisfied smug ignorance. A man who has performed a self indulgent full frontal lobotomy on himself by the means of one book which he read dozens of times without understanding a single word.

This is the guy they pick to be Dexters new frenemy and a mentor. He is a little bit like Prado in the way which he instantly bonds with the hero, and a little bit like Trinity in the way Dexter wants to study him to better himself. But this shallow, reprehensible man cannot even aspire to feign the complexity of the two characters he tries to mimic.

Then there is Louis… Louis is an alien visiting from a parallel universe of CSI Miami. He is a computer expert with plot driven superpowers who can Build a GUI in Visual Basic to solve any problem at hand. He is a plot wizard that the writers use as a crutch at every opportunity. He can hack any website, rig Ebay auctions, he can track people down based on their IP address without a warrant. He can be called upon to plug any plot hole – he just waves his laptop like a magic want and things happen.

The worst thing is that this plot wizard seems to be groomed to be next season’s big bad. He is digging in Dexter’s past, dragging out secrets from season 1 and playing some sort of cat and mouse game egging the hero on, and interfering with his plans at every step.

Even the “shocking” season finale feels weak. It is a rehash. It seems like something that was long overdue – an event that realistically should have taken place at the end of the last season. Back when it would have made sense. Back when it would be poignant and devastating.

This season, Deb wants to confess her incestuous feelings to her step brother, and accidentally walks in on Dexter as he kills Travis Marshal. How does that happen? Well, the normally cautious and cunning hero decides to indulge in his hobby at work. He stupidly performs the kill at a crime scene while he is doing a routine sweep, that is logged on the books. The circumstances of this event are so monumentally, so contrived that you are more shocked by the writers ineptitude, than by the plot twist they just delivered.

The Redemption

Somewhere between the end of season 6 and beginning of season 7 the series runs into a contractual wall. Showtime is unable to extend the contracts for the main cast past their current obligations at a reasonable cost. Neither Michael C. Hall nor Jennifer Carpenter are truly interested in continuing the series past season 8 which they already signed up for. They are both ready to move on to new projects, they are both concerned about being typecast. Their people can’t come to an agreement, the negotiations break down, and it is decided: Dexter will have to end with season 8.

Ironically this is the best thing that the fans could ever wish for. Writers and directors finally get their proverbial shit together. The long term plans, and padding episodes are mostly scrapped and reworked. A new, more aggressive and edgier direction is penned out for season 7. The cast and crew realize it is time to stop milking the old formula and start bucking it and making bold choices and sweeping character arcs.

First order of business? Kill Louis! Kill new Dokes surrogate. Drop the plot crutches, tighten the reins, focus on relationships, and get back to character driven drama.

When Season 7 hits the screens it the return to the old form. The Miami Police actually starts to investigate crimes again, rather than being led by the nose by Dexter. Deb, while traumatized, somehow regains her cop instincts and convictions she lost two seasons ago when she became a blubbering, emotional mess. LaGuerta, who has been a major player in the first two seasons, and then settled comfortably into the role of sometimes mean, but harmless boss lady is back in the game, more ruthless and unforgiving than ever.

The villain of the season is an original idea. No longer a rehash – not a monster who Dexter needs to hunt down, not an individual he wants to study and imitate. The new bad guy is a honorable, cultured mobster with a personal vendetta. He is someone who Dexter can actually relate to as an equal – a worthy adversary, albeit from a completely different world.

Rita’s death and its implications are finally discussed openly. Loose ends from previous seasons come back to hunt us as plot twists and unexpected hardships. For the first time since season two Dexter is in the cross-hairs of a police investigation, dangerously close to having hos cover blown.

The bits and pieces of the old formula are still there, but now that Dexter’s sister knows his true nature there is no going back to the status quo. Hall and Carpenter have a new dynamic, their characters bonding and clashing in new unexpected ways. For the first time in years the series has tension and pressure turned back on.

Season finale is unexpected, heart wrenching and powerful. Not as powerful as the Trinity cliffhanger, but definitely second best. I am once again somewhat engaged, immersed and hopeful. It looks like the series will go out with a bang or die trying.

Becoming Human

Despite it’s flaws, and a terrible season six slump, the series as a whole actually flows pretty well. While all the seasons after the second tend to be formulaic, there seem to exist threads and concepts that bind the entire story into a cohesive whole. The chief of those unifying themes is Dexter’s journey to become human.

The first season establishes our hero as someone who is emotionless, remorseless and un-feeling. Dexter is always cool, aloof and detached. He approaches every problem analytically which allows him to always operate on all cylinders. Where normal people’s judgment is often clouded by emotion, Dexter’s mind is always sharp. In his own mid, he barely considers himself to be human. There are multiple instances throughout the series where his narration singles him out as an outsider, an aberrant creature that merely feigns human behaviors to blend in. He is more of an observer of the human condition, rather than a willing participant. His morality revolves around a memorized code, handed down onto him by his father. This code functions both as a survival mechanism, a way of blending in and also as a code of honor of sorts..

In a master-stroke of genius Harry convinces Dexter, that if he must kill, then the safest victims are those who truly deserve to be killed – murderers who fell through the cracks of the legal system and avoided capture or punishment. People with estranged families, low social profile, many foes and few friends – dregs of the human society. At the same time, the pure and innocent tend to be high profile targets. Their deaths always cause media frenzy, and thorough investigations. Thus amoral Dexter inherits a code of morality that keeps him taking out the bad guys, and protecting the innocents for purely selfish reason: self preservation. Because will to live is Dexter’s only motivation, other than his dark urge to kill.

But as the time goes by, this seems to change. As Dexter tests, and deviates from the code, he discovers new aspects of himself that he did not know were there. He unearths whole continents of human emotion that he buried deep in his childhood, under the careful guidance of his father.

In season two, Dexter runs into Lila and learns a thing or two about lust and desire. This relationship, while ultimately disastrous seems to open the emotional floodgates that Harry probably hoped will stay sealed forever. His explosive tryst with a crazy pyromaniac gives Dexter some much needed perspective and forces him to re-evaluate his own relationship with his fake-girlfriend Rita. This process culminates in season three, where Dexter realizes he not only has real feelings for her, but that he also cares for her children who have became his extended family.

Season 3 also throws Dexter a curve ball, allowing him to break Harry’s code for the first time. Harry forbade friendships, and was absolutely adamant about never revealing Dexter’s secret to anyone. Dexter breaks both rules when he befriends the prosecutor Miguel Prado. This is the first, but not the last time Dexter takes a companion – a partner in crime who knows about his Dark Passenger and who aids him in pursuing his night-time activities for one reason to the other. After his affair with Lila, Dexter is naturally cautious and when Prado situation spins out of control he is prepared. Still, it leaves him open, and hungry for more human connection. So he turns back to his adopted family and seeks to strengthen and improve the connection he has with Rita and her kids, even if it’s build on a huge lie.

Season four is about family. Dexter is about to become a father (something that would probably set Harry not rolling, but spinning in his grave). He does not want to fail – he wants his fake marriage to work. And so he tries to find a mentor in the Trinity – the most successful serial killer he has encounter. A man who like him pretends to be a family man. He engages in a game of wits with him, and ultimately loses because of his desire to become a better husband and a parent. His newly found human needs and emotions lead him down a path that gets an innocent person killed, and leaves Dexter devastated and vulnerable.

Season one Dexter would never try to learn from Trinity. He would set a trap, and put him on the table in his fast, efficient and detached way. But season four Dexter is a different person. He poked holes in previously air tight Harry’s Code, and through these holes he has seen parts of himself that are human. These holes slowly allow emotions to flow in and occlude his reasoning. He starts making mistakes – big ones at that.

In season five, Dexter experiences grief, and finds out about vengeance. The inescapable dark irony the season four finale is that he can never actually avenge Rita’s death. He is not only stricken with grief, but also filled with rage for which there is no outlet. No matter how many murderers he will strap to his table, none of them will be Trinity again. He can never wipe those feelings away with a cathartic stroke of a knife, and must instead deal with them like a regular person.

He eventually finds some closure by taking on another companion, Lumen, and helping her get revenge on her tormentors. But that in itself is very sloppy. Dexter’s mistakes start to compound at an alarming rate. His relationship with Lumen threatens to expose him to Quinn. Lumen’s chosen revenge target – a high profile celebrity Jordan Chase is an extremely risky kill, and also rather capable opponent. Dexter is no longer fully capable of operating in the cool, detached, calculating manner that was his season one trademark. Jordan Chase is able to exploit Dexter’s newly found human emotions to lead him into a trap, and almost gets him exposed. Dexter’s secret survives only thanks to bad writing.

In season six, Dexter realizes that Harry’s code is in tatters. He has stretched, broken and twisted it in every imaginable way and it no longer holds that much value. He begins to re-evaluate it and starts searching for a replacement. He flirts with faith and religion as possible substitutes. Harry’s code is no longer enough because it was designed for a remorseless monster concerned only fit self preservation. The new Dexter has experienced lust, love, loss, grief and anger. He formed attachments, lost loved ones and it changed him. It made him more human. The old tenants of the code do not take into account friendships, family and fatherhood. And so Dexter tries to see if a faith based moral compass can be a better fit – if not for him, then for his son.

Ultimately, this self exploration is also disastrous. Dexter makes more mistakes. He kills more people who might not have deserved it. He also endangers his son, and fails to uncover the identity of the Doomsday Killer until it is almost too late. His attempt to become more human, once again makes him more vulnerable and more exposed. What is worse, his increased humanity seems to interfere with his infamous hunch. In the past, Dexter had almost a superhuman ability to “detect” evil. He could see someone on the street and immediately feel the monster inside of them. But now his sixth sense completely fails to detect the evil side of Travis Marshall. In season seven it will similarly lead him astray when investigating the pyromaniac and suspecting the completely wrong guy. Becoming human, seems to blunt Dexter’s edge quite considerably.

In season seven, Dexter falls in passionate love for the first time. He more or less settled for Rita – his feelings from her grew very slowly. He became attached to her bit by bit over a long period of time. With Hannah, he is swept away in a torrent of uncontrollable emotion. He experiences the kind of explosive passion that drives you stupid, leaves you blind and vulnerable. As with all of his relationship, this one goes sour as well. Hannah turns out to be too unpredictable and dangerous to be trusted.

Even if the relationship itself fails, the experience is what finally shatter’s Harry’s code. Dexter has a painful realization that the code might have been what kept him apart from the world. He realizes that perhaps the lack of human emotion he was experiencing in season one, was not a byproduct of his Dark Passenger but rather a result of Harry’s training. In fact, Dexter goes as far as to internalize his Dark Passenger.

At the beginning of the series this Dark Passenger is established to be almost an external entity – a part of Dexter that drives him to kill, but somehow exists apart from his otherwise wholesome and good natured persona. Thank’s to Hannah, Dexter absorbs the Dark Passenger back unto himself. He finally acknowledges that there is no separate “Good Guy Dexter” and “Dark Passenger” persona. Both are actually one and the same – both are integral parts of his personality. This realization is painful, shattering but at the same liberating.

Dexter abandons his ritual, throws away his blood slides and becomes bolder and more unrestrained. Internalizing the Dark Passenger makes him whole and for the first time in many seasons gives him back some of control over his life. Up until this point Dexter was drowning. His Dark Passenger was pulling him one way, his good guy persona in another. He was torn with conflicting emotions and loyalties. His judgment was clouded by this internal turmoil. He was threading water, unable to move one way or another – the code, like a broken life raft taking on water, and starting to pull him under instead of keeping him afloat. After internalizing the “passenger” this all goes away. The false dichotomy is broken. There is only one Dexter – an emotional human being and driven by passion, love and commitment. Driven by the same things that motivate us all. Very human emotions that Dexter never knew he had in him.

When the push goes to shove Dexter abandons the code. He now has new goals, and new priorities. There are now things he cares about more than self preservation. The fake life he built for himself as a cover became real. A life he cares about deeply, and one which he is willing to fight for. In the final scene, Dexter marvels at the simple fact that he is about to kill a person for “normal” human reasons for the first time in his life. Not because his Dark Passenger tells him to, not to satisfy some urge but to save his sister. For the first time a kill will not bring him satisfaction, or relief but guilt, regret and remorse.

Harry was always afraid that allowing Dexter to kill an innocent would open some sort of a flood-gate that would turn the boy into a true monster. That it would rob him from the small semblance of morality that he was able to impart onto him. But it seems that killing La Guerta might have had the opposite effect. It might have been the kill that would finally close a chapter in Dexter’s life. It could have been a kill that finally made him human. His entire character arc has certainly lead him up to this.

At the end of season 7 Dexter is no longer a cold, calculating serial killer. He is a man, doing something desperate to make sure no harm comes to his family. He is almost human, even if he does not realize it yet.

The New Dexter

Where does this all lead? I honestly don’t know but I fully expect the writers to wrap up the series by concluding Dexter’s character arc by having him becoming, and accepting himself as a normal human being. It seems that internalizing the Dark Passenger has been a huge development. As long as he viewed this part of himself as a separate entity, he had no control over it. Now that he acknowledged that it does not exist, can Dexter reign in his dark impulses and simply choose not to kill?

And if so, what would that say about Harry? Would it make him at least in part responsible? If he took Dexter to therapy, instead of instilling the code in him, could he become a normally functioning member of society?

Season one Dexter only experienced human connection when he was interacting with his victims while they were on the table. Those were the only brief moments when he allowed himself to talk openly, and be himself. Throughout the series there are countless scenes during which he confides in his victims or even has impromptu therapy sessions during which he just vents and works out his personal issues. He could never talk like this with friends of family – it was against the code. In his day-to-day life, he kept it all bottled up, and his behavior was a tightly controlled, scripted and premeditated act. Perhaps this social alienation, dictated by the code was part of the issue. Perhaps that’s what made killing so hard to quit for him.

The new, emotional Dexter no longer needs to hide. He had Lumen, Hannah and now Deb – people who knew his secret, and did not betray him. People he could confide in, and have normal human interactions with. Perhaps having someone to talk to, will help him control his urges. Granted, this did not work in season two, but a lot has happened since then.

If this is the path the writers choose to explore, it will be certainly interesting to see Dexter trying to work out these problems.

On the other hand, perhaps they will choose to end the series with a bang. Perhaps Dexter, having all but freed the beast inside him will become sloppier, and even more unhinged as he becomes more and more human. Perhaps his human emotions and attachments will become his downfall. Driven by love he will eventually make one mistake too many and either end up dead, or behind bars.

Or perhaps the writers will choose to have him do a full circle. Perhaps season eight will shatter Dexter’s world, and destroy all the attachments he has formed so far. Perhaps he will experience so much pain and grief that the humanity he fought so hard to gain will be pealed away from him. Perhaps the series will end with the old, cool, calculating, unfeeling Dexter emerging from the ruins of his old life, and starting a new blood slide connection in some remote part of the world, this time vowing to never stray from Harry’s code, no matter what.

Or we may get some variation on an open ended “and he killed happily ever after” theme which after all this buildup and character development would be a bit disappointing.

I know what you think: it’s a fantasy series, and you know how I feel about fantasy. But you know what? This is a good one!

The series is based on “A Song of Ice and Fire” – a critically acclaimed book series by George R. R. Martin. Like many fantasy series, this one is quite long, counting five voluminous tomes with a few more in the pipeline. As you may imagine, I’m not very familiar with these books, but if they are as good as the series (and books in general tend to be better than their adaptations), I may actually be tempted to read them.

Game of thrones is set in a fictional, fantasy universe – but it is a subtle one. What do you usually think when someone mentions fantasy? Me? I usually imagine a Tolkienesqe setting with magic, fictional races (elves and dwarfs at the very least) and mythical creatures such as dragons. Game of Thrones has none of that. While dragons are rumored to have existed in the past, they have been long extinct by the time the story takes place. The character pay them no more heed than we do to dinosaurs. They are just background and folklore. I’m by no means an expert on Fantasy, but this struck me as fairly unique approach to the subject. At least as far as the books are concerned. It does make a perfect sense for a TV series though, because it makes it much, much easier to sell to mainstream viewers.

HBO Promo Poster

When I try to convince non-geeks to give it a try, I don’t tell them that it’s Fantasy. That makes them instantly lose interest. I just tell them that it is set in a fictional setting, but without any magic, elves or dragons, and that it is realistic, gritty and awesome. That is usually enough to get even the least imaginative, and anti-fun people to give it a glance.

What makes the series exceptional however is not the setting but it’s characters. They are interesting, dynamic and memorable. It’s an ensemble show without a clear protagonist but you quickly get attached to number of interesting characters, both good and bad. You can’t help but sympathize with Ned Stark (Sean Bean) – a brave, honorable, upstanding Lord of Winterfel who gets implicated into insidious court intrigue against his will. He only tries to serve his king, and save him from the secret plots of his close ones and attendants. You can’t help but hate the Joffrey Baratheon (Jack Gleeson) – a young prince and a heir to the throne, and genuine asshole and conniving vengeful, spiteful snake or his mother the Queen (played by Lena Headey) who is just as bad, but more refined and more cunning. You can’t help but fall in love and root for Daenerys Targaryen (Emilia Clarke) – a young princes and one of the last members of a deposed dynasty, as she tries to find her way in exile among savage hose tribes. You watch her grow from quiet, passive girl almost completely controlled by her older brother into a fierce queen, both loved and admired by the local tribes.

And you can’t help to sympathize with Tyrion Lanister, whose magnetic, jovial personality and wit more than makes up diminutive size. In fact, I will say that Peter Dinklage pretty much steals the show every time he shows up on the screen. Most people I have talked to agree that Tyrion is one of the best characters on the series (if not one of the best characters on TV right now).

I guess the part of the charm of this series is that there are no bland characters. You always feel something for them – you hate them, you love them, you respect them. But none of them leaves you indifferent or bored. That says something about the writing, don’t you think? It is excellent character design.

Every one of them has his own plans hopes and dream and own agenda. These agendas do not always align with each other. In fact, many of them are posed on collision courses, and bound to butt heads or cross swords at one time or another. The story is entirely character driven – nothing happens by authors fiat. Every plot twist or upheaval can be traced back to individual character’s ambitions and agenda. This doesn’t make them predictable, but no one really does anything out of character just to move the plot along.

Game of Thrones has everything you would want in a good TV show: great writing, great characters, great acting and interesting settings. It’s the best thing on TV right now, and if you are not watching it, you are missing out. Actually, by the time this post goes live, the first season is probably going to be over. But you should still be able to catch up. If you subscribe to HBO, you should be able to watch all the episodes online after authenticating via your cable provider. If not… Well, then there are torrents I guess.

The Title Screen

The American Movie Classics (nowadays known as AMC) used to be primarily focused on airing old movies. It was the network where you would go to see some good old John Wayne westerns, or black and white classics. But in the last decade, the Network Decay kicked in and they abandoned that premise almost entirely. But instead of spending all their money on sensationalist reality shows, they decided to actually produce good television. All of a sudden they made the critically acclaimed Mad Men, and a well received remake of The Prisoner, only to follow it up with an adaptation of Robert Kirkman’s graphic novel The Walking Dead.

A scene from the pilot episode

When I first heard about the “new zombie show on AMC” I was skeptical. As much as I like zombie stories, I did not think they could pull it off. The genre is tricky – zombie flicks tend to kitschy and shallow. Same goes for graphic novel adaptations – few people know how to do them well. The secret seems to be slavish faithfulness to the source. The hubris of produces and directors who decide to improve upon it with their own ideas almost always results in a complete failure. Hell, making a watchable TV series is a slowly fading art too. So making The Walking Dead would mean overcoming these 3 non-trivial challenges: making a zombie story that doesn’t suck, making a comic book adaptation that doesn’t blow, and making a series that will not get canceled after the pilot.

Doing the Shaun of the Dead zombie walk

In a rather surprising move AMC has assembled a crack team of people who actually knew what they were doing. They got Frank Darabont (known for Shawshank Redemption and Green Mile) in the dual role of a director and a producer. They got a nice group of executive producers: Gale Anne Hurd (who worked on Terminators and Aliens movies), Adam Fierro (Dexter, The Shield and 24) and Charles H. Eagle (Dexter, Dark Angel, The Shield). They got Bear McCreary to compose the music (he previously worked on Battlestar Galactica and Sarah Connor Chronicles). They also got Robert Kirkman himself to aid in writing the scripts and make sure the series is not veering off the course or breaking away from his vision. I don’t know about you, but for me this seems like a pretty good team.

It turns out that everything people have been saying about this series is true. It is very, very good! After watching the entire season in the span of two evenings I’m craving more. I honestly can’t wait for the next season!

The survivors have some good times...

I haven’t actually read Kirkman’s comic so I can’t really say how it differs from the story, but from what I’m told it is pretty close. In fact, most of the characters seem to look like their drawn counterparts. Whether or not it departs from the source I could not say.

One thing is certain though. Kirkman created a story that I have always wanted to see, but up until now no one was up to a challenge. I always thought that Zombie genre had a great dramatic potential. Think about it: the civilization has ended, the few surviving humans live in constant fear, besieged on all sides by un-thinking, un-caring beasts. They have to wake up every morning knowing full well, that a single bite or scratch can turn them into mindless beasts. Worse, they may actually witnessed their close ones bitten and transformed into monsters. There is a lot of room here for some very introspective, philosophical and character driven storytelling. It is surprising that most zombie themed movies and shows up until now have been more about shooting the living dead in the face, rather than about characters struggling with their loss.

And some not so good times...

The Walking Dead is different. It focuses primarily on the characters, their relationships and how they cope with their loss, their new life and tensions in the small community of survivors. It tells a story about the rifts and tensions within the group when the dire circumstances cause racism, sexism and jealousy rear their ugly heads. Kirkman populates his world with interesting side characters such as the viscous street gang which [SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER] takes over an old retirement house to take care of surviving elderly, or a failed scientist who realizes that he is not smart enough to actually find a cure to the plague. It is a series about people. Living people, since the dead ones are just a background. But a very well done background.

Gang violence?

The zombie costumes and effects are actually done exceptionally well. I really did not expect AMC to pull it off this well, but zombies are just awesome in their full gut spilling, brain splattering glory. It’s actually kinda silly – no one in the series ever utters a curse word, but when it is zombie killing time blood, guts and puss spill by the gallon. The special effect guys never miss a chance to show you a close-up of a well executed head shot or a nice panning shot of a feeding horde ripping their victim to shreds. Kinda funny if you think about it, but I don’t think a zombie show would actually work without the gratuitous amount of gore. Don’t you think?

Excellent show! It definitely gets my seal of approval. Thanks for recommending it.

The way most of these shows are set up is that the main source of comedy is the oddball, offbeat behavior of the protagonists. Basically the whole theme is “look how adorably silly these geeks can be” which strikes me as a bit patronizing. These series do nothing new. They basically continue the old tradition stared by the Revenge of the Nerds movies. They pander to the mainstream audiences by poking fan at the geeky stereotypes, just this time around they throw in a Star Trek joke or some geeky exchange. You know, stuff that will sail way over the heads of 90% of their audience, but will make you and me chuckle and feel acknowledged. And then it’s back to making jokes at the expense of the poor nerds. I believe this is how these shows get their geek cred. But the sad truth is that they still laugh mostly at us rather than with us.

Let me give you an example. Here is a clip from Big Bang Theory in which two of the protagonists discuss the problem with quantum teleportation:

This is actually an interesting subject, and I discussed it at length on this very blog. The fact that series even brings up this topic scores it major points. It is an interesting topic, and Sheldon articulates it very well. But look how the whole discussion is presented. Observe how his friend handles the conversation. Note his dismissive attitude.

There is nothing inherently funny about what Sheldon is saying. What is the joke here? The joke is “look at the goofy nerd”. That’s what kills it for me. The audience is supposed to identify with the other more mainstream and “grounded” character, but I can’t. To me he is just being an ass for no other reason than to paint his compatriot in unfavorable light as “the bigger nerd” at the table.

Of course there is nothing wrong with making fun of geeky stuff. I’m not saying that we shouldn’t laugh at ourselves every once in a while. I’m not saying the series is wrong or offensive because of this approach. That’s not the case. All I’m saying is that I am clearly not the target audience. This is not a show for geeks – it is a show about geeks, which makes them seem silly, fun and non-threatening.

I personally yearn for a real geek centric series. Something that was written from our point of view. Something that we could really relate to. Here is how you do it: you set up your geeks as your straight men, and make everyone else to be comic relief. You know, like in the real life. Make the handful of engineers or scientists to be the only rational, competent and sane people in the whole group/company. Poke fun at managers who are too dumb to live, sleazy marketing people who have more confidence than common sense, apathetic and lazy clerks etc… Make everyone else in that universe either overwhelmingly superficial, staggeringly shallow or batshit insane. I’m not saying these people should be made unlikable – make them fun silly and non-threatening.

Instead of laughing at the fact someone happens to enjoy science fiction satirize things that are shameful but socially acceptable such as:

1. Gaps in peoples education (don’t you get tired hearing people saying silly things like “I’m not good at math”)
2. Ignorance – cultural, geographical, scientific, etc…
3. People’s fear of science and technology and superstitious and ritualistic way they use it
4. Obsessions with shallow, and uninteresting reality shows and soap operas
5. Ridiculous ways that fans of sports teams tend to behave

There is a lot of comedic potential there. It is not like these things are not funny – it is just seems easier to make cheap nerd jokes. So try to avoid that at all costs. When it comes to your geeks play it straight. Of course you can still have them do “geeky” things like discuss Science Fiction but don’t make that to be the joke. Let me give you an example: when Kevin Smith wrote Clerks he had his characters Dante and Randall have a drawn out discussion about Star Wars:

Can you spot the difference between this and the previous clip? The topic conversation is not the main joke here. Neither is the “geekiness” of the participants. Smith didn’t have a character come in rolling his eyes to signify “look how silly and nerdy these guys are”. No, he has a random guy join in the conversation on an equal footing. They all have an interesting exchange which ends up being somewhat poignant. Yes, they were talking about Star Wars but there is nothing inherently funny about it. Just like there is nothing inherently funny in having conversations about quantum physics or say Star Trek or video games. That’s something I can relate to, because I do have this types of conversations in my daily life. If Big Bang theory did the same with their teleportation discussion I would be thrilled. If they had only dared to explore the topic and come up with some intelligent banter it would be so much better. But instead the writers of that show went for the easy “LOL, Sheldon is such a nerd” cheap-shot.

Do you see where I’m coming from here. Yes, these shows you keep recommending might be funny and worth watching, but they are not made for geeks. They poke fun at us. Not that I’m offended or anything. It’s just that these shows are not what you seem to think they are. Think about it. In real life, I don’t really think of myself and my friends as “the silly nerds”. I don’t find our conversations outlandishly nerdy – though I understand they might sound as such to others. To me though they are just normal day-to-day stuff. That’s my bread and butter..

The main premise of the series is the concept that scientists have developed a synthetic substitute for human blood which in turn allowed vampires to find an alternative food source. Because of this, vampires decided to come out of hiding and rejoin the mainstream society. Consequently, Bill (Stephen Moyer), an old Civil War era vampire returns to a tiny southern town reclaiming his old family house, and tries to re-assimilate himself into human society. To that end he tries to befriend the locals, gives a rousing patriotic speech at a church gathering and starts dating a local waitress (Anna Paquin). Of course, South being South this proves to be no easy task. Then people around Bill start dying in unexplained circumstances. Soon enough his old secret life as a vampire catches up to him, and his new girlfriend and friends become implicated in complex vampire politics, power struggles and conflicts.

And that’s really where the series shines. They do vampires very, very well. Its all fairly standard you have an underground society that is byzantine, and feudal. You have ancient laws that forbid vampires from killing each other, and puts restrictions on creating new ones. You have old vampires who skirt around those laws because of grudges that go back centuries. You have power struggles, political posturing, pacts, alliances, violent confrontations. There is also the standard existential angst, and the internal struggle each all vampires fight each day, the slow process of dehumanization they all experience unless they make an effort to cling to their humanity. It is all done very well and with a southern flare which is not something you often associate with this kind of setting.

The series creators however didn’t seem to want to limit themselves to only vampires going by the rule of “well, if vampires are real so why not werewolves?”. For three seasons now they have been steadily adding other supernatural beings to the universe – so they are now up to all kinds of shape shifters, fairies and even ancient gods. This sort of dilutes the focus of the series but… Well, it somehow inexplicably fits in. To me it’s almost as if the creators were reading through the old World of Darkness source-books from White Wolf and transplanting whatever cool bits they find into their own setting. And half the time it works.

Other times you end up sitting through the wacky hi-jinks of the human characters waiting for more of the good stuff, because you know it’s coming. The weakest subplots so far have been those associated with the characters of Jason, Tara and the bumbling cop Andy Bellefleur. But even during the least interesting moments the writing is good, the dialogs are snappy, the acting is great and the story moves along rather smoothly.

All the characters are nuanced, layered and conflicted. Those who are not haunted by their past are routinely put through and emotional wringer up to a breaking point. It is sort of a rule that every new character introduced into the show will either have a dark secret, will become involved with one of the regulars and then get tragically killed, or will soon go through some traumatic experience which will allow him/her to graduate into regular cast. As you can imagine there is a great deal of character development going on. Probably the best example of this is Eric Northman (Alexander Skarsgård) who starts as a menacing background character in Season 1 and ends up being one of the more complex and interesting vampires in the whole series almost overshadowing Moyer’s leading role.

Like most HBO series, this one does not shy away from sex, violence and gore. The show really does earn it’s R rating and while that might be a deterrent to some it is not the only thing it has to offer. It is a well written, character driven series with interesting characters and many offbeat ideas. The same creative freedom that allows them to have gratuitous nudity and gore, also allows them to pursue ideas and plot lines that probably wouldn’t get approved on a network TV show. It is worth checking out – even if you are not a particular fan of either rednecks or vampires.

You can probably tell I am not much of a TV viewer. To make matter worse, I am very picky about my programming. For some strange reason I like my entertainment to be at least a little bit intellectually stimulating. I don’t just want to sit there staring at the idiot box. I tell this to people and they usually look at me like I’m from mars – like I’m the fucking Valentine Michael Smith. Intellectual stimulation with entertainment? You must be jesting sir! Entertainment should be dumb and baseless, otherwise it’s work!

I guess I am a strange man but I just cannot watch reality TV, and I don’t tolerate stupid shows. I just can’t stand that stuff. Every time I watch a reality TV show I die a little inside. I already gave up on all the major networks out there because that’s all they show. Well, that and celebrity gossip and sensationalized local bullshit they try to pass off as news. They are waste of time. My TV watching habits gravitate more toward niche networks that offer very specific kinds of entertainment: history channel, discovery channel, science channel, animal planet, etc…

There was a time in my life when I could tune into History Channel and watch a World War II documentary, a show about ancient weapons of war or an archeology piece on Egypt. Nowadays when I put it on all I see is:

• Truckers
• Lumberjacks
• Pawn shop owners
• Some dudes who buy old crap on yard sales
• UFO hunters talking to rednecks and drunks
• Dudes who consistently fail to scientifically prove existence of legendary monsters every fucking week
• Infuriatingly idiotic shows about Nostradamus, “the bible code” or 2012 bullshit
• Documentaries about contemporary urban gangs and motorcycle clubs

What the fuck any of that stuff have anything to do with history? To make matters worse, the first 4 items on this list are full fledged reality TV shows in stealth mode. They are more about the personalities of the “characters” they follow around, than about anything else. They pretend they are not by having the narrator say something smart once per episode, or maybe flash some data on the screen for 5 seconds. Most of the time these things are about dudes cursing at each other, or “playfully bickering” for the cameras.

Obligatory Graph Jam Picture. I'm not the only person who noticed it.

I’m not saying that they should air nothing but history (actually, they should – hence the network name, but I’m an open minded guy) – they can keep shows like Modern Marvels and The Universe. These are actually pretty decent and watchable. I just want them to get rid of all the fucking truckers and lumberjacks.

Discovery is the same exact shit. Bunch of horrible, cringe worthy reality TV shows, conspiracy theories, monster hunting, ghost searching, UFO spotting, and etc. Then again this is an improvement. Not so long ago Discovery had like 8 reality shows that followed the antics of custom motorcycle builders, custom car builders, random grease monkeys, extreme home renovation teams and all that bullshit. Even Myth Busters went down hill over time. It used to be a show about using science to prove or disprove urban legends. Now it is about using explosives to blow shit up, while the axillary cast members do the fake bickering in front of camera. In one of the more recent shows for example, their Scooby Doo team consisting of a hot chick, a nerdy Asian guy and a an idiot jock were tasked with finding out whether or not someone can be literally “knocked out of his socks”. Of course they accomplished it by repetitively setting off explosives next to a test dummy they had wearing a pair socks. I cried a little on the inside.

Granted, the show was always a bit shaky with the science side of things, but it was vastly better when it was just Adam Savage and the Manwalrus doing their thing on their own, without actually being forced to act on camera. Every time they do a “team meeting” or pretend like they are brainstorming on camera I can’t help but cringe. But I digress.

I used to love the SciFi channel back when they mostly aired science fiction, MST3K and late night anime. Then they started showing horror and fantasy, but I didn’t really mind it that much – especially since they had excellent original SF shows on Friday nights. Then they canceled Farscape, started airing wrestling and eventually re-branded themselves as SyFy to make it clear they no longer care about their original focus. I have not watched that network since BSG series finale – and I just don’t see a reason to change that. The way I see it, they are probably degenerated to the point where they are running all day marathons of “Ow! My Balls!” these days.

I am really sick and tired of this constant network decay. Every network I actually liked seems to be turning into be slowly morphing into a sensationalist, reality TV heaven. Major networks are shit. You can’t get reliable and unbiased news on TV anymore either. Now all the niche channels I loved are running garbage shows I don’t care about. TV is pretty much useless to me right now. The only places I can still find some ok content lately are the premium channels like HBO or Showtime that air newish movies sometimes manage to produce halfway decent series. That and a rare odd show on regular cable that actually is worth watching. Sadly most of those get canceled after few episodes, or jump the shark after the first season.

Are there any decent cable networks out there that are still watchable and air content that I would enjoy? It seems that every single channel these days is hell bent on replacing all their content with reality shows. What do you watch on TV these days?

The sad part is that nearly all the good shows out there either get canceled way to soon, or jump the shark. That is the problem with the American TV industry – no one fucking knows when to end a show anymore. If the ratings are good, the networks want to stretch the story ad infinitum. When the ratings start falling, they usually drop the show without even giving it chance to wrap up the lose ends. It is a terrible, terrible setup.

The opening sequence of this show is excellent - comparable to the great Dexter opening sequence in originality and execution

The length of an average season for most US based shows is anywhere between 22 or 26 episodes. In most cases this is more than enough time to tell a compelling story. Just look at Heroes which opened up with an incredibly well written, and well executed first season that told a complete story from the beginning to the end. In fact, it wrapped up everything so well that there was no story left for it’s second season which ended up being so dull and uninteresting I lost my interest in the show. We should really start producing dramatic shows the way we make movies – sign a contract for X episodes, tell a complete story and then end it. This whole “pay for episodes as we go, until people start hating it” thing just does not work that well.

But I digress. I recently picked up one of those excellent, but prematurely canceled gems of TV magic called Carnivale. To tell you the truth, I picked it out based on strong reviews of pretty much everyone on the interwebs. It came highly recommended, and I went in with very high expectations only to be blown away. This does not happen very often kids. When I expect something to be awesome, I usually end up being very disappointed. Carnivale exceeded my expectations.

Samson - the manager of the Carnivale show!

What sets this show apart from most of the other stuff you will see on TV is the unique setting. It follows around a traveling carnival troupe during the great depression and dust bowl years. You don’t see many shows set in that period – especially ones that deal with a wandering circus. The look and feel of the show is unique. The dry, dirty and dusty plains are juxtaposed against the colorful (but faded) carnival tents and banner. Raggedy clothes of common roustabouts and guests are contrasted with the rich and often extravagant costumes of the performers. Gusts of wind carrying dust and debris are constant companion of the travelers – often whipping around the banners and capes for dramatic effect.

Unsurprisingly (considering the theme) the characters are a colorful mix of circus freaks (bearded lady, a snake charmer, fortune teller, conjoined twins, a midget) and regular carny folk. Very strong and unique character concepts are complemented by excellent casting choices. For example, Michael J. Anderson role as Samson – the small sized carnival impresario became so iconic it actually ended up in World of Warcraft (I posted about this before):

Remember this from my WoW review?

The relationships and personal goals of these characters is the driving force that pushes the plot along. They are all a rag-tag group of outcasts with dark past and many skeletons in their closets. Some are fugitives hiding from the law finding refuge among the carny folk. Others have been carny’s for so long they already forgot how to do anything else. They become friends, fight, fall in love, betray each other. All under the watchful eye of the secretive “management” who never leaves his trailer. This mysterious and sinister character is a puppeteer that pulls the strings from behind the scenes according to some unknown agenda. That agenda has something to do with Ben Hawkings – a young man with strange healing powers, who is plagued terrifying nightmares. These dreams link his destiny to another character – a conflicted preacher gifted with a similar set of powers, and even darker past.

Ben's nightmares are a bit unsettling - especially sinced they tend to come true

Carnivale is seeped in mysticism, and has a deep underlying fictional mythology with sinister prophecies and supernatural powers. These elements are always present, but portrayed very subtly. The show is mainly about people who sometimes find themselves at a crossroads where real and supernatural forces meet and pass through each other.

Clea DuVall has this girl next door thing going on here. Cute without even trying.

It’s an excellent, excellent show and it kills me that it only lasted for two seasons and got canceled without having a chance to wrap up the story. I highly recommend it.

Quick request – please do not post any Season 2 spoilers in the comments. I am about half way through it, and I don’t want to be spoiled.