Harry's Law: Revisited

"Television, at its heart, is all about the story. And that's what I love. "

This pretentious self-quotation headlines my blog. It can be seen on every post, and in every link I make to the site on Facebook, Twitter, or elsewhere. There's a reason I put the quote in a place of such high regard on this collection of thoughts. I give a lot of thought to stories. Trying to analyze what makes one good or bad, what makes one more interesting than another, where their power comes from and what kinds of messages they're being used to send.

Another matter I have considered quite a bit is what goes into a story, and realized that there are two key elements. These are what get criticized or praised depending on the quality of the tale. Good stories have both, bad stories have neither, and the mediocre have one or the other, sometimes in alteration.

The first is content. The second is method. The story told and the storytelling.

Harry's Law airs Wednesdays at 9:00pm Ea

As I mentioned a few weeks ago, I have not been watching NBC's Harry's Law this season because of Hulu's ridiculousness. Well I have recently caught up on season 2 and am shocked at the dramatic change in the series this season. Both the content and the storytelling have dramatically shifted, and I have yet to determine if it's for the better or worse.

The show is still a law procedural, but the shoe store is more or less gone, as is Harry's central position as a lawyer for the poor and disenfranchised in the middle of inner city Cincinnati. Now she's just a lawyer handling tough cases that bring up questions of morality and social responsibility. Sound like any other law shows you can think of? How about all of them?

Wait... Harriet's law firm is associated with a shoe store?

The characters are different too. Of the original four main characters, only two remain. Malcolm is already gone and Brittany Snow's Jenna leaves by the end of episode four. Nate Corddry's character, Adam (which was the entire reason I kept watching this show in the first place) seems like an afterthought. So much so that his own character notes it in episode four, claiming he has been marginalized this season, appearing in the first few episodes only as a part time player. Insane Tommy Jefferson is back with a vengeance and last season's guest stars pop in and out, but there are also two new full time characters, Cassie and Ollie, who have been thrown into the show with almost laughably minimal backstory or explanation.

Basically overnight, the full time cast went from this:

  To this:

You may also have noticed a difference in the style of the cast photos above. It's because the style of the show has also shifted, towards the dramatic. Long camera shots linger on people's faces to show the "dramatic tension" at almost every beat in the narrative. The dialogue makes a wild stab at an attempt towards "natural speech," by having characters repeat every other line of their conversations, but it doesn't seem to serve any purpose, both because it doesn't feel natural at all, and because the rest of the show is so contrived that these moments seem out of place.

The once episodic show, with more or less standalone episodes, now airs in pairs or trios of episodic plot arcs, meaning if you miss one, you're not going to understand any of them without watching the almost two minute long "previously on" at the top of each episode. The light-hearted nature of the show, which originally led me to believe it was a parody, is completely gone, but the show still seems to be trying to maintain its "sense of humor" by having sweet old lady Kathy Bates constantly saying things that are as caustic and rough as possible, or by forcing absurdly characterized moments with Tommy.

Change is a natural part of television. As I've mentioned before, one of the greatest challenges it poses as a storytelling medium is its length which can be indefinite and expansive. I'm used to seeing good shows change tones or plot lines between seasons. Fringe would be a perfect example. In and of itself, change doesn't bother me. What does bother me is when I can't figure out why it's happening. What was wrong with Harry's Law in season 1 that David E. Kelley felt needed to be changed? And if it was wrong in the first place, why didn't NBC just cancel the show like so many of it's other failed one-season-wonders last year? More importantly than why, though, is the question of "Where?".

What direction are these changes trying to take the show, because right now it just seems disjointed and unsure of itself. Does anyone else have any idea what the show is trying to accomplish by making such sweeping and drastic changes?

Does anyone else actually watch this show too?

I enjoyed this, thought I'd share

http://boobtubedude.com/index.php/2011/10/20/theories/funny-business-critical-analysis-of-television-comedies-part-1/

Geekdom

It has been said that we are in the midst of a "new" age: The Age of the Geek. Shows like Big Bang Theory and Chuck, which idolize the nerd and make him a hero for the everyman, are common place. Now stories like Game of Thrones, which formerly were known only on the fringes of society are becoming mainstream. As we reach the apex of this age, all different forms of geekdom are colliding with each other, competing for their place on the fleeting throne of popularity. And in the game of thrones, you win or you die.

Today I finally watched last week's Big Bang Theory, which opened with Sheldon and Leonard debating whether or not to purchase a sword from the Game of Thrones. Among the arguments for not getting the sword were that it wasn't a great enough sword to start a collection with, when compared to something from "Lord of the Rings" or to Arthur's sword of legend, Excalibur. Immediately after the boys purchase the replica of the lesser mythological blade once wielded by bastard Jon Snow, Wil Wheaton, who played Ensign Wesley Crusher on Star Trek: The Next Generation, enters the comic book shop and completes the geeky picture. It's a mash up moment of sci-fi and fantasy that creates a nerd's paradise. It's a moment the Big Bang Theory has managed to perfect.

This super geek moment came right on the heels of a marathon viewing my roommate and I had just finished during which we'd re-watched all of the "Lord of the Rings" movies, and the moment in the comic book shop rang particularly true for me. So I was inspired by the movies, the show, and the age of the geek to quote for you some of my favorite speeches. I call this small collection the Epics of Geekdom.

Enjoy.

"Don't play games with me. You just killed someone I like. That is not a safe place to stand. I'm the Doctor and you're in the biggest library in the universe. Look me up." - The Tenth Doctor (Doctor Who) 

"Men of Gondor! Of Rohan! My brothers! I see in your eyes the same fear that would take the heart of me. A day may come when the courage of men fails. When we forsake our friends and break all bonds of fellowship. But it is not this day. An hour of woe and shattered shields when the age of men comes crashing down. But it is not this day. This day we fight. By all that you hold dear on this good earth. I bid you stand! Men of the West!" - Aragorn ('Lord of the Rings: Return of the King)

"Well then, what shall we die for? You will listen to me. Listen! The brethren will still be looking to us, to the Black Pearl to lead, and what will they see? Frightened bilge rats aboard a derelict ship? No. They will see free men, and freedom. And what the enemy will see is the flash of our cannons. They will hear the ring of our swords and they will know what we can do! By the sweat of our brows and the strength of our backs and the courage of our hearts. Gentlemen, hoist the colors." - Elizabeth Swan ('Pirates of the Carribean: At World's End')

"Hello Stonehenge! Who takes the Pandorica takes the universe. But bad news everyone, 'cause guess who. You lot, you're all whizzing about. It's really very distracting. Could you all just stay still a minute because I! AM! TALKING! Now question of the hour is who's got the Pandorica. Answer: I do. Next question: Who's coming to take it from me? ... Come on! Look at me. No plan. No back up. No weapons worth a damn. Oh, and something else I don't have. Anything. To. Lose. So, if you're sitting up there in your silly little spaceship with all your silly little guns and you've got any plans on taking the Pandorica tonight, just remember who's standing in your way. Remember every black day I ever stopped you. And then. AND THEN! Do the smart thing. Let somebody else try first." - The Eleventh Doctor (Doctor Who)

"By rights we shouldn't even be here... but we are. It's like in the great stories, Mr. Frodo. The ones that really mattered. Full of darkness and danger they were. Sometimes you didn't want to know the end, because how could the end be happy? How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad had happened? But in the end, it's only a passing thing, this shadow. Even darkness must pass. A new day will come, and when the sun shines it'll shine out the clearer. Those are the stories that stayed with you. That meant something. Even if you were too small to understand why. But I think, Mr. Frodo, I do understand. I know now. The folk in those stories, they had lots of chances of turning back, only they didn't. They kept going. Because they were holding onto something.... That there's some good in this world, Mr. Frodo, and it's worth fighting for." - Samwise Gamgee ("Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers")

Didn't see your Epic? See if it's featured here in this video.

Want to share your favorite geeky epic movie speech? Post a comment below!

Confession

I have a confession to make. Up until just recently, I have been hiding something from my friends and readers. I had a habit I've been rather ashamed of. As I imagine a drug addiction would feel, I found both enjoyment and shame in my habit. You see, I'd been watching certain videos, late at night in my darkened living room, after my roommate had gone to sleep...

No! Not that kind! Get your minds out of the gutter. I'm talking about ABC's new drama, Revenge.

And no, that's not a typo in the network name. The show, at first glance, looks like it belongs on ABC Family, Disney's soapy, cable network bastard child, or the CW, both known for shows about pretty people with the pettiest of problems. They are the tabloids of television shows. A complete lack of substance is made up for with flash and gossipy stories. For the most part, I find myself too much of a television snob to appreciate these kinds of shows, and so I shun them, as do many of the more serious professional television critics. So I almost didn't watch Revenge when its pilot aired this fall, because I felt like it was another CW creation, despite its broadcast network sire. The reason I didn't though, was a commitment I made to myself during premiere week last fall. I decided then that I would watch every new pilot on the four major broadcast networks, and decide for myself which shows I would continue to follow. And so I watched the pilot of Revenge.

I was instantly sucked in. Despite my arrogant claims of superiority, I succumb to a good bit of gossip as readily as any other human being, and this show felt like the best kind. It had love and lust, murder and betrayal, secrets on top of secrets, and a beautiful leading lady. At least if I was going to fall victim to a soapy show, I had picked one that was going to go all out. And so, reluctantly, I gave into myself and put on the second episode. By the end of episode two, I was still cringing as I watched, cursing myself for so deeply enjoying what I still believed to be a travesty of a television show.

The lead actress, while gorgeous, seemed talent-less, playing every scene she was in without emotion, her eyes completely dead of any connection to life, let alone to those around her. Both episodes had ended with flashback reveals to what I could only assume were supposed to be secret "surprise twist" moments in the episodes' plots, but were so integrally crucial to the basic concept of the show - that Amanda  was manipulating the lives of the Hamptonites to ruin them - that their absence seemed like a forgetful omission that I then glossed over. I assumed that somehow Amanda had caused Conrad Greyson's faux heart attack, and that it was an element of the plot that the writers just hadn't bothered to flush out. The entire take down was so well tied together that the end of episode reveal, that she had slipped in as a maid and drugged his soup, couldn't possibly have been a surprise to anyone.

And there were plenty of other little details that didn't seem right with the show, but for some reason, like the worst of highway side collisions, I found I just couldn't look away. Worse though, was that I was smiling as I watched. I couldn't figure out what it was about the show that kept me so enthralled, and so I assumed it was my baser mind coming to the fore, and overcoming my education and refined viewing palette. A possibility I had not considered was that my subconscious mind had recognized something that my conscious mind could not fathom. That this show had quite a bit of potential.

But when I put on the third episode, it started to dawn on me. Maybe this actress wasn't so terrible after all. It's possible that her dead, lifeless eyes are a character choice. After all, Amanda Clarke is dead inside. Psychotically so. It makes sense that this girl, while smiling, or looking embarrassed, or crying over her dead father, would never let the emotion touch her eyes, because all emotion is put on, and for show. The Hamptonites, so focused on appearances, don't notice what's lying in wait beneath the surface of Emily Thorne, but we do. It's actually the central point of the show, that the viewers can see what the people in the world can not, the inner workings of Amanda Clarke's mind. Maybe we're not just seeing it in her duplicitous actions and manipulative schemes. Maybe we're seeing it in her eyes.

As the third episode drew to a close, I noticed something else: a conspicuous lack of the poorly executed Leverage-esque end of episode reveal. This time, it seemed, the audience had been allowed to see all of Amanda's tactics in the order that they happened without the pitiful attempt at trickery displayed in the last two episodes. Thinking back, I realized that there had been a marked rise in the continuity of the plot in this episode as well. Whether or not it was simply because there didn't seem to be a chunk missing from the middle, I can't say for certain, but that's my opinion.

Apparently the head writer on Revenge, a man named Mike Kelley, recognized the problems with the show's format and made the appropriate changes. Kudos to Mr. Kelley, for doing what so few executive producers are willing to do with their shows. Change them.

After watching the fourth episode with my new, more positive outlook, I am becoming fully addicted, and loving it. I am no longer ashamed to like the show because, despite it's soapier surface tendencies, there is a high quality foundation at its base.

Now it seems that new rules have been established. Before now, Emily's take downs had been limited to people in the company picture in her locked chest. Now, apparently, anyone from Amanda's past associated with the dissolution of her childhood, whether directly involved in framing her father or not, are fair game. The playing field for Amanda's revenge has broadened, and the story is expanding with it. I'm curious to see if she ever makes a mistake, and takes down someone innocent of wrongdoing. Heck, I'm just curious to see what happens at all.

I had been worried that the show would have trouble reaching past its first season, both because of the limited number of people available to be taken down, and because of the already established ending which was provided for us in the opening minutes of the pilot episode. Now I'm content to just sit back and enjoy the ride, knowing that the story can sustain itself as long as the show can sustain its viewership.

Speaking of ... Speaking of

Brought to you, courtesy of Dan Harmon, the showrunner of NBC's Community

Heart

Television this week has been strong in the soul department. I just finished watching yesterday's Raising Hope, which found Burt offering Virginia the idealized Vegas wedding she'd dreamed of since she was a child. Meanwhile, Jimmy brought Sabrina along for the ride, hoping for a little "happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas" type hanky panky. Instead, he spent the entire episode trying to help his father raise money for the perfect second wedding. Even at the end of the episode, he gives Sabrina her "wild" moment with a slow dance on the roof. It was truly adorable, and it was exactly the kind of heart melting comedy that Raising Hope has somehow managed to perfect.

At the core of the show is the Chance family, one of the most loyal, loving families on modern television. As Jimmy says to Sabrina in the episode, "you've only ever seen dad Jimmy. You've never seen sex in the back of the van with a serial killer Jimmy." But we, the viewers, have. What Raising Hope does weekly is give us a heartwarming story of love and fellowship, while subverting our expectations for comedic value. True, the show is a class comedy, and has its occasional poorly written (but never poorly executed) one liners about how hilarious uneducated people are, but nine times out of ten, the reason you laugh is because the unexpected, but never absurd, just surprised a laugh from your gut. Classic sitcom plot says the protagonist (Jimmy) takes his love interest (Sabrina) to a place of debauchery (Vegas) with the end goal being some sexy fun. In the end, he realizes he's a good guy and doesn't go through with it. You've seen it on Friends and How I Met Your Mother, and Chuck, just to name a few off the top of my head. It's the 'Superbad' plot, in a nutshell. Essentially, that's what happened in this episode, but it never felt like a cliche sitcom staple. It felt like a new story, because the episode wasn't about Jimmy. It was about Virginia, as so many of the best Raising Hope episodes are. I laughed so hard when Virginia showed up in spray-tanned black-face, despite the best efforts of my middle class white guilt and even harder when Burt actively commented on its all too predictable disappearance. Then I almost cried during the end-of-episode voice over (during a VOICE OVER!) as Burt and Virginia danced in the corner of the ballroom. The best episodes of television should make us do both, and sometimes I think we forget, and settle for a couple of half-hearted laughs, or a bit of suspense.

Speaking of suspense, I followed up my Raising Hope viewing by finally catching up on Castle, and this week's episode was a doozey. Castle is doing its damnedest to debunk my three season rule. The episode was great for Seamus Dever, who plays the less ethnic half of Beckett's team, Ryan. Once again, the episode started with some bad Castle puns about "concrete evidence" that reminded us of the show's goofy side, and then quickly took a spin for the dramatic when Ryan's stolen pistol turns out to be the murder weapon. The turn was so dramatic, that the show even attempted a subtly different title sequence. I don't know about the opinions of the rest of you, but I think that this might have been my favorite episode of Castle in the entire run of the series thus far. Certainly the strongest of the season, overthrowing my much praised former favorite, the season premiere.

It's been a good week for TV.

You know, if you ignore NBC.



That's not fair, I haven't watched Community yet. NBC might have an ace up its sleeve this week.

Or so my exploding Twitter feed would have me believe.

Lord of the Rings and Epic Storytelling

Recently, I have taken to rewatching Peter Jackson's 'Lord of the Rings.' I'm on the second of the trilogy, and it actually makes me think of television.

I will defend television as the strongest visual medium of continuous storytelling, but film is the medium of the epic. And I don't mean that in the modern, "that was epic, dude," sense. I mean it in its historic context, that of a long poetic composition. I still get chills watching moments of 'Lord of the Rings,' like the elves arrival, link the moment of Gandalf's return, like the moment Treebeard declares, "The Ents are going to war. It is likely that we go to our doom. The last march of the Ents." These chilling moments are ones I never experience while watching Game of Thrones on HBO.

I attribute the difference in experience to two factors. The first is soundtrack. There is something grandiose about the scores to major motion pictures that the scores of television shows just can't hope to mimic. The second is a difference in scale. Over the course of ten episodes, Game of Thrones amounted to over 400 minutes, almost 7 hours, of air time, yet no single episode had more than 45 minutes to develop and build emotions. Then we were forced to wait a week to watch it again, and start the process over. If you've ever stood on the beach watching the waves build in the distance, only to have them reach the shore with little more force than the ebb and flow of the tide, then you have experienced the emotional arc of epic told in a television show. The emotions rise and build, but never quite have enough time to crest. I would be curious, now that all of Game of Thrones season one has aired, to watch them back to back, like a film, to see if it had any effect. Even without the weekly pause though, I feel like the broken structure of the individual episodes would still be a hindrance. 

As a side note: Talk about moving down in the world. Currently, I am watching the men of Rohan prepare Helm's Deep for the final stand against Saruman's Uruk Hai whilst Merry and Pippin beseech the Ents to join the wars of men. As I watched, I just realized that the actor playing Haldir, the elf captain who brings his archers to the aide of men, later played Darken Rahl in the independent show, Legend of the Seeker, which barely managed to eek out a hilarious two seasons before even its cult fanbase abandoned it as too ridiculous. It was one of my guilty pleasure shows in college, and I used to stay up late on Monday nights with a good friend of mine to watch it on the big screen television in my dorm lounge. I miss those nights sometimes. 

Time

I've come to realize lately that work keeps me from watching the television I'd like to. I was in the office until nine tonight, which meant that I missed both How I Met Your Mother, and Terra Nova out of hand. However, I was excited to get to see Castle when I got home.

Unfortunately, when I made it to my apartment, my roommate was watching a movie, which he had only just started. It was called 'Son of Rambow' and it was an adorable British film about two young boys and their adventures in film making and friendship. It reminded me of some of the films I saw when I took a film class in London, and made me remember how much I love British movies. I'll need to start trying to find some more of them in the near future. Maybe at the library?

Anyway, now it is 11:30pm, and instead of watching Terra Nova, How I Met Your Mother or Castle on the DVR, I am instead going to bed because I have to be at work at 9am tomorrow.

I'm not complaining. I absolutely love my job.

I just wish I had more time to watch TV. I haven't done a review of anything in a really long time. It's because I haven't had time to really analyze and enjoy any of the television episodes I do have time to watch, and instead, I've just been passively watching episodes of Lie to Me as I cook dinner, or spending thirty minutes before bed watching 2 Broke Girls then immediately passing out.

This must be how normal people watch TV.

Not a fan.

Scripted Life

Why can't real life be like television? Amusing problems arise every day, but resolve themselves by the end of a reasonably small amount of time. Strong, unbreakable friendships are formed between people that last indefinite amounts of time and withstand all tests and trials. You are forced out of your comfort zone in some sort of humorous way that allows you to grow and learn. The person you're meant to fall in love with is already within your immediate circle of acquaintances, and you know that even though it won't necessarily work out right away, it will work out eventually. Good triumphs over evil. Crimes never go unsolved. Doctors can diagnose and heal almost every ailment. 

It's a fantasy, I know this. But I still can't help but wish. I would love a scripted life. I imagine this is how every television critic feels, but maybe I'm alone in abnormality.

Of course if my life was scripted, I'd probably hate it.

'Cuz then my life would be Reality TV. 

Trickery

In addition to my many other ways of categorizing shows I like to watch, I also have what I call the "queuing" method. Some shows are Live. These are shows I watch as they air, on my television screen. Other shows are Hulu queue. These tend to be NBC and ABC shows. Ones that end up on Hulu within a day or two of when they air on television. Still other shows are DVR queue. These tend to be Fox and CBS shows. Ones that I don't need to watch live, but don't really want to wait the 8 days to see them on Hulu or the network website. And then there's Netflix queue. This tends to be reserved for shows that are no longer on the air. Shows I've heard tell of but, for whatever reason, didn't catch when they were on the air. 

It's a fairly simple system, and it keeps me from having to keep track of each of the dozens of shows I watch regularly. I check every queue at least once per day, and sometimes far more often, to see what new shows have popped in for my viewing pleasure, and to watch the ones that strike my fancy. Sometimes though, I am tricked by my Hulu queue, when I suddenly realize that a show I have favorited on Hulu isn't showing up in my queue. It's even more annoying when the show used to queue up without issue.

This is exactly what has happened with Harry's Law, an NBC drama (or parody if you follow my blog. See previous posts "New Show Review: Harry's Law" and "Update: Harry's Law"). It's a show I mainly watch to see Nate Corddry, an actor who I admire from Studio 60 that also happens to play a main role on the law procedural. Apparently, Hulu does not have the rights to make Harry's Law available for viewing at this time, and so it has stopped loading the videos in my queue. So now I'm fully three episodes behind on the series and I have no way of legally watching them, since I didn't know to set my DVR to queue them up for me instead. Now I'm not sure if I should bother. 

Once again it seems Hulu's contract negotiations have cost a major broadcast network to lose viewer for one of their shows. Even worse, it was already a show in a bit of trouble with viewership, and I'm sure I'm not the only one affected by this Hulu trickery. Sorry NBC.

On an unrelated note, it was a personal challenge to myself to see how many times I could use the word "queue" in one post. 

Answer: 11

Gossip

I apologize in advance. This post will have nothing to do with TV, but it's my blog, and "I do what I want," which I'm pretty sure is a South Park reference. So now it has to do with TV, at least in a peripheral way. So there.

I'd like to talk for a moment about Amanda Knox and her return to the city I too call home, Seattle. Whether or not you believe the girl to be innocent, we can all agree on one thing: The girl has been through an ordeal. She returned home today after spending four years in an Italian prison for a crime she has been acquitted of. After rushing out of Italy fleeing further persecution, she returned home and quite surprisingly spoke before the press.

At this press conference she expressed her gratitude for the support of nations, exhaustion from her experience, and relief that it is more or less over. Personally, I was impressed that she spoke at all, but as a part of the press conference, she and her family expressed a desire to rest and share some private time as a reunited whole.

In the 50 minute drive home, I was listening to the news, and for a solid thirty minutes I listened to a reporter on site in West Seattle at the house of Amanda's father, where the family was gathering to celebrate her return. The reporter asked any and every person present not a member of the press that she could get to a few questions. Without fail, everyone had the same response: We, and Amanda, are grateful, exhausted and relieved. The reporter would then ask one final question: Where is Amanda now? And without fail, the person being interviewed would chuckle and refuse to say. I am sure that if they had figured out where Amanda was hiding out, and asked her the same questions, her answers all would have been the same... again. Thirty minutes I listened to this nonsense, getting steadily angrier, before remembering that the radio in my car had a tuner dial, and I changed the station.

I was not mad at the family, or mad about their responses, I was mad at the so called reporters, who have deemed the harassment of a beleaguered family to be journalism.Whether or not Amanda is innocent, the family is, and they don't deserve the media frenzy that has been thrust upon them. The reporters have not, and will not, learn anything new, anything newsworthy, by talking to the family. If this story truly belongs in the news, the source will be the Italian courts, the effect of the case upon diplomatic relations, the future of the Italian prosecutor and how they will be driven or influenced by this case. There are many ways to make this news, but none of them are being investigated. They are being left behind in favor of the easier, more sensational gossip.

It might seem odd that someone who calls himself a critic and obsessively reads the publications of entertainment journalists would cry foul at gossip. After all, the reputation of Hollywood reporters are red carpet fashionistas and celebrity sexcapades. But there is a difference between gossip mongers and entertainment journalists. A journalist seeks and searches, trying to be the first to share a piece of information. An entertainment journalist will tell you when a new show is premiering, or if a certain show runner has started a new project. They give you news within the entertainment framework. A gossip pesters and prods, also trying to be the first upon a piece of information, but  to know it, for the sake of self satisfaction, not to share it, or enrich the world.

Granted, this is a fairly idealistic concept of the journalism profession, but I'm a fairly optimist person.

And I am sick to death of gossip.

Porn and Cryogenics

I just described the central plot points of this week's Castle....

Case and point.





Actually, the episode wasn't half bad. The twists were back up to standard Castle standards, marginally predictable but nothing you can't work with. The Alexis story line didn't feel outlandish and ridiculous, it felt like a real 17 year old perfectionist's kind of problem. The Castle/Beckett relationship had a couple little moments, like when they back-and-forthed their theory build over Laney's dead body. Plus, the whole situation with body freezing and beheading the corpse provided enough situational comedy to feel like an average Castle episode, even though we didn't get nearly enough crazy Castle theories.

All in all, a solid, standard episode of a solid, standard show, despite this blog post title.

Explanation vs Justification

Last night's Doctor Who finale was pretty solid. That's my review, in a nut shell. Instead of talking about the episode itself and what it set up for the future of Matt Smith's tenure as the Doctor, let's examine what it explained and justified, or didn't,  in past episodes.

Looking back at 'Let's Kill Hitler', Doctor Who's midseason premiere, it was a terrible episode. The titular character, Hitler, spent all of four minutes on screen, and was in no way critical to the plot of the episode. Basically they used Hitler as a draw to get the audience to tune in for the premiere, but then didn't know what to do with him in the actual episode. They arbitrarily introduced a new character, Mel, who supposedly had been a part of Rory and Amy's life since the beginning. So much so, that Amy names her daughter after this supposed bestie. All just so the writers could throw in a "surprise" of Amy and Rory's best friend actually being their half Time Lord daughter. Then, for no explicable reason, except perhaps to make the episode a "stand alone" in the Doctor Who canon, the writers introduced the Justice League, or whatever they were called. Humans miniaturized and travelling about in a robotic full sized humanoid righting the wrongs of time and space. Essentially a Doctor clone. To give them their own story, they gave us antibodies, which apparently kill intruders, but why the Justice League would bother creating them in the first place never really gets explained. All in all, the whole episode felt like a mash up of different plots and ideas that the writers had had for this season, but just never got time to get around to.

At least that's what I thought through most of the back half of the season. Until the finale last night.

Last night's finale explained the reason for Mel. For as long as we have known River, her timeline has run opposite the Doctor's, but since 'Let's Kill Hitler' it seems that their timelines have synced, or at least are running in the same direction now. This is important to explain away River's capture, then breeding to be a psycopathic killer, then apparent memory loss, then sudden love of the Doctor, all before we get to the end point where everything depends on River being madly in love with our favorite alien. This, in no way, was the best way to handle this. Just off the top of my head, I would suggest River's timeline continues running opposite the Doctor's, then the River we have all known, who loves the Doctor, could justify the disintegration of time without the complicated unneccesary Mel plot. The only downside to that plan is that we'd have to go through the entire back half of the season wondering what happened to little Melody Pond.... but it's not like we've never waited for an explanation in this series before.

The finale also explained the little robot wielding men. Basically they provide an alternate body for the Doctor to be in at the time of his "death." Explanation. But it doesn't justify the Justice League (or whatever they're called)'s existence. The writers had already given themselves an out for the Doctor's death by creating the Flesh Doctor in the first half of the season. Why, oh why, do we need THREE Doctor's running around in the universe? We don't, even if one of them has to die.

Basically, the flaws of 'Let's Kill Hitler' can all be explained by Stephen Moffat's need to get a lot of plot points that didn't really fit in anywhere in the later episodes into the canon before the finale to justify the overly complicated finale plot that we got to see. As any designer will tell you though, at a certain point, fancy and complicated does not always equal better. At some point, there's an elegance in simplicity, and too much complication just makes things feel cluttered.

Here's the thing though, Doctor Who has never been about the overarching seasonal plot, and it probably never should be. The different seasons do have their own plots: Bad Wolf, Torchwood, Doctor Donna, etc, but they're never the focus of the individual episodes. Typically speaking, each Doctor Who episode is a stand alone comedic piece of universal history for us to enjoy and then forget 90% of. Most of what makes the show such an enduring success is that it has never really tried to be more than a quirky niche sci fi comedy. If the writers want to branch out into serious dramatic television, then they're going to need some help. It's not a move I'd recommend in any case, but it seems to be the direction the show is trying to head.

And it scares me more than the Daleks and Cybermen combined.

Trust Me, I'm the Doctor

"Hello Stonehenge!"

"People assume that time is a straight progression of cause to effect, but actually from a non-linear non-subjective viewpoint it's more like a big ball of wibbly wobbly, timey wimey, stuff."

"I'm the Doctor and you're in the biggest library in the universe... look me up."

No seriously, look it up. If you're not one of the lucky few whose hearts I just warmed thinking about these great moments in cult television history, you should start watching Doctor Who. To those of you who rode that wave of feel-goodness right along with me, we need to be friends.

Doctor Who is a British sci fi show about a quirky alien who travels through all of time and space in a blue police box that's bigger on the inside. As he traverses the universe fighting monsters and saving civilizations he brings along a human companion that he can show off to. Companions come and go, as people do, but every once in a while, even the Doctor finds himself in an adventure too big even for his two hearts, and he gets himself killed. When that happens, he regenerates, fully healing himself and taking on a completely new body and personality in the process. The show is a cult hit that first came on the air in 1963 and went off again in 1989. A television movie was made in 1996, bringing the Doctor back to television for all of 89 minutes before going off the air again for almost another decade. In 2005, Doctor Who was revived, and brought back to the BBC. Since the revival, there have been three Doctors and four primary Companions. I think that's all the background you need, but if you don't watch the show, the entire revival is available on Netflix Instant, and I recommend checking the show out yourself, it's worth it, I promise.

On Companions
Several weeks ago, just before Doctor Who season 6.5 premiered on BBC America, I remember thinking to myself, 'You know self? Since the revival, no Doctor and Companion have ever shared more than a single season of television together.' It seemed odd to me that Matt Smith and Karen Gillan had spent so much time together travelling the Tardis, and I was starting to find too many things to complain about with Amy Pond. Now it seems that Amy and Rory's time with the Doctor is at an end, despite their underwhelmingly emotionless departure (which makes me believe she's not really done just yet), and while I'm sad to see the feisty red-head settle down to a quiet life at home, I'm pretty sure that I'm ready to move on. Maybe her departure seemed so emotionless because I know she'll be back for the Doctor's final moments.

I absolutely have loved Amy, as I love all the long term companions, but personally, I love the idea of the throwback Companion. Donna Noble was one, making her first appearance in an earlier David Tennant era Christmas special, as was her Grandfather, Wilfred Mott. Now we got to see Craig, the chubby footballer with the alien upstairs neighbor, get a chance to play with his good buddy the Doctor again. I'd much rather spend a full season getting to know a character, rather than trying to cram all of their development into a few short episodes, but I'm content to wait for companion number five if they keep giving me little throwback teasers like Craig. Also on my list for possible throwback companions would be the "beautiful girl" Sally Sparrow, or the bus flying Lady Christina, or the Doctor's own Daughter, Jenny.

On Matt Smith
With the Doctor's "final" death imminent in the Season 6 finale tonight, I find myself wondering if they're building towards a Doctor regeneration as well. After all, River Song, half time lord, was shot during HER regeneration, and it only made her stronger. Why couldn't the same theory be applied to a full time lord? I'm not the only person thinking this, of course, and the internet is alive with rumors and predictions on when and who the 12th Doctor will be when he steps into the game. (If you look beyond the story though, it seems Matt Smith has been signed on for another 14 episodes, so he's not officially going anywhere anytime soon. Karen and Arthur are both signed on for guest appearances also, so their time with the Doctor is not completely at an end either.)

Like I am content to wait for the story to naturally bring me a new companion, though, I'm also content to wait for a new Doctor. I've loved Matt Smith, every bit as much as I loved David Tennant, and I will be so sad to see him go. That said, the Doctor regenerates, it's a part of the story, and it's silly to get so attached to a particular Doctor that you get angry when his time playing with the humans comes to an end.

On Running
If I had one complaint about this season of Doctor Who it would be the conspicuous lack of running. Almost every episode in season one, Christopher Eccleston would take Billie Piper by the hand and they would go running down some street or corridor. Since 'The Impossible Astronaut,' it just seems like the Doctor doesn't run as much as he used to. His companions are still running like crazy though. Lately the Doctor and his companions have felt separate, like two different sub plots in each episode. Amy and Rory do one thing, the Doctor does another. For a perfect example, look to the season 6 episode 'Night Terrors.' Get the Doctor to run again, and I'll have very little to complain about.

"I'm the Doctor. Basically, run."