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Tuesday, June 14, 2011

A Return to Glory

*Note* As Always: Spoilers Abound! You have been warned.

Since I plan to spend most of this entry raving about the season opener of White Collar, I feel like I should make a confession in honor of the attempt towards neutrality that I proclaimed in my last post. I was dreading the season three opener that aired this week. Now don't get me wrong, there was no single episode of television I have more anxiously anticipated than this premiere, but I was so upset by the fact that Peter and Neal were going to be at odds again after what I had considered two long seasons of trust building exercises for televisions greatest bromance. So much of what makes White Collar great is the steady, if not always smooth, relationship between our suave conman and stoic agent. After watching the episode, though, my fears have been proven groundless. Although to be fair, they weren't proven groundless until the very end of the episode, and it would probably be better to start at the beginning anyway.

Let's begin where every great episode of series based television begins: with the "previously on..." It's the blessing and the curse of serial television. It is a tacky device that always feels cheap and out of place in a well written series, but it is a necessary construct that allows a show so heavily based on a continuing story line evolving out of past developments to draw in a new audience who may be unfamiliar with the canon. In addition to its necessity, it serves as a quick and easy way for writer's to focus viewer attention on specific past events that will be important to the upcoming episode. For example, the "previously on..." for this episode didn't tell us anything about, say, Neal's arch-rival Keller, only a little bit about Vincent Adler, and a whole lot about the Nazi treasure trove. This makes sense, as the episode centered on the stolen U-Boat treasure, and a peripheral awareness of Vincent Adler is required to understand why Neal and Peter are involved at all in the first place, but as Keller plays no part in anything happening in the episode, his back story with Neal and Peter is irrelevant and ignored. I realize that I'm probably making a great effort to explain what seems like a basic principle of television that even a middle schooler (and maybe even a well educated elementary schooler) inherently understands. 

The rules of the "previously on..." are so well established that it stood out enormously upon my second viewing when the writers betrayed this very basic principle of the convention. Which brings me to my first criticism of the episode. Why, in the pre-episode tool used to focus us on important information to the episode, was Neal's new relationship with Sarah so heavily referenced? Sarah's screen time in the episode amounted to less than June's daughter, a character we haven't seen since the pilot. Now I love Sarah's character and her (bound to be) short-lived relationship with Caffrey, but she was completely irrelevant to the episode. Her one scene with Neal seemed tacked on merely as a way to include the newly promoted series regular in the episode. 

Since I'm already moving forward, we'll talk about the actual episode itself, starting with the too-clever-by-half opening mislead. It's a mislead that everyone who has any knowledge of the show and its characters instantly knows is a mislead and anyone who doesn't know it doesn't care enough to be invested. How do we know that it's a mislead? Because the premiere has to end with Neal and Peter (at least on face value) still on the same side. If they aren't, then the whole premise of the show changes at the outset of Season 3, and that's a risk that no showrunner is willing to take, especially with a show that's had as much success as White Collar. Plus, even if you didn't think quite so meta-critically, you might have noticed how carefully crafted the shots are in the opening to not reveal anything other than what you're supposed to be seeing. Like I said, the opening mislead is too clever for its own good. It's too exciting and too controlled to be real. Nevertheless, I loved watching Mozzie in his Amelia Earhart get up(a joke I'm really glad that Peter got to make at the end of the episode) trying to escape from the fleet of black SUVs.

I've already mentioned my thoughts on Sarah's inclusion in the episode, so I'll let that part slide and skip forward to the premise of the episode. I'm not sure if it's Neal or the writers who have finally decided that enough is enough and put Kate to bed, but there was not a single mention of Caffrey's former love interest in the entire episode. While I'm sad that her true and final death means the writers did not explore their most interesting (if overly dramatic) option, I'm proud of them for sticking to their guns, at least for one whole episode, and laying her to rest. It seems like the new story through-arch will be more than enough to carry our romantic con-man because when you get right down to it, his true love is the thrill of the score, and the Nazi plunder is his biggest, best and final.... If he can get away with it.

Which brings us to the point that I was making at the beginning of this article. I am no longer dreading upcoming episodes of White Collar. Eastin has done a masterful job of reminding his audience that the distrust between our two heroes is nothing new. In Season 1 it was a natural distrust between respected former enemies turned partners. In Season 2 it was Neal's quest for closure that kept him from ever truly opening up to 'the suit.' Now in Season 3, the secret treasure trove slips seamlessly into that spot as the point of contention between two people who would likely be best friends were the circumstances a little different.

I'm ready to watch Caffrey circumvent Burke's supervision at every turn, content to know that it's the way things are done on White Collar, and that while things have changed just enough to keep them interesting, it's still the same ol' buddy cop dramedy I've come to know and love.

I'm excited to see if they can top it tonight. 

Tuesday, June 7, 2011

Welcome Back

Alright my avid readers, let's see if I have the mental capacity to work a full time job that requires me to regularly work 10 hour days, still watch three plus hours of television, and then spend another hour writing about it. It will be tough, but I think I'm up for the challenge. Plus, I feel like television has become my middle child. My brain has been pretty actively focused on my first born -theatre- and my new baby -paying bills- lately. I think it's about time that television got its fair shot again.

Tonight marks the second season premiere of one of my favorite summer shows, Covert Affairs about a pretty young CIA operative struggling to balance her personal life with her professional one. It sounds a little contrived, and that's because it is, but it's a feel good spy show with easy-on-the-eyes female talent, and I'm a sucker for those.

Tonight also marks the third season premiere of my favorite television currently on the air, beating out such gems as Community, Happy Endings, and Raising Hope. I am, of course, talking about Jeff Eastin's nearly brilliant brain child, White Collar. This season I am determined to not let my love of the show white wash my editorials. I'll try to be more critical of poor writing decisions than I have in the past, or at least justify myself when I wax poetical about how great the show is. Hopefully, the fact that I no longer have access to a cable package with USA on it will help to stem the flow of my enthusiasm since I will not be able to watch the episodes live. My theories will now be a day late and a dollar short, so maybe I won't fall in love with them so easily. On the other hand, I'm convinced that the theories I've written about in this blog, since proven wrong by plot developments, are actually better thought out and more adequately suited to the characters and their motives than the storylines actually explored by Jeff Eastin and the writers. Maybe that's just me being narcissistic.

Either way, television this summer should be pretty good. At the very least we can rest assured knowing that it will adequately tide us over until all our favorite comedies come back next fall.