Steven Rubio's Online Life

drumroll for my blogroll

Time.com has posted their “First Annual Blog Index”, what they consider the 25 best out there (along with the five most overrated blogs). While I often come across material from those 25 blogs via other links, I do not have any of them in my Google Reader RSS feed, so I guess I’m an outlier. So, using the Reader’s “Trends” function, here are some blogs/websites I actually do read:

• TV Squad (156 posts read over the past 30 days, 11% of the available posts): This is mostly for Maureen Ryan … I still call it “TV Squad” even though it has been taken over by HuffPost.
• Deadspin (135 posts, 20% of available): “Sports News Without Access, Favor, or Discretion”
• SB Nation Bay Area (130 read, 19% of available): Another sports site; “Pro Quality, Fan Perspective.”
• McCovey Chronicles (82 read, 62%): SF Giants site.
• A plain blog about politics (77 read, 82%): Smart political scientist blogging from a centrist Democratic perspective.
• Salon.com (67 read, 17%): I read Salon a lot more than this shows, because I visit the website multiple times each day, and those don’t show up in Reader.
• If Charlie Parker Was a Gunslinger There’d Be a Whole Lot of Copycats (64 read, 100%): You can tell how much I love this site by the 100% read figures. Everyone should have this in their feed reader.
• Baseball Prospectus (54, 18%): Like with Salon, I visit the BP site several times a day, so the % figures don’t reflect how much time I spend there.
• ESPN.com (48, 35%): This doesn’t count the ESPN baseball and soccer pages, which I visit a billion times a day.
• Feministing (44, 44%): A new-to-me blog that is already climbing my list of good reads; “Young Feminists Blogging, Organizing, Kicking Ass”.

I don’t actually know how Google Reader computes these things, so I’ll add two honorable mentions that turn up on a list titled “Clicked” … not sure what that means, but I read these whenever something is actually posted there, which is frequently in Alan’s case, not-so-frequently in Tim’s case:

• What’s Alan Watching: Alan Sepinwall on TV.
• Bastard Machine: Tim Goodman on TV.

In most cases, I recommend the above dozen sites if you are interested in the subject matter. I think “A plain blog” and “Feministing” are worth reading, even if you don’t think you’d agree with what you’d read … I find myself disagreeing with “A plain blog” on a regular basis, but I love reading it just the same. And one more time, I highly recommend “Gunslinger” … they don’t post every day, but every post is a delight, and it’s almost all photos, so you don’t have to worry about reading too much, if that’s your problem.

i don’t want to be maverick

I’ve always hated the movie Top Gun. It is true that it espouses a vision of American masculinity I could do without, and I have been accused of having negative feelings towards the movie because of my disagreement with the film’s values. But I think the key concept here is “espouses”. There is a difference between presenting a perspective, and espousing it. The preening that Top Gun indulges in isn’t offered with a critical eye; instead, it is given as a promotion of the ideas in the film. Top Gun is a commercial.

Too many people automatically assume that everything they see is espousing the perspective that is being offered. This has recently come up once again with the debut of Girls on HBO. Girls is a series about white, middle-class women in their early 20s, living in New York City. The auteur is Lena Dunham (she created the show, writes the show, stars in the show, and directs episodes of the show), who is herself a white, middle-class woman in her 20s. The semi-autobiographical nature of Girls leads some to criticize the show because they assume it espouses the perspective of the women who make up most of the cast. Why would they want to watch a show that promotes such a narrow, even despicable way of life?

But the characters in Girls are far from happy, they are not presented in a particularly positive light, and the main character (played by Dunham) is the recipient of the most barbed criticisms. She is self-absorbed and privileged. But this is not shown as a good thing. She is at her best when she steps outside of her self-absorption. Girls is not a commercial for the life style of its characters, the way Top Gun is a commercial for American ass-kicking via bad-mother flyboys. Girls walks a thin tightrope, to be sure, and it may turn out to be a commercial, but it’s not there yet.

I was talking with a couple of my siblings recently about Mad Men. A general complaint was that they saw no reason to watch a show about advertising executives from the sexist 60s. (I’m not sure either of them have actually seen the show, since they already know what it’s about.) If Mad Men were created by Tony Scott, it might work as a commercial in the Top Gun mode. But it’s not. Few, if any, of the characters on Mad Men are happy with their lives. None of the male characters are role models. Don Draper is a commitment-fearing philanderer with a big, existential secret … Roger Sterling has smoked and drank himself into numerous heart attacks … Pete Campbell flounders because he can’t meet the standards he thinks Don and Roger have set for him. And while they may not be aware of it, we in the audience know that they are entering a period in American life when their male privileges are being contested. In short, while something like Top Gun promotes the life it puts on the screen, Mad Men critiques the life and times of its characters.

There was a crucial scene in Mad Men a few weeks ago. A bunch of the ad execs take a potential client out on the town for booze and whores. At the brothel, Don sits at the bar, drinking, while the others get what they came for (Don is at present too enraptured with his new wife to join the men, and his opinion of whorehouses is affected by the fact that his mother was a prostitute). Afterwards, Pete and Don are alone in the back of a cab, and Pete drunkenly accuses Don of disapproving of Pete’s visit with the prostitute, finding Don to be a hypocrite, given his own history of philandering. Even Roger joined in the fun at the brothel. Don looks at Pete with surprise and notes, “Roger is miserable.”

I’m reminded of a point in our sibling conversation when my brother asked if the men on the show cheated on their wives, this being behavior he didn’t much approve of. I’m not disagreeing with him … I’ve been married to the same woman for almost 39 years myself. But his question missed the point. Yes, they cheat on their wives. And they are miserable. Mad Men isn’t a blueprint for cheating husbands, unless your idea of a good life is to feel miserable.

There are many reasons why we might decide to spend time with one television series over another. It may be on a topic that doesn’t interest you, it may be that you don’t have the time to devote an hour a week, it may be that you watched it once and thought it stunk. And it may be that the values the series espouses are ones you don’t like. But it is stupid to assume that just because a series (or movie, or book, or play, or song) presents a perspective you disagree with, it must be promoting the values of that point of view. Girls doesn’t make you want to be a 24-year-old middle-class white girl in NYC, The Godfather Part II doesn’t make you want to be Michael Corleone, and Mad Men doesn’t make you want to be Don Draper. You’re confusing these works of art with commercials like Top Gun, which exist solely to make you want to be like Tom Cruise.

girls: series premiere

I’m pretty sure that Lena Dunham was unknown to most of the world before her 2010 feature film, Tiny Furniture, was an award winner at SXSW. Dunham, only 24 at the time, showed more than just the moxie to get a film done for $50,000. Her film wasn’t typical of its kind; while it looked like an improvisational film made by friends for friends, it was scripted, and the photography in particular was almost always perfect. Her success led to a deal with HBO, resulting in Girls, the tale of four women in their 20s finding their way in New York City.

The pilot shared much of the attitude (and cast) of Tiny Furniture. Dunham is once again the star as well as the writer. While she has a strong feel for the environment of her characters, and while she approaches them with a certain fondness, she isn’t afraid to show them (or herself) at something less than their best. In this, Girls is a bit reminiscent of Portlandia, another show that loves the targets it skewers. Girls doesn’t really skewer … it is more gentle than Portlandia in that way. But the characters are self-absorbed enough that I can imagine some people watching ten minutes and deciding there were better things to do than to hang out with these folks.

Still, Dunham is up to something here, turning certain stereotypes on their heads. Alyssa Rosenberg gets to the point in her piece, “‘Girls’: Are We Actually Ready for Female Anti-Heroes?” Rosenberg argues that the typical male anti-heroes act like guys, only more so. When female anti-heroes enter the popular consciousness, it is generally by acting more “like guys” as well. But Dunham is dealing in anti-heroes who are like typical females, only more so:

Passivity, and dependence are all traits that we find humiliating, no matter the proportions they come in, while decisiveness, activity, and standing on principal are all traits we have positive associations with, and so we’re attracted to the people who exhibit them, even when they’re wildly misapplied. The former set of traits is coded as female, the latter as masculine. It’s one thing to respond to a female anti-heroine who is defined as such by her masculinized behavior, whether it’s Sarah Linden’s single-minded focus on her career and bad mothering in pursuit thereof, or Cersei Lannister’s impressive cruelty. Whether a mass audience is ready to embrace a female anti-hero whose anti-heroicness is defined by an overabundance of negatively-coded feminine traits is another question entirely.

Rosenberg loves Girls, and it is clear she would love for the masses to love Girls as well. But to the extent Girls doesn’t work for the masses, it may be due to the uncompromising way Dunham creates anti-heroes who are women, not pretend men. Rosenberg’s words also ring true to me, because I know I am attracted to the anti-heroine with masculinized behavior (I love bad-ass women), and it’s good to see another kind of female heroism, even anti-heroism, take hold.

For now, Lena Dunham seems to be on a career trajectory similar in some ways to Diablo Cody’s. But Dunham is nowhere near as self-consciously hip, which I’m betting means Girls will have less flash but more staying power than Cody’s work (although admittedly, United States of Tara did OK for itself over the course of three seasons).

Grade for pilot: B+.

how to write about television

There is a discussion taking place about the “correct” way to watch and write about series television. (This being the Internet in 2012, “taking place” might already need to be changed to “took place”.) A reductive statement of the parameters of the “write about” discussion is that some people write weekly recap reviews that focus on each episode as it arrives, while other people wait for season’s end before offering an opinion. I tend to the latter … if you go back through the archives, you’ll see that I usually write something at the beginning of the season, and at the end of the season, but that I don’t often break down specific episodes.

The discussion was inspired by comments from David Simon, one of the best show-runners ever (The Wire, Generation Kill, Treme). It came to us in a common Internet roundabout way. Simon gave an interview to a New York Times reporter. Times writer Jeremy Egner picked up on one aspect of that interview that interested him, and offered excerpts after presenting his own contextual introduction. Some critics then commented on the Egner excerpts, and Simon gave another interview, this time to Alan Sepinwall, where he was able to return his comments to his intended context.

The context was partly that Simon was irritated by a “bracket” imitation game that pitted 32 characters from The Wire in a contest that mimicked the format of the NCAA basketball tourneys. Omar “won” the contest. Simon felt that such a game diminished what he had tried to do over the course of five seasons, turning a detailed dramatic probing of inner-city problems into a popularity poll. In the process, he seemed to be attacking people who have come to the series after its initial run:

I’m indifferent to who thinks Omar is really cool now, or that this is the best scene or this is the best season. It was conceived of as a whole, and we did it as a whole. For people to be picking it apart now like it’s a deck of cards or like they were there the whole time or they understood it the whole time — it’s wearying. Because no one was there in the beginning, or the middle, or even at the end. Our numbers continued to decline from Season 2 on.

Simon’s context was the bracket tourneys, which wasn’t clear from Egner’s piece (although Egner added an online update for clarification). But what also seeped through was Simon’s frustration at how audiences “used” his show, and, rightfully so in my opinion, why he wished they’d been around back when The Wire was struggling just to get another season on the air.

Simon expanded on his comments, explaining that he found the trend of instant episode recaps to be unfortunate.

He then gave an interview to Alan Sepinwall, who is not only one of the best TV critics in the country, but is someone who got his start writing weekly NYPD Blue recaps on Usenet when he was in college (this was my first introduction to recapping, and I’ve owed Sepinwall a debt ever since). Simon stated, “I think there's a fundamental disconnect with what certain types of longform television are now trying to build and the way in which they're consumed by the audience.” His reference point was the novel, and how series like The Wire are novelistic (I know what he means … I once included the first three episodes of The Wire in a survey course on American Literature):

No one would read three chapters of a novel and go, "What so and so's trying to say here." No book reviewer would try to assess any work based on the entry point of a piece of a prose. Is television prose? No, but you can't tell me there isn't some correlation between the way certain television shows now are being structured and the way multi-POV novels are being structured. …

If television reviews could be done at the end of each season, they could say more and do more. And I don't just mean they'd just be full of praise. They could even be more critical of things, and say, "This show's ambition was X, and it failed to achieve X, and here's why." It's only possible to do it at the end, and that's all I'm saying. Often, people experiencing each chapter in real time feel the need to tell you where they think it's going, or why it shouldn't go there, or why it should go somewhere else.

Simon is not rejecting criticism, particularly the kind of artful, informed criticism of a Sepinwall or Mo Ryan or Tim Goodman. And he’s not saying we should avoid the online equivalents of the Monday-morning water-cooler discussions. But he is clearly frustrated by the attempt to explain a “longform” series via weekly recaps.

Maureen Ryan had her usual smart response, asking that we “give the ‘TV shows are just like books’ analogy a rest.” She argued that “an episode of television can stand on its own, as a complete work. To assert otherwise is to denigrate one of the medium's finest accomplishments.” And then, “An episode is not a chapter of a book. Generally speaking, individual book chapters are not meant to stand on their own. But an episode of television has a great deal of validity as an individual work, and there's nothing wrong with treating it like the discrete unit that it can be and often is.”

I find myself straddling the middle, here. As noted above, as a blogger I go for a once-at-the-start, once-at-the-finish approach to seasons (and rarely write about individual episodes). But as a fan of these longform series, I am hooked on the best of the recaps (the afore-mentioned Sepinwall, Ryan, and Goodman, along with whoever has the job at Salon this week, and Myles McNutt, and I’m sure I’m forgetting a few).

In his interview with Simon, Sepinwall said something very important about a series (The Killing) that first enthralled, then bored, and finally infuriated many critics: “I didn't like ‘The Killing,’ but I wrote something last month saying that Veena Sud shouldn't be making the show in response to me; she should be making the show she thinks is the best one to make.” I’m with him on that, even though I, too, was pissed enough at Sud and her show that I haven’t returned for Season Two. I don’t want David Simon to make a series for me. I want David Simon to make series as he wants to, and his track record suggests I’ll like whatever he offers. And I understand why Simon would be frustrated when others don’t see his work in the manner he might like … this happens when your work goes public. In my grad school days, I might have argued that Simon and his audience are co-authors, but I’ve pulled back from that over the years. Now, I’d just say that my Treme is different from your Treme, but without David Simon, there is no Treme.

But there is a place for criticism, and the best criticism is its own art form. And I don’t think David Simon would disagree.

justified, season three finale

Last season, Justified went from being a good show to being a must-watch show. This season was built on the good will left over from the previous year, so while no one expected Season Three to top Season Two, we were certainly open to an enjoyable season. And we were rewarded. I think after three strong seasons, it’s fair to say a series is a keeper, one that will be there for the people of the future catching up on discs or streaming. Justified is a keeper.

Characters, writing, acting, and setting all contribute to Justified’s excellence. The “hero”, Raylan Givens, is disarmingly complex underneath his seemingly simple exterior. Timothy Olyphant is handed great dialogue, and he knows what to do with it. The way Raylan experiences Harlan County, where he was born and raised, is played for more than just an easy character marker. Raylan, and all of the residents of Harlan County, most of whom he grew up around, are a believable community. Because the community is so well-constructed, there is always room for more characters who can slide easily into that construction. One result is that each season seems to have more characters then the one before. We may have never met Mykelti Williamson’s  Ellstin Limehouse before this season, but Williamson’s charismatic presence, the ambience of Noble’s Hollow, and the way Limehouse knew everyone and everyone knew him, meant he felt like an old friend (or enemy) after only a few appearances.

Justified also gets the little things right. Some of my favorite moments come when two characters just shoot the shit, always talking about something other than what they are talking about, always talking like they popped out of an Elmore Leonard novel, appropriate since Leonard created Raylan Givens in the first place. The series also manages to make us care about relatively minor characters. Limehouse’s underling, Errol, was one such minor character, but when Limehouse told Errol his time in the Hollow was over, we felt Errol’s pain, and we were glad/sad to see Errol redeem himself one last time.

It’s just a joy to watch well-drawn and acted characters on a weekly basis, and Justified rarely falters. At some point, every series hits a wall, gets to a point where it’s time to quit. Justified has such a casual, yet deep, feel to it that I can imagine it running for years. I look back and see I gave Season Two an A-, a rare example of grade deflation … that was the best of the Justified seasons so far. I gave the finale an A+. I don’t believe Season Three improved on Season Two, but as I said at the beginning of this post, our affection for Season Two spills onto Season Three. So I know it makes no sense, but: Grade for finale and for Season Three: A.

game of thrones, season two premiere

When Game of Thrones debuted a year ago, I wondered if I would like it, since I was unfamiliar with the books and not a fan of the genre. Only HBO’s track record got me to watch. While I was often confused by the various plots, I was much taken by the writing, acting, and film making, resulting in a final grade of “A” for the season. Season Two, thus, comes with much bigger expectations. And in the first episode of the season, it delivered.

I wouldn’t say it was a great episode, as much as it was a return to the level of the first season. The brief “previously on” reminded me of who, what, and where, and things moved smoothly from that point. (Perhaps this is partly because I’d just finished watching Mad Men, where each season takes place after a certain amount of time has passed, whereas Game of Thrones picked up pretty much where it left off.) I don’t have a lot to say now that differs from what I said about Season One, because what was good then is good now, and there’s no reason at this time to mess with success.

Peter Dinklage looks to be an even larger presence this season, which is a good thing. As Alan Sepinwall noted, “If Dinklage doesn't repeat his Emmy win for supporting actor this year, it'll only be because he's been deservingly elevated to the lead category this time around.” But, given the expanse of perspectives in Game of Thrones, with its various “Houses” and its large cast, no one character will make or break the show. There are simply too many fine performances spread throughout the series to make Dinklage anything other than one of the best of the best. (And Game of Thrones is not afraid to show us how the most important thing is the world that has been created, not any one person within that world … just ask Sean Bean.)

So, to repeat myself, Game of Thrones offers a different world from the one in which we live, with events on a grand scale, yet the people within that world are recognizably human. The show works as a political drama, as an example of the fantasy genre, and, most importantly, simply as an excellent television series. The Season Two premiere gave me no reason to veer away from my Season One grade of A.

shameless: season two finale

Sunday was full of interesting television, at least in my mind, and there’s no way I can get to it all in one post. Mad Men’s second episode of the season was intriguing, even if there wasn’t enough Sally (and Joan never even appeared). Game of Thrones kicked off its second season (about which, more in a future post). And, of course, there was Wrestlemania XXVIII, featuring the return of The Rock.

But I want to say something about Shameless before it gets lost in the shuffle. Like even the best Showtime series, Shameless just misses being a classic. While the adventurous nature of the show’s willingness to switch quickly from comedy to drama is praiseworthy, the transition doesn’t always work well. And a few of the characters border on caricature. But those are just reasons why it’s an A- instead of an A.

In Season Two, Emmy Rossum demonstrated once again why some call her Emmy Awesome. She gives her all to her role, which is reflected in the usual Showtime nudity, but also in the way Rossum uses her face to express an array of emotions. Rossum’s Fiona is the center of the show (despite the nominal acknowledgement that William H. Macy is the “star”), and the show’s raw emotions are perfectly reflected in Rossum’s eyes.

There are so many fine characters in this ensemble series, and so many fine actors playing them, that even though not every episode is top-notch, there is never a bad episode. Add in Chloe Webb, who turned up once again late this season and added raw depths you’d think had already been covered by everyone else on the show, and you have a series that works the audience over the coals, and it feels good.

The Gallaghers are one of the best TV families we have today, and Shameless is a series deserving of such great characters. Last season, I gave the series a B+, and Emmy Rossum an A+. In Season Two, the series started to catch up with its radiant star. Grade for Season Two: A-.

luck, season/series finale

I’m not sure it’s worth discussing the reasons why there will be no Season Two of Luck. I’m in agreement with David Milch, who said that he had no bitterness towards HBO (“I think they were in an untenable position”) but that if it had been up to him, they would have continued making the series.

Those of you who are wondering if you should catch up on Luck when it turns up on disc should know that the season works fine as a standalone. There are some plot threads left hanging, but there is also a feeling that this first round has completed its run. If the show interests you, don’t let the sudden cancellation keep you from watching.

There was a lot of big-name talent behind Luck, and they all delivered: David Milch, Michael Mann, Dustin Hoffman, Nick Nolte. (Dennis Farina is a big name in my house, but I appreciate he might not fit everyone’s description of big name.) There were intriguing secondary characters played by the likes of Michael Gambon and Joan Allen. There was a finely-tuned understanding of the horse racing milieu, and Milch dropped us right into the middle of it, leaving it to us to figure out what the hell was going on (it didn’t take long to feel like a true racing aficionado). And there was a fascinating portrayal of an inscrutable trainer by John Ortiz. Finally, the was the usual array of “hey, it’s that guy!” … Richard Kind and Kerry Condon come to mind. Heck, we even had a jockey-turned-actor, three-time Kentucky Derby winner Gary Stevens, who more than held his own.

But for me, the heart of the show was found in the four racing addicts that Milch referred to as “The Degenerates.” Marcus, Lonnie, Renzo, and Jerry, each distinct personalities, all of them crazy in one way or another, but all of them true believers in the joys and sorrows of the track. Marcus was my favorite … the HBO website describes him as “a misanthropic ball buster in a motorized wheelchair”, and Kevin Dunn did a great job creating a King of Complaining who came alive during a horse race. As Jerry, Jason Gedrick pulled off quite a visual feat. Gedrick is 47, but in Luck, he looked like a drop-dead handsome guy of 35, gone to seed because of a gambling addiction. (The difference between a good-looking 47-year-old and a formerly good-looking, currently dissipated 35-year-old is subtle, but Gedrick makes it work. Or his makeup artist did.)

And I can’t finish without giving a shout out to Dennis Dun, who 25 years ago was Kurt Russell’s friend in Big Trouble in Little China. I looked forward to his every appearance on Luck, as a poker player who could throw Jerry’s game off just by greeting him. “Jerry!”

It might make sense to give Luck an Incomplete. But it was far better than that, and enough closure was offered to remove the “I”. It’s too bad the series got cancelled just when it was finding itself, but Luck is not a candidate for a Karen Sisco Award … the cancellation had nothing to do with ratings or the show not getting any attention.

Grade for series: B+. Projected grade for the Season Two we’ll never see: A-.

mad men, season five premiere

Well, that was nice. The episode (actually, two episodes together to make a two-hour special) gradually reintroduced us to the characters, while subtly letting us see how much they had changed since the last time we saw them. I could list those changes, but if you care, you’ve already watched it.

Mad Men is a show, like Buffy the Vampire Slayer, that has a cultural impact that far exceeds the number of people who actually watch the show. Mad Men is not even the most popular show on its network: AMC’s biggest hit is the zombie series The Walking Dead. But Mad Men is the water-cooler show, or, in the modern era, the Twitter show. Everyone who does watch it immediate offers their opinions (this post being an example), making it a hard show to fall behind on, because spoilers are everywhere.

Of the women characters, Betty is absent (she will only make occasional appearances this season, as January Jones was having a baby during the time the season was shot). Peggy is settling into her position of relative importance within the company, Joan is missed in the office during her maternity leave, there are new secretaries here and the same wives there. Mad Men has always managed to simultaneously show the misogynist tone of the times and the budding feminism of the 1960s. Women’s advances have been gradual, but Peggy and Joan are extremely valuable to the company, even if it will be a long time before either of them makes partner. And Jessica Paré as Don Draper’s wife Megan adds a nice touch to the ensemble. She is allowed to have her own personality in ways never given to Betty Draper (who was just morose, although it was very effective dramatically), and Paré has a kind of modern beauty that matches well with the 1966 setting (or at least, they let her show off that beauty, unlike Peggy … Elisabeth Moss is far better looking than they let her be on Mad Men).

As for the men, there is a lot of interesting things going on, and I look forward to the continued evolution of Jared Harris as Lane Pryce. But let’s face it: Mad Men is about Don Draper/Dick Whitman. And he’s rather unsettling as the season begins. As Peggy says, “I don't recognize that man. He's kind and patient!” But Megan doesn’t seem ready to play the trophy wife, and their sexual attraction to each other has a kinky undertone. Given that Don’s life was such a mess last season, it’s odd to see him almost happy. But even that happiness is off in some way. Megan nails it when she says of her co-workers (including her husband), “What is wrong with you people? You're all so cynical! You don't smile; you smirk!”

We don’t get much of Sally Draper this episode, but she’ll be around. And Christina Hendricks got to have a fine emotional scene … Joan presents such an assured front that when she breaks down, it’s surprising and hard to bear.

And finally, Mad Men seems ready to confront the issue of race in the 1960s. There has been criticism of the show in the past for ignoring race, but the characters are mostly clueless about their prejudices, and it is rare for any of them to know what is going on outside of their narrow world. But now there are black people protesting, and a stupid joke is taken seriously by a group of black people who show up to apply for a non-existent job with the company. It will be a smart move to hire at least one of those people, forcing the characters (and the show) to address things that have mostly been pushed to the side in the past.

Mad Men takes its time getting to where it’s going; even given the two-hour premiere, very little “happened”. Tonight’s Shameless was more, well, shameless in eliciting emotional reactions from the audience than usual, but I think partly it was that the raw nature of Fiona and the rest is so much different than what we see on Mad Men. In the course of just a few minutes near the end of the episode (I’d give a spoiler warning, but no one I know watches the show), there was a Thanksgiving celebration where the main dish went from a bunch of cans of Spam in the shape of a bird, to a bald eagle, to an actual turkey. The Gallaghers had a moment of familial bliss, at least as much as they can manage, only to have the mom try to kill herself. She is rushed to the hospital, and she’ll survive … and oh, Lip’s son is being born in that same hospital, so everyone runs into that room, watches the birth of a baby, celebrates once again … and then we learn that the baby has Down’s syndrome, and isn’t even Lip’s baby at all. (They aren’t done then, either … Joan Cusack as Sheila steals the baby from the hospital, escaping on the motorcycle of her new lover.) I list all of this to demonstrate how a show like Shameless is always ready to pull you all over the emotional map, and how Mad Men seems so civilized in comparison.

portlandia: season two

It says something about the second season of Portlandia that the final episode came about a week and a half ago, and I’m only now writing this, because I only now have seen it. Sometime over the course of Season Two, Portlandia went from being a show I watched the night it aired to a show with the last two episodes sitting on the DVR.

I can’t say the show has gotten worse. It’s just that each episode blends together in my mind, with some wonderful parts and some boring parts, and enough of the latter than I’m losing interest, despite my Carrie-love. Looking back over episode summaries (which is the only way at this point that I can remember when the wonderful parts turned up), I see the Battlestar Galactica episode (#2), and the episode with Kristen Wiig and Amber Tamblyn (#6), and, well, that’s it. Each episode had something that made me smile, but that’s the best I can say for the majority of them. And again, I don’t think the show is getting worse, I just think I don’t have a very long attention span for sketch comedies that rely on a consistent level of OK-ness. If I had seen the Season Two finale last season, I might have liked it more. But now, I confess I was watching out of loyalty more than enjoyment.

At the start of the season, I wrote, “I rarely laugh at Portlandia. But I enjoy watching it.” At the end, only the first half of that sentence remains true. Grade for Season Two: B-.