quinoble Reviews

Bancroft (2017–2020)

dark, dishy fun

[9/10 · 11 September 2023]

"Bancroft" is less a police procedural than a lurid police potboiler, seething with psychosexual tension and tawdry melodrama. Scenery-chewing and convoluted plot twists abound. The overall mix may be trashy, but it's irresistible, absorbing entertainment. There is never a dull moment and it's always taut and propulsive stuff.

A cross between "The Fall"'s Stella Gibson and "The Shield"'s Vic Mackey, "Bancroft"'s titular protagonist, played perfectly by Sarah Parrish, is an ice-cold supercop with a dark past which she will stop at nothing to hide.

From the very first episode we know that Bancroft is not good--she's bad to the core, and the only reason we tolerate her is 'cuz the criminals she fights are even worse: less an antihero than an out-and-out villain we're grudgingly compelled to support by default due to the absolute degenerates and fools she deals with.

She is a ruthless pragmatist who is willing to compromise with the bad in order to stop the worse, and in the hopelessly fallen world of this show, that's the best we solid citizens can hope for.

Bancroft is surrounded by incompetent (mostly male) colleagues: a philandering, lazy subordinate detective; a dying mentor who is now haunted by his failures; an ineffectual rival for promotion who prefers to look for dirt on her to discredit her rather than do any real police work of his own; her image-obsessed, hands-off boss who talks big picture and leaves her to sweat the painstaking details while he prepares for a cushy retirement.

She manipulates all of them with deft ease while trying to snare a brutal drug lord in the biggest case of her career, keeping a dozen balls in the air without ever letting a single one drop.

There are only two people Bancroft can't manipulate. One is her outwardly loyal son, for whom she harbors an unhealthy, smothering love but who senses, deep down, that his mother is no good for him. The other is someone from her very distant past...but you'll have to watch to find out who!

In S1 a blonde, idealistic but ambitious young cop, Det. Stevens (played superbly by Faye Marsay), initially idolizes Bancroft but becomes suspicious of her and tries to unravel the wily veteran's past misdeeds with the help of an equally young, idealistic, and ambitious forensic scientist, Dr. Karim.

We are of course conditioned by most TV shows to root for these young crusaders, who are the only characters as smart and dogged as Bancroft while being a lot more decent. Fortunately for those of us who take our coffee black and our entertainment cold and cynical, youth, innocence, and justice do NOT prevail.

As I said, Stevens and Karim believe in playing by the rules, and Bancroft's only rule is that whatever works, works. Thus, in the show's corrupt and amoral world, there can only be one winner. So the destination is known from the beginning; the fun is in the journey.

I'll update after I've seen S2.

Doc Martin: Of All the Harbours in All the Towns (2004) Season 1, Episode 5

three love stories

[10/10 · 11 July 2023]

This episode is all about love stories, one slightly comical, another cruel, and the third extremely moving.

First the comical one: a teenage patient develops a crush on Martin and he has to dissuade her from her increasingly blatant attempts to seduce him. The show takes her feelings seriously instead of treating her as a joke. It's easy for adults to dismiss teen crushes as "puppy love" but for them it's very real and the writers are respectful of that.

The second story isn't very enjoyable, it's about Al's abortive attempt to court Elaine, who's temporarily on the outs with her boyfriend. The introverted, sensitive Al is totally mismatched with the boorish, self-absorbed Elaine, who promptly drops him when she gets bored. Elaine is the most cartoonish character on the show and I can see why she was written off after S1. All the other villagers feel more well-rounded but she's just shallow and mean.

The last story is the best: Aunt Joan's old lover, John, returns to Portwenn after decades away, hoping to rekindle her interest. Martin immediately takes a dislike to him but eventually he comes to understand John after learning much about his aunt and his youth in Portwenn that he didn't know before. The story ends in a very bittersweet but satisfying way as Joan and Martin stand on the hills watching John sail away from Portwenn for the last time. We don't get a lot of romances between older adults and this one is perfectly done, mixing themes of lost love, age, second chances, and sacrifice as well as the ethical conflict Martin is placed in when his duty to patient confidentiality clashes with his loyalty to his beloved aunt.

Because of Joan's story I rank this episode higher than the season finale, which is very good but more melodramatic and contains the obligatory service to the Martin-and-Louisa endgame.

Joan's story really shows how good this show can be in the writing and acting. It's so simple but so moving and melancholy, it has a timeless feel that makes it really stand out.

Millennium: TEOTWAWKI (1998) Season 3, Episode 3

after the collapse

[4/10 · 18 July 2021]

After S2 culminated in the dual apocalypse of a world-engulfing viral pandemic and the final disintegration of Frank Black's family in the magisterial finale, "The Time Is Now," Glen Morgan and James Wong departed, having created one of the greatest seasons of TV of the last forty years, and Chris Carter returned to oversee the show.

He tried to recapture the feel of S1 and go back to the days when "Millennium" was an atmospheric crime procedural, but as he found out, you can't go home again. In S1 Black could always return to the yellow house and the loving embrace of his family; in S3 Catherine's gone, the yellow house just a memory. The apocalypse he feared and fought has happened.

Consequently the show feels colder, it's missing something vital, even its reason for being. If Black's family has been irrevocably sundered, if he's no longer desperately battling with all his might to keep the evil he sees in his visions from consuming his yellow house and all he loves, then what's "Millennium" really about?

In his first script for the show since S1's "Lamentation," Carter struggles with this question, and he doesn't seem to find an answer. What he comes up with is a very conventional procedural, albeit with some interesting supernatural touches (the voiceovers about the nature of evil that open and close the episode are a typical Carter trademark). The ideas explored in the script don't cohere--it's a mishmash of the Y2K bug, school shootings, and paranoid survival militias, each of which would have taken a whole episode to develop fully. Thrown together into one plot, it becomes a mess.

The marvelous atmosphere of brooding, incipient menace that pervaded S1 is gone. What remains feels flat and dull. At one point I noticed an obvious plot hole (somehow a suspect breaks into Frank Black's hotel room despite having no way of knowing where it is or even who Black is) and I realized the show had lost something crucial.

No doubt there were such holes in the first two seasons, and I overlooked them, carried along on the magical suspension of disbelief created by the showrunners' supreme artistry. That magic is gone.

Carter tried to go back to the S1 well and found it empty. What he should have done was start the third season off where S2 ended--with Frank and Jordan Black wandering the post-apocalypse, trying to survive--and hand the production over to Chip Johannesen, writer of some of the best and most surreal episodes like "Force Majeure" and "Luminary", and a showrunner who really understood what "Millennium" was about. Then we would have had a season 3 that was the equal of the first two.

Unfortunately, we have to make do with the S3 we have; the later episodes, I am told, improve considerably. But it's still tough to watch and not wonder what could have been.

Millennium: The Beginning and the End (1997) Season 2, Episode 1

a beginning and an end

[9/10 · 16 December 2020]

S2 of "Millennium" was overseen by Glen Morgan and James Wong, after Chris Carter left to film the first "X-Files" movie.

They completely overhauled the show. Gone is the "serial killer of the week". Gone is Carter's Manichean view of the world. More humor. More pop rock in the soundtracks. More conspiracies and apocalyptic events. More philosophical musings. The Millennium Group goes from a vaguely defined plot device to a fanatical, seemingly omnipresent and omniscient cult with obscure goals.

The biggest difference is that in S1, evil was an external force. Frank Black was stable and serene, a heroic bulwark against encroaching darkness. He had a perfect family life, symbolized by the yellow house, his refuge from the darkness.

In S2, evil comes from within. In this episode, we see it's even within Frank Black himself, as he brutally kills Catherine Black's kidnapper. The act tears apart his marriage and exiles him from the yellow house. No longer happy and secure in the love of his family, he's now unmoored and desperate.

In S1 an approaching apocalypse was continuously hinted at, but it was never really imminent. Black could never decisively overcome the darkness, but neither was he seriously affected by it. Even when Bletch was murdered in his house, it didn't make a lasting impact on him or his family. There were stakes for others, but never really for him.

In S2, Morgan and Wong follow through with these promises: the apocalypse is coming. "The time is near," the title sequence promises. A countdown to the millennium now pops up every time Black logs in to his computer. In the opener of this episode Black muses about how comets meet different ends (some traveling through space forever, others disintegrating, others crashing into the sun) and then asks explicitly: "which am I?" How will his story end? This is not a question the Frank Black of S1 would have ever asked. Now it's his own fate that is at stake, that he has to fight for.

S1 was great, but IMO Carter had gone as far as he could go with that approach and a Carter-run S2 would have merely been repeating himself. One can only tease the impending apocalypse so many times, eventually you have to go through with it. And Morgan and Wong do so, going all-out and leaning into the eschatological, conspiratorial elements in gonzo fashion. By making Frank Black a participant in the action, and not just an observer, they revitalize the show.

Millennium: Weeds (1997) Season 1, Episode 11

murder in the 'burbs

[8/10 · 8 October 2020]

This is "typical 'Millennium'": serial killer of the week with apocalyptic/religious aspects. It revisits themes previously treated in the pilot, "Gehenna", and "The Judge," albeit with a new twist.

The crimes take place in a gated community, wealthy, exclusive, and extremely homogeneous (a forensic scientist, played by black actress C.C.H. Pounder, remarks dryly that the security is so good they stopped her twice after she entered the gate), and the victims have comically bland surnames like "Comstock" and "Birkenbuehl."

The visuals are great, particularly of the warped quasi-religious ritual the killer inflicts on his victims. There are also some great images from the killer's POV, where he sees the people around him as rotting and decaying due to their moral corruption.

In "Millennium" Chris Carter explores the fears and anxieties of '90s suburbia, which he sees not as a refuge, but a place menaced by dark forces. In this episode, evil comes not from the outsiders, as the residents initially believe, but from within, from the most respected members of the community. Not only that, the murderer's driven by righteous outrage at the hidden corruption and criminality festering beneath the surface of this seemingly idyllic community (there's plenty of both, it turns out). Interestingly, his goal is not primarily to kill but to expose this corruption. It's suggested that in many ways, the only real difference between Frank Black and the killer is means, not ends.

An excellent episode, if not quite up to the level of the pilot.

Millennium: Sacrament (1997) Season 1, Episode 15

middle of the road

[6/10 · 8 October 2020]

This episode is what people have in mind when they characterize "Millennium" as "serial killer of the week." "Sacrament" lacks the intensity and creativity of the previous few episodes, instead going for a conventional, by-the-numbers (by "Millennium" standards) narrative.

Here, Frank Black's sister-in-law is kidnapped and Frank will stop at nothing to find her. The sister-in-law is a cipher who exists only so Frank can rescue her.

Frank's younger brother exists only to provide a foil to Frank: he's less intense and unfamiliar with the seamier side of life. It's reiterated that Frank's primary concern is shielding his loved ones from the darkness in the world: he protected his brother when they were children, and continues to protect him in the episode by concealing some of his darker suspicions about the kidnapper. In a moment of despair, the brother tells him that his quest to protect everyone is doomed to fail.

But all these are points the show has made before in more interesting ways, especially in the pilot. So no new ground is broken.

The plot is rather scattered: at first Bletcher furiously tells Frank to leave the case alone, but is back to asking him for help later in the episode. We're led to believe the sister-in-law's dead, but in a twist, she's found alive. We're led to believe the killer is one character, but it turns out to be someone who was onscreen for all of five seconds.

Frank has demonic visions, but they're not tied meaningfully into the plot and seem to be there only because it's what's expected on "Millennium."

The only new idea the episode plays with is suggesting Jordan Black has inherited her father's intuitive abilities, as she seems to mysteriously know what is happening to her aunt, and falls inexplicably ill during the case--only to abruptly recover when her aunt is rescued.

Put this episode in the "not very memorable" column.

Millennium: Blood Relatives (1996) Season 1, Episode 7

story of a lost generation

[9/10 · 7 September 2020]

This is the first of three episodes where Catherine Black plays a more active role, and she's great.

Catherine counsels the family of a woman murdered at her son's funeral. Soon Frank Black is involved in the case, following the trail of James, a misguided young ex-con so desperate for human contact that he poses as a friend of the deceased at funerals, trying to connect emotionally with the mourners. The police are sure James is the serial killer behind the woman's death and a string of similar murders; but the story's more complicated.

Convinced of his innocence, Catherine dedicates herself to helping James. It's left to her to articulate the episode's big question: what's society's responsibility to its lost children? James was given up for adoption and grew up in foster homes; who bears the blame for how he turned out? In one great scene, Catherine pleads with James's biological mother to help him. Unable to bear James's embrace, she repudiates him and washes her hands of him, callously saying he's the system's problem and nothing to do with her. (A sign this isn't your typical schmaltzy TV show where a mother's love conquers all!)

The other theme is that of emotional connection. As noted, James tries to fill the void left by his mother by connecting with strangers. The closest thing to a parent James has is Connor, the trustee of the halfway house where James lodges. But Connor's affection comes with a price: he wants James all to himself, and his possessiveness leads him to cross the line.

Notably, this is the first episode where Frank Black engages in physical confrontation. And typically for "Millennium," it's not about showing off his fighting skills. It's a desperate struggle for survival; kicking, grappling, clawing, he barely manages to fight off the murderer.

The episode ends as it began: James, still craving love, looks for new mourners to connect to. Catherine, the social worker, has gone above and beyond the call of duty to help James; Frank and the justice system have done as much as they can in catching the murderer; but despite their best combined efforts they can do nothing to heal the damage done by his mother's abandonment; however twisted Connor was, he was still the only person who showed him anything like parental affection. A fantastic, somber ending.

In many ways, S1 of "Millennium" reminds me of "Twilight Zone." Episodes of that show were essentially half-hour-long dramas of ideas in which Rod Serling explored social and moral issues, often in an allegorical fashion. This episode of "Millennium" has a similar morality-play feel to it, and clearly Chris Carter saw the show as a vehicle to explore his moral and spiritual preoccupations, in the way Serling did.

Millennium: Force Majeure (1997) Season 1, Episode 13

"gentlemen, welcome to the realm of the truly bizarre"

[10/10 · 7 September 2020]

This episode is TV at its most experimental and avant-garde. There's no linear narrative to cling to; none of the familiar setup. No killer and not much violence.

The story' resembles a dream in that it doesn't make sense to the waking mind: a strange sequence of seemingly unrelated images and events that cohere in terms of mood and emotion, not of rational logic.

The episode is preoccupied with primordial themes: planetary alignments; impending cataclysm; procreation and family; the future of humanity. There's a lot of weird, unforgettable imagery: the ice-storm and self-immolation that open the episode, the strange girls all simultaneously looking from side to side, and the iron lung.

At the end, the old man in the iron lung, the patriarch of a very unusual family, explains himself to Frank Black and sums up the whole tale by recounting the Biblical story of Noah-another patriarch who saw an apocalypse coming and sought to build a better world in the aftermath.

The character Dennis Hoffman, played brilliantly by Brad Dourif (a highly underrated character actor, like Lance Henriksen himself), initially appears to be a lone crackpot obsessed with apocalyptic "earth changes" but turns out to instinctively know what the case is about. An outcast at the beginning, by the end he finds a family and a place where he belongs.

We also gain more insight into Black's character. For once, our hero's mostly in the dark. He's forced to follow Hoffman's lead instead of trusting his own intuition. But he shows he has the humility to realize when others have insights he doesn't, and listen to them.

Initially he resists hearing the old man's story, declaring he doesn't want to understand in a rare moment of anger. But he relents, and eventually the two come to an understanding.

This episode also has some welcome flashes of levity in this usually grim show, when Hoffman gets on the nerves of the usually stoic Peter Watts, and when CCH Pounder's character dryly describes proceedings with the quote that begins this review.

This episode either speaks to you or it doesn't; there's no middle ground. So it's not meaningful to rate it on a numerical scale. I gave it a 10, but it's obviously not everyone's cup of tea.

The sheer inventiveness and daring of this show floors me. This episode's something you'd expect to see in arthouse cinema, not late-'90s prime-time network TV. Wonderful stuff.

Millennium: Wide Open (1997) Season 1, Episode 9

murky misfire

[5/10 · 26 August 2020]

In a 22-episode season of TV, there are going to be a few episodes that just don't work, where the writers' inspiration runs out but they still need to get something in the can. This is one of those.

Lot of half-baked ideas thrown into this episode that aren't developed. The result feels very generic.

Catherine Black plays a larger role for the third straight episode, and unlike the previous two, which were excellent, she doesn't do anything interesting here.

The writers spend a lot of time building up conflict between her and Bletcher, with Frank Black caught in the middle: Bletcher wants to interview a little girl who witnessed her parents' murder, Catherine says no because it would exacerbate her trauma; Frank is on the fence about it. Before this conflict really comes to a head, it's completely sidestepped.

Biggest problem is the killer's psychology remains unclear. So far the best episodes of "Millennium" are about Black gradually coming to understand what the criminal is after and to place himself in his/her shoes. For this to work, the criminal's psychology has to be compelling.

Here the killer's motivation is simply muddled. Because the killer doesn't work, the episode doesn't work.

As usual, Lance Henriksen is riveting and the production values are top-notch, but otherwise there's nothing much to recommend this episode.

Millennium: The Well-Worn Lock (1996) Season 1, Episode 8

atypical but great Millennium story

[10/10 · 15 August 2020]

This is an atypical "Millennium" episode. No apocalyptic supernatural elements, no serial killer--and almost no Frank Black. But it's a riveting and moving story.

Here the Blacks' usual roles are flipped: Catherine takes center stage, with Frank as the supportive spouse. Catherine demonstrates her courage and dedication to her own vocation of social work, risking her career and putting herself in physical danger to help a traumatized young woman seek justice for years of sexual abuse at the hands of her politically-connected, wealthy father. Not only is Catherine up against local politicians, who don't want to embarrass a pillar of the community; she also must deal with the woman's mother, who wants to maintain the facade of a perfect family at all costs.

This episode treats difficult subjects--child molestation, incest, and the willingness of family and community to deny unspeakable crimes--with courage, honesty, and compassion, and without doing so in the sensationalistic or exploitative way that so many police procedurals do. The conclusion is cathartic and satisfying; with Catherine's help and encouragement, the young woman finds the strength to testify against her father in court, and justice is served.

So many crime shows focus luridly on the criminal; here the focus is rightly on the survivor's story, and her long, difficult journey towards healing and closure.

Once again "Millennium" shows why remains a cut above the rest, more than two decades after it aired.

Millennium: Dead Letters (1996) Season 1, Episode 3

absorbing character study

[9/10 · 9 August 2020]

The main focus of this episode is not the criminal but a detective, James Horn, played by James Morrison (better known as CTU director Bill Buchanan on "24").

Horn is a highly gifted investigator like Frank Black, but his psyche is starting to fray under the strain of dealing with the worst of humanity while raising a young family. Black mentors Horn and evaluates him for membership in the Millennium Group while working with him to solve a rash of brutal murders.

The Horn character is the make-or-break factor of this episode, and fortunately Morrison and the writers deliver the goods. Agitated, sweaty, and tortured, Horn is a man coming apart at the seams, fearing that his family will end up victims of the killers he pursues. His marriage is collapsing, and he becomes obsessive and unable to separate his personal demons from the murder case, with completely expected results.

Horn is essentially a younger version of Black, confronting the same dilemma Black faced earlier in his career. Black has managed to find some measure of balance between his personal and professional lives, but Horn cannot. Seeing himself in Horn, Black tries to help Horn see the dark path the latter is headed down, but cannot reach him.

In telling Horn's story, the show is really telling Black's. The episode reminds us of the high price Black pays for his gift, and raises the possibility that Horn's fate might yet someday be his.

Millennium: 5-2-2-6-6-6 (1996) Season 1, Episode 5

One of the more forgettable episodes thus far

[6/10 · 9 August 2020]

This episode is more conventional than those preceding it. It's more a generic manhunt-style story that might be found in a typical police procedural or a TV movie of the week. It's not bad, it's just not up to the caliber of the earlier episodes.

Frank Black pursues a mad bomber whose motives are pretty cookie-cutter: he enjoys the power over life and death the bombings give him, and he plans to pose as a hero helping out the victims in the aftermath and become famous.

There are some artistically interesting scenes of the bomber fantasizing about the explosions, and his, ahem, very passionate response to his handiwork (handled with tact and subtlety, but it's quite clear what he's doing), but those aside there isn't that much to make this episode stand out.

Catherine does overhear Black trying to goad the bomber over the phone, realizing just how twisted the criminals her husband deals with are, and how far he ventures into their minds, but that revelation has little immediate impact on their relationship.

Watchable, but not particularly memorable.

Millennium: Kingdom Come (1996) Season 1, Episode 6

thoughtful examination of faith

[10/10 · 9 August 2020]

For me this episode was a slow starter. I found it plodding and tedious as the investigation proceeded. Then in the last ten minutes it all comes together perfectly.

The episode deals with the nature of faith, a theme usually either completely ignored or treated in a rigidly dogmatic, conventionally religious way in modern culture. Millennium shows itself to be levels above most television shows in its sensitive, subtle exploration of faith. There's nothing preachy or didactic in the story and the viewer is left to draw his or her own conclusions rather than spoon-fed parochial sermonizing about heaven and hell.

As Frank Black comes to realize, the murderer didn't lose his faith in God; he killed religious figures in order to try to rid himself of it. It's because the murderer finds it impossible to reconcile his belief in a just God with the tragic deaths of his family that he is in so much pain. As the murderer says in his moment of greatest despair, he feels he has to kill himself to end his pain, because he can't kill God, nor can he destroy or renounce his faith.

The episode also serves to give us basic insights into the character of Frank Black, a decent and kind family man whose vocation is plumbing the darkest recesses of human nature.

It was crucial to Chris Carter that Black not carry a weapon. For Black does not stop criminals through superior force, firepower, or combat skills. His only defenses against evil are his empathy and skills of perception--and these are two-edged swords because they leave him and those he loves open to danger. This makes Black a type of hero nearly unique in modern fiction.

Rather than allow the police to stop the murderer by brute force, Black bets everything on being able to reach him through compassion and insight into his mind, and succeeds. In an act of supreme physical courage, he walks into a hostage situation totally unarmed, and brings it to a peaceful conclusion with words alone.

The B plot involves the death of a bird, which prompts Black's daughter to start asking the difficult existential questions about death and the afterlife every child eventually asks, and contains some memorable reflections on the nature of faith that are interwoven seamlessly with the main story.

At one point Black remarks to his colleague that perhaps faith is something one should not think about every day, but it's something we need to know is there, waiting, when the time comes to pass it on--a thought I found beautiful. After stopping the killer, he speaks with his wife about what to say to their daughter, and he decides to tell her that grief over life's pain must be balanced with faith and hope, a perfect coda to the story.

This episode really stayed with me. Like all the best art, it raises more questions than it gives answers. It gives much food for thought and reflection on a theme that is often little explored.

There are shows of the "peak TV" era whose entire runs don't come up to the level Millennium reaches in this episode alone. I look forward to the episodes to come.

Wynonna Earp (2016–2021)

cheerful supernatural entertainment

[7/10 · 16 April 2016]

Look, this show is based on a comic book about a busty blonde descendant of Wyatt Earp who goes around shooting demons with a magic gun, and the viewer's expectations should be set at a corresponding level. Don't take it too seriously and you'll be fine.

The first episode was a bit convoluted and hard to follow, but by the second episode things went much smoother. In time, it could become the kind of enjoyable cult show that's all too rare in sci-fi/fantasy these days. With everyone so obsessed with turning comic books into High Art with Profound Existential Meaning (witness the entire Marvel and DC cinematic universes), it's nice to have a show whose sole ambition is to give the viewer a good old-fashioned fun time. No one will accuse "Wynonna Earp" of breaking new ground or setting a new bar for the fantasy Western genre (at least at this juncture), but everyone can take pleasure in watching it.

The actors clearly enjoy what they're doing, and the storytelling is goofy and engaging, and keeps us wanting to know what happens next. As the surly, hard-drinking, tough-yet-vulnerable eponymous protagonist with a huge chip on her shoulder and a serious disregard for authority, Melanie Scrofano delivers the one-liners, shoots demons, and kicks ass with the requisite aplomb.

The demons ("revenants") look like a biker gang and are thoroughly repugnant and vicious, led by the menacing, fur-clad Bobo Del Rey. Long story short: they're trapped in Wynonna's hometown by a powerful spell, they're trying to get out and overrun the whole world in an orgy of blood and murder, and Wynonna's the only one who can put them down with her ancestor's magic gun. The enigmatic Doc Holliday (yes, THAT Doc Holliday), played with an aura of smoldering mystery by the superb Tim Rozon, is the wild card who seems to be playing both sides against each other.

As with Emily Andras's previous supernatural show, Lost Girl, there's lots of girl power, sisterly bonding, and depictions of same-sex sexual tension/relationships (particularly the appropriately-named Officer Haught who has her eye on Wynonna's comely younger sister); fans of the previous show will feel at home pretty quickly here.

There's plenty of potential for drama in the first season, between all of Doc Holliday's mysteries wrapped within riddles inside enigmas, and Wynonna's convoluted family history (pretty safe bet that her older sister, who was kidnapped by the revenants as a child and thought dead, is still alive and working with the demons). And the laconic, ruthless Agent Dolls, what's going on behind that stone face? I'm sure all of this (or at least most of it) will be explored in the episodes to come.

In short, there's worse ways to spend an hour than hanging out with Wynonna Earp.

Arrow (2012–2020)

action, adventure, and more

[9/10 · 19 September 2014]

I wasn't expecting much from this show in the beginning, but I was pleasantly surprised. The scenes are short, tight and pack a punch. There is rarely a slack moment and the plot lines have considerable emotional resonance. As is typical of CW shows, it's full of gorgeous twenty- somethings with perfect cheekbones and impeccably coiffed hair, but that's just a bonus.

In two seasons, Arrow has gone from strength to strength. The villain-of-the-week episodes are now interwoven with long-running story lines. Some of the second season episodes--Keep Your Enemies Closer, Three Ghosts, and Tremors--stand out as some of the best pieces of television in the last seven or eight years. Though they occasionally veer too far into comic-bookiness, the stories have become even more compelling—in fact, sometimes I even wish there were more character scenes and fewer fights.

It never ceases to amaze how the showrunners manage to squeeze the maximum out of a TV budget every single week. Not since Miami Vice has there been a show that aimed for--and so often achieved--the ideal of a TV series as an hour-long mini-movie, delivered once a week for the viewer's delectation. Often big-budget Hollywood movies feel bloated and weighed-down by all the money spent on special effects; Arrow is freed, its creativity stimulated, by the need to work within a smaller budget. The visuals are gritty and imaginative and the fight scenes are always wonderful to watch.

Unlike most CW shows (ahem, Smallville) which aim for a more emo sensibility, or the angry-young-man nihilism which afflicted Nolan's Batman movies, Arrow strikes a more mature tone. Themes of loyalty, revenge, love, honor, family ties, sibling rivalries, friendship, betrayal, Oedipal struggle, motherhood, absent fathers, guilt, redemption, class struggle, the dichotomy between the mask one wears and one's true self, and more--pulp fiction it may be, but treated with loving care by the writers, showrunners, and actors. This combination of heightened emotional intensity with the comic book mythos elevates Arrow to something like opera: a world of stylized, epic, larger-than-life conflicts, but which is still recognizably human and compelling. And it's addictive.

The powers that be at CW have fortunately renewed the series for a third season and I'm eager to see if they can manage to take the story of Oliver Queen to new heights. I hope the show runs as long as they can make it interesting.

Castle (2009–2016)

very watchable

[15 July 2011]

There is one reason to watch Castle: Nathan Fillion. Without him it would be yet another detective show, indistinguishable from its hundreds of predecessors and competitors. With him it's more than watchable; it's enjoyable.

The usual romantic-comedic pattern of a man in the straight role and a woman as the comic foil is reversed. The comic role goes to Fillion as the titular Rick Castle, and the straight man is a woman, NYPD Homicide Det. Kate Beckett, played by Stana Katic.

Castle, an author of mysteries, tries to break his writer's block by persuading the city to let him follow around Beckett's team of detectives as they investigate murders. At first, the hard-nosed Det. Beckett has little use for Castle, whom she initially dismisses as an egotistical buffoon, but soon finds that his intuition, imagination, and experience as a writer are valuable in solving cases, and so an unusual partnership is born.

Inevitably, romantic sparks fly from the clash of personalities between the freewheeling, slightly immature Castle, and the intense and highly professional Beckett, and just as inevitably the duo are constantly prevented from acting on those sparks by all manner of circumstances, ranging from the mundane (Beckett's seemingly endless string of new boyfriends) to the ridiculously contrived (Beckett passes out from hypothermia while the duo are trapped in a freezer, just as she's about to confess her true feelings to Castle).

The other characters, including Castle's family and Beckett's NYPD colleagues are essentially pleasant vehicles for banter and plot exposition, with the exception of Beckett's boss, Captain Roy Montgomery (who's no longer on the show, after the events of the season 3 finale). He's the archetypal dedicated, honest cop who lives and breathes the job, essentially a more mainstream version of Lance Reddick's character on The Wire.

The quality of the writing is somewhat above Law and Order but somewhat below Oscar Wilde. The writers are adept at throwing a series of red herrings to keep you guessing about the killer's identity, but you'll usually be able to figure it out by at most the forty-minute mark, just by process of elimination.

The mysterious murder of Beckett's mother is a running subplot that is the focus of some of the more serious episodes. Such overarching plot lines often become bloated and incoherent as the writers attempt to reveal more without revealing all. However I figure the show can get another couple seasons' worth of interest out of it before it starts to get silly.

But in the end, as long as Fillion's on the show, it'll be decent viewing.

Human Target (2010–2011)

an A-Team for the 21st century

[6/10 · 16 December 2010]

That pretty much says it all. There's no plot worth the name; it might as well be the same from episode to episode.

Dialogue? What dialogue? You forget what the characters are saying even as it's being said.

Yet it works if you're looking for something totally brainless. It's easy, breezy, and it moves from point A to point B at breakneck speed. Every five minutes the characters are busting out automatic weaponry, breaking into (or jumping out of) buildings, or being chased by an army of mercenaries; sometimes all three at the same time. What's not to like?

In a production like this the charisma of the actors is all-important and fortunately the casting directors made the right choices. Mark Valley is charmingly insouciant as the easygoing protagonist Christopher Chance. Chi McBride provides a great contrast as Winston, the perpetually grumpy ex-cop who's Chance's business partner, and Jackie Earle Haley is superb as the weaselly-looking Guerrero, who does the dirty work. In season 2 the producers clearly realized that there was too much testosterone and added two attractive women to the team: Indira Varma, playing the elegant but steely-willed billionaire Ilsa Pucci, and Janet Montgomery as the scrappy thief Ames. Both are welcome additions.

In the original Human Target (starring Rick Springfield), Christopher Chance actually impersonated his clients, which made for some interesting storytelling. Sadly this is not the case in the remake.

The show makes light of torture (hey, it is a FOX show after all), which I find objectionable.

Those points aside, "Human Target" is shallow, mindless fun. However, unlike most other shallow, mindless entertainments, it doesn't take itself very seriously at all, and yet it's not too trashy, which are the keys to its enjoyability.

Stingray: Gemini (1987) Season 2, Episode 2

great episode of an amazing show

[9/10 · 28 July 2008]

This is one of the darkest episodes of this awesome series, and one of the best.

The usual setup is turned completely on its head here. The cool, confident Ray we're accustomed to seeing, the man who can get out of any jam, no matter how tough, is nowhere evident here.

Instead our hero is a hunted man from start to finish, as young, troubled women start turning up dead all over the city. The only common thread to these murders: each of the victims was last seen getting into a black Corvette Stingray.

We see an angry and desperate Ray, a Ray set up and betrayed by people he thought were his friends, fighting to save his own skin and discover who's behind the murders. We get glimpses of Ray's mysterious and painful past--a time he would rather forget, but is forced to confront.

And the climax of Ray's desperate pursuit, when he finally comes face to face with his pursuer--one of the bleakest and darkest scenes in the whole series.

Great episode, and a must-see for any fan of the show.

Oldboy (2003)

a wild beast of a movie

[10/10 · 3 June 2006]

I can't say I "loved" this movie--it's far too brutal and dark to be called lovable--but I can say that hardly a week goes by without my thinking about it. Upon first seeing it I was dazed, unable to speak, feeling as if I'd been stabbed in the gut. Was this a movie? I'd always thought I knew what movies were, but Oldboy was utterly different. Other movies were about their subject; Oldboy embodied its subject. Other movies were watched; Oldboy was experienced. And after finishing other movies, I leaned back comfortably and thought fondly about how good they were; after finishing Oldboy, I was trembling, unable to fully process what I'd just been through.

Oldboy has inspired an unusual amount of vitriol (judging from some of the angry reviews here, it seems many people want revenge on the movie itself!) Many people are uncomfortable with its horrendous violence, and turn this into hatred. They're right to be disturbed. Oldboy is horrific, because it deals directly with one of the most horrific aspects of humanity: our primal need to destroy those who have caused us suffering. Chan-Wook Park employs every technical resource of the cinema--music, sound effects, set and costume design, cinematography, editing, CGI--and portrays such extreme violence, not merely to sell a few more tickets (though the movie's stylishness and brutality certainly didn't hurt its box office), but to make the audience feel, at the visceral level, the destructiveness and utter futility of revenge.

There are no concessions to the audience's sensibilities. Moviegoers are used to photorealism; Oldboy goes for portraiture. (The director has claimed the movie's cinematography was partly influenced by the paintings of Goya and Velasquez, and it shows, especially in the justly celebrated corridor fight). Standard dramatic exposition is abandoned as the movie leaps dizzyingly from scene to elliptical scene, leaving the audience to play catch-up. Scenes of unbearable torture and suffering alternate with scenes of tenderness, humor, surreal imaginings. We jump back and forth in time as we grow closer to finding out the unspeakable truth. And when all is revealed, the director adds a final twist of the knife: Dae-Su chooses to forget it all, unable to face the acts his antagonist has tricked him into committing, and the lovers are left to find what happiness they can.

Chan-Wook Park's vengeance movies are the closest the cinema has come to Shakespearean tragedy. Lear and Hamlet may be too remote from us to have the impact they undoubtedly did on Elizabethan audiences--but Oldboy is completely pulpy and modern. There are those who bristle at the comparison, rallying to the defense of "high art", those who share Tarkovsky's belief that film is a vehicle to convey sacred truths to the audience, to whom the idea that a movie can be enjoyable and intelligent is anathema. But the Bard was seen as no more than an extremely successful popular entertainer in his own time, and his contemporaries criticized him for his unruly, extravagant style-- exactly the same sort of treatment Park has been accorded. Which is to say that by comparing Oldboy to Macbeth, I don't mean any more than that Oldboy 1) is awesome entertainment and 2) explores a basic facet of human nature. You can't ask for more from a movie than that.