Another stripped down, simple song from Germany, this time sung by a really cute, baby-faced lad. A gentle ballad as opposed to Lena’s creepy cool or her bubbly quirk, it continues a strong series of songs from the nation.
4. Switzerland
The lead singer many be scarily manscaped, but Switzerland’s entry is a fantastic dance rock track. It’s a genre growing in popularity in Eurovision entries. Catchy and unforgettable. Plus- love the accented vocals.
3. Slovenia
My BFF Nina even likes this song. After the last few years apologizing for the over the top Christina wannabe and that other thingy (forgettable…), The best of the 2012 pop ballads has a strong vocalist in Eva Boto (seriously, girl, strong pipes) and a song with an interesting melody that is bolstered by militaristic drumming and a soaring melody.
2. Hungary
I had a soft spot for Kati Wolf’s fantastic dance ditty from last year, and Hungary returns with a power ballad that tugs at the heart-strings. Even my cold, cynical muscle grew three sizes too big when I heard it. Lovely.
1. Malta
I am a huge sucker for Eurotrash dance music, and this song is not only the best representation of that since Hadise got all “Dum Tek Tek”, it’s the best song Eurovision has this year. Infectious, celebratory, and dude, I need me some glow sticks stat.
DARK HORSEs: Iceland
I love it when we Scandinavians get all dark and stormy. I can never peg the Eurovision voters, either jury or televoting. Does this odd little Icelandic song fit in this years music scheme, or will it get ditched? I hope it goes through, because it’s a great song with an interesting structure.
Ireland
Because Jedward are an unstoppable force. Seriously, someone stop them. I beg you. Or at least give them Ritalin.
I would like to start of reiterating that I hate the judges and everything they have said this season except for the audition rounds, when they still had some guts and the ability to say “Fuck a duck”. Thank you.
Tonight’s show was part Velveeta smothered Velveeta, part realizing I don’t listen to much country music radio anymore, part screaming “Zeppelin” while my daughters looked on in resignation, and part hating the judges and loving Jimmy Iovine. I haven’t been this passionate about a contestant since season seven. I am obsessed about Haley making it to the top two. But is this purely reactionary? I don’t think so- I was coming around to her before the insanity of the judging hit me. A lot of comment boards have quoted some blogger’s study of the critiques this year, where Haley had some 17 notes about how terrible she is, mostly from Randy. I once told her she made me fall asleep. Listening to her recording of “Blue” now, I realize that it wasn’t really Haley. It was the song. I have always disliked that song. And the news earlier today about her singing Zeppelin just cinched it. The girl has impeccable music taste.
But we have to start of with the king of Gorgonzola, Scotty “Eyebrow raise side leaning” McCreery. Of his three songs tonight, I hate one, am ambivalent about another, and had never heard the third. I’ll let you guess which is which. Yeas, “Amazed” ia one of those cheesy ass love songs about how perfect that other person is that makes me puke in my mouth a bit every time I hear it. Scotty’s vocal was fine for what it was. His second song, Thompson Square’s “Are You Gonna Kiss Me Or Not” is one of the few songs on the planet I’m not familiar with in any shape or form. It was his best performance of the evening.
The less said about his Lawrence Welk audition with “She Believe’s In Me”, the better. That was horrific.
Lauren impressed me this week. She’s still in desperate need of proper vocal training- she was breathless and behind in her cadences most of the night. But she has a voice under all that spray tan, eye makeup, and hair extensions. But she sounded really good on both The Band Perry’s “If I Die Young” ( another song I don’t know) and “I Hope You Dance” ( a song that makes me blubber). I am, however, gonna have to tell her, as a huge Faith Hill fan, to never sing “Wild One” ever again. She just can’t pull of the sass and I can’t stand the fact she seemed to hyperventilate her way through that song, and she can’t outgrowl Haley, so that growly end to “I Hope You Dance” was a bit of a mess. I think Lauren earned the right to be a part of the finale. I just don’t think she has the fan base.
Haley, though, might make it in on pure talent, tenacity, and a fanatical Idol base tired of being manipulated. Nigel has been bitching all week about bloggers being brats. Well, you know what, Nigel? We are. We whine, we commiserate, we bitch. We also are smart enough to know that you read us all and you take notes. This week The judges threw out some very subtle critiques, particularly to Lauren. Haley was however, praised, even during her last song. Granted, the judges did praise the right parts of “You Oughta Know”, and Haley did mess up a lyric. But those choruses were packed with WOW! I even liked “Rhiannon”, one of my all time favourite songs. It was a great contrast with her other two songs, the angry Alanis classic and the deep, rich textures of jazz, blues, and classic rock that was Led ZEppelin’s “What Is and What Should Never Be”. She may have tripped up the stairs during that performance, but she held it together and nailed that sucker.
It’s a tough one. I’ve seen Haley trending off and on through the night on Twitter. The raw numbers page on Dial Idol has Haley in a massive lead, even if she sits at the bottom of the predictions board.
So I’m going to hold to my all girl finale prediction from last week. I think Scotty’s “Fanbase” is actually less solid than people think. I rarely meet anyone who really, truly thinks he’s going to make it in coutry music. He’s not untalented as a singer, but we are talking country raido. Those PD’s are mean sonsofbitches.
I’m picking Scotty to go home. He lacked a real moment.
My North American friends, the ones not as obsessed with everything music around the world no matter how obscure or terrible they may be ( hi, Soviet era pop music!) have tweeted me about Eurovision. They have all been touched by Eurovision, even if they didn’t realize it. I mean, they’ve all heard “Waterloo”. They haven’t been living in caves near Tora Bora.
But the following is a list of Eurovision songs they may not have heard of, but they should probably listen to. Just to round out their musical education.
I know the U.K. is the frontrunner with Blue’s “I Can”, but there are better songs. Expand your international music palette with the following bands and songs.
First, from Serbia, the lovely and charming Nina from Belgrade. She’s only 21, which explains how she can pull off the Mia Farrow pixie cut. Below is the English version of the song. It’s still awfully catchy.
First thing today, Nigel got all whiny about being slammed for manipulating his show today on Twitter. Wah, Nigel. Shut the fuck up.
Second, Lauren Alaina went up a couple of awesome points on the Kirsten scale by defending Haley in a post show interview with the press last night. While defending her friend, she also took a dig at the judges for not offering up criticism and helping her along to a better place. Even Lauren Alaina knows something is funky.
Third- I’m kinda sad to see James go, because I find him so gosh darn endearing while being annoyed at him all the time. It’s a sad night, because I do maintain James is a good singer. He just needs to learn how to control that huge, rock star voice of his.
And when Haley was saved, the KPed household erupted into teenage shrieks, as Gwen (13) and Aislinn (10) both saw their favourite saved.
Two girls in the top three. I racked my brain for when the last time that happened was. I was sure it was the year Fantasia won. It turns out it was season six, when Melinda and Jordin faced Blake Lewis. I thought Melinda came in fourth that year, and Lakisha fifth. What can I say, the memory sucks now after three kids and turning thirty.
So the right three people made it to the top three ( let us have some revisionist history with that. I’m trying to not think about the save and Pia).
Here is to next week, where I hope Haley and Lauren mop the floor with Scotty, as I like him less and less the more I think about Wednesday’s performances.
Fuck you and your judges. And while we’re at it, fuck you with a chainsaw.
You allow James and Lauren to be overpraised for those atrocious performances, with four vocals that were wildly off-key ( I swear James was both sharp and flat SIMULTANEOUSLY while singing “Don’t Stop Believin’”), then bitch to Haley about song choice ( “Earth Song” was not a hit? Really? Where were they in 1995 when I couldn’t escape the Goddamned thing?), instead of PRAISING HER FLAWLESS VOCAL. Haley was the only one of the four to deliver near pitch perfect performances, and Scotty’s vocal quaver I forgive because it’s the first one he has had all season, and it was on a song I DON’T EVEN KNOW.
At least you gave Haley’s astounding version of “I (Who Have Nothing)” the standing ovation it deserved.
Honestly, you hypocritical bastards.
As it stands, I am here to tell you that I am giving you my two weeks notice. I will finish off this season. Then I will move on to The X-Factor with no regrets and watch a couple of real judges work. I heard L.A. Reid was brutal in auditions, making Simon Cowell look like- well, you guys.
Oh, and Randy, we all heard you say last week that you weren’t rooting for Haley. We know the show has always had a degree of manipulation. But the blatant obviousness of the manipulation this season has pissed me off. On top of that, the judges critiques are full of lies. I’m trained enough as a musician to know the difference between flat and on pitch. The only person to do that successfully this week was Haley.
I hope Haley wins to spite you four. I’ll buy her record. And she will be my last Idol.
I watched the new NBC talent show The Voice on Tuesday and promptly fell in love. I had to miss Idol this week due to family commitments, and I didn’t miss it. I’m not happy about Casey being sent home, but… yeah. I’m not overly excited with who is left. Haley is charming enough, but really, there isn’t a lot making me want to watch.
There is no Idol recap as a result this week. And God help me about next week. Because I think Haley will probably go home. Then I can really stop caring.
The show was completely worthless except for the fact David Cook sang and it was awesome. And Stefano went home finally and that was awesome. And it looks as though Jacob and Haley are next in the go home queue.
Other than that- nada.
Well, this. This is always fantastic.
Yeah. Some things just make sense to me, and that does.
It’s now at the stage of the competition where tics and quirks start to annoy me. I give James a pass on this, naturally, the dude can’t help it, but both Scotty and Stefano are grating on my nerves, and Casey even irked me a bit tonight.
Even worse, the performances were all pretty mediocre, save for one.
First the worst, which was the eliminated contestants. What were they all thinking? That was the very definition of train wreck and did nothing to change my mind about who all went home. I almost decided to go and watch Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part One on Blu-Ray instead.
Scotty’s version of “Swingin’”, the very definition of Velveeta, did not make me feel better about sticking it out. It was just so meh. But the astonishing thing was the fact that both J.Lo and Randy CALLED HIM OUT ON SONG CHOICE. Scotty had ten years of great country to pick from, and after stepping back from a risk last week, he proved to be just immature enough to refuse to push ahead even though he knows he has others nipping at his frontrunner heels. He could have done something great or interesting, instead of the same MOR country crap he always does.
I loved the fact James picked Muse, but I did not like the shrieks at the end, and he was flat through out. THe screaming wrecked a simple but fantastic melodic vocal line. It was unnecessary.
Jacob continues to grow, as his surprisingly restrained-for-Jacob version of “Dance With My Father” was both emotional but tasteful-for-Jacob. I’ve question Jacob’s ability to pick songs and make choices all season, but he did right this week. But someone should smack Randy for saying he wants unrestrained Jacob. Church is fine sometimes, but the guy needs to not do it every single song, Randy. this was one song that didn’t need it.
Stefano’s “Closer” and Lauren’s “Born To Fly” were both snoozes. Stefano will be going home.
Casey’s “Harder To Breathe” was weird, because he clearly is Adam Levine in disguise. He sounded almost EXACTLY like Levine in this song. I didn’t like the stalking around the stage. And the kiss was fun but, again, way too much nonsense. Just sing, damn it.
Haley, though, wowed me. Her version of Adele’s “Rolling in the Deep” was not, as J. Lo suggested, better in spots than Adele’s, but it was both the best vocal and performance of the week. I have gone from hating everything Haley is to loving her, and that has never happened to me with Idol before. My notes consist of two words- “Great vocal”. And it was. It wasn’t perfect, there was some sharpness, but it was the best package deal of the night. And I also love love LOVE that Adele track.
Bottom three- Stefano, Lauren, and Scotty SHOULD be, but I suspect it’ll be Stefano, Casey, and Jacob, because I do think it’s going to be a Lauren/Scotty final two and I don’t see them sitting on the silver stools of death any time soon.
Stefano to go. He’s running on borrowed time to begin with.
Actually, I may have wanted Stefano to go, and thought maybe Piagate would send him there, but I prepared myself all day for the possibility of a Paul elimination. Good thing I did, as the raspy voiced quirkmeister headed away, along with his musical taste and Nudie suits. I’m sad, but I’m not in any way going to rant and rave. I knew Paul’s chances of winning were zero. But it was fun to have him there, and I will miss him. If he releases a record, let me know, I’d buy it.
I called the bottom three this week, correct for the first time all season. Haley was saved, and her duet with Casey was fan-freakin’-tastic. In fact, of all the music tonight, including KELLY CLARKSON! and Jason Aldean’s sleepy duet, were topped by the jazzy stylings of my two favourite growlers.
Overall, after two weeks of really amazing elimination shows, this weeks was just- blah. There was no controversy, no surprise guest stars (just Chaka- Chaka- Chaka Khan in the audience. Chaka Khan). THe performances, save for the jazz!, were mediocre. Scotty was even off-key during his duet with Wittle Wauren, shockingly. The Ford music video was lame… Rihanna’s song was lame… Kelly was awesome singing a lame song…
Lame.
I have nothing more to add. So I’ll see you next week. Or on Twitter.
After the debacle that was last week, I was hoping that at least when I sat down and watched tonight’s Idol performances, the praise for praise sake would stop. I’m not denying the judges claim that the Idols this year are pretty strong across the board. But the desire to be liked is making me hate the judges in a way I have never hated them before. That being said, Pia did herself no favours by picking safe song choices and being so clinically perfect as to be mistaken by me to be a fembot. Owen Gleiberman at Entertainment Weekly delivered the best write up over the Pia controversy I have read all week, and Michael Slezak and Alexis Grace fell into the “It’s the tween’s fault” trap that annoys me about the whole debate. Everyone knows I love Slezak, but he is wrong wrong WRONG. And Alexis, I love you, but you sounded bitter. It’s not a good look, hon. Yes, you’re elimination at 11th place was a major travesty, but after the judges refused to save you, there was nothing I could do.
After that, this week had to be so fantastic, the world could end on a high note.
So…
Movie week proved to be interesting.
Haley, who has been going up my Idol fave chart the last couple of weeks by being bluesy and quirky, delivered a train wreck version of “Call Me”. It was horrifically off-key, and my heart sank. I do appreciate the judges at least trying to be honest, in a roundabout way. None of them liked the song choice. I didn’t either. Debbie Harry is a heavily stylized singer, and Haley doesn’t have the right voice to pull it off. The audience booed them. But it was the obvious bad performance of the night- it was clearly pitchy and messy in a bad way. It was a safe performance for them to be critical of.
Paul’s strained and wonky paced “Ol’ Time Rock and Roll” broke my heart. It was just so not good. But the judges said nothing. Lauren sounded great for most of ” The Climb”, but in one run, she landed so flat on one note I swear to God I had to check to see if the world was indeed still spinning. The judges said not one word. Stefano’s performance of “End of the Road” was better than Ambien. Randy proclaimed that Stefano was in it to win it. Really, Mr. Obvious?
It was enough to almost make me throw my Idol note pad into the trash bin and go start watching The Situation do something.
But the good tonight was so incredibly good.
I don;’t agree with every vocal choice Casey made in “Nature Boy”, but man, I love the dude when he does jazz. Jazz, along with country music, is the truest of the American art forms, and it gets no love. I would love to see a jazzier artist win Idol, if my own jazz collection would back me up. I don’t think it will happen, but at least it’s something new on this stage.
The same thing can be said for James’s version of “Heavy Metal”, which has my vote for performance of the night. First off, he has ZAKK Motherfuckin’ WYLDE! playing guitar. Second- its metal on Idol. Genuine metal. He did it once with Judas Priest, but again? With Jimmy Iovine and Will.IJustLiveHereNow.Am telling him to not do that song? I admire James all the more for it.
Scotty sang that George Strait song well enough, but the clip of him singing the classic “Everybody’s Talkin’” makes me mourn for what I might have seen. I ould have declared Scotty this weeks winner if he did that Harry Nilsson classic. He played it safe. And I feel cheated, despite the performance he gave. “Everybody’s Talkin’” is a cool song. Scotty needs to do something cool.
Jacob, though, was wisely talked out of singing “The Impossible Dream”, a song only allowed to be sung by Richard Kiley, who is dead. Jimmy gave Jacob the tow best pieces of advice this season- don’t tell the audience who votes for you they’re idiots, and you can’t be corny this week. “Bridge over Troubled Water” was indeed made for Jacob’s voice and stylistic choices. It’s a song that can handle the Over the top nature of Jacob. I think it’s Jacob’s best performance this season, and it was certainly more restrained than I thought it would be from him.
Overall, it was a half and half show, but the judges have apparently learned nothing much.
My bottom three are Paul, Haley, and Stefano. I’m ready to sacrifice Paul this week, as that was the wonkiest of wonky. But Haley was the worst of the week. But I’m also afraid for Stefano, who might get a backlash from Piagate.
I am pissed off. But not for the reason you might think.
I have been annoyed by American Idol’s judges. I can fault them for many, many things- inconsistency, platitudes, spinelessness, hypocrisy.
But in nine seasons of watching Idol, they have never offended me.
And they did tonight.
I am not a Pia fan, but I do acknowledge the technical brilliance of her voice. I find her cold and sterile as a performer, pageanty even. But I acknowledge her talent. She has the possibility to grow as a performer if she stops being so calculated and learns to be an artist as opposed to a vessel. I didn’t think Pia would be going home, although I did think both she and Jacob ( and Lauren, if we want to get really critical, here) needed a bottom three slot in order to get them to think about what they’re doing. I know Idol contestants read blogs and press. I know they know what we all think of them. Idol is a fan driven show- everyone knows.
The only people oblivious are the judges.
I know I’m not the only Idol writer who has called Pia emotionless as a performer. No one has ever said she’s a bad singer in anything I have read. It’s all about how she connects with the audience. And the judges did her no favours by not saying something sooner ( J.Lo, to her credit, did begin to hint at it last night, but it was a baby step). The judges have been overly effusive this year, with little in actual, solid advice. Pia needed someone- ANYONE- to say to her that she was coming across cold. No one did.
Yes, Stefano should have gone home, based strictly on performance. He knew it, too. His face after the announcement was completely stunned, and I thought he was about to pass out.
No, this is not offensive to me. Because Idol is an audience driven show. And the audience who voted last night didn’t like Pia enough to vote her to safety. That’s the way the cookie crumbles. And 19′s gonna sign her overnight to a deal and everything will be okay for Pia. I was never worried about her post-Idol.
But the judges comments afterwards- THAT is what offended me. They have spent weeks telling everyone how perfect and beautiful and flawless they are. They are supposed to be giving honest critiques about how shrieky Jacob is, how soulless Pia is, how whiny Lauren is, how Scotty’s eyebrows are not endearing every minute of every song, how flat James can be, how Haley needs to growl less, how Casey and Paul both need to find the right key at moments- the contestants may be the strongest batch the show has ever had, but they are also heavily flawed raw talent that need proper guidance, and these judges aren’t giving it to them. If you squawk on and on about how perfect everyone every week is, and enough people believe it, the good ones are in danger of going home.
So first- stop being scared about hurting their feelings. TELL THEM THE UNVARNISHED TRUTH. You don’t have to be Cowellesque about it. You can be honest without being mean. But do it.
Secondly, the people who were not in the bottom three probably all felt like shit when you sat there and basically indicated that you think Pia is more worthy than them. Jennifer didn’t sob when Asht(h)on left. Randy wasn’t pissed off when Naima went home last week. There was no talk about how shocking and outrageous it was. It was a horrible, cruel thing to do. Poor Stefano already looked sick, and you basically told him that he did deserve to go, and that you basically have been lying to him.
So- keep perspective. someone will go home every week. and in a season with no clear front-runner, it will be someone you prefer over someone else.
Third. You basically told the American people they made the wrong choice. No they didn’t. They made their choice. When you have a show that uses a past the post system to determine a winner, the one who wins is the one with the biggest fan base. We fool ourselves every year that Idol is a singing competition. It’s never been one. It’s a popularity contest, and Pia didn’t speak to enough people this week. When democratic voting happens, the people are never wrong. Disagree, but my God, Steven Randy Jennifer- DO NOT TELL THEM THEY ARE WRONG.
The people are never wrong. Not when it comes to silly little reality shows. This isn’t the free world they’re running here. It’s pop music.
The judges offended me tonight by showing their true colours- they talk out of their asses and tell everyone how perfect they are, and then chastise the voting public when they don’t get their way.
Other than Pia going home, the only other thing worth mentioning is Iggy Pop doing “Real Wild Child”, because Iggy Pop is the king of all that is good in the world.
I am so fucking mad at the judges I could spit acid.
I will not get to say Pia Thia Megia again until the finale. That’s probably been my favourite thing to say at home all season. Sigh.
The show still begins each episode with the overblown hype that they have perfected over the first nine seasons, but honestly, was anyone surprised that Thia and Naima went home? Really? They did have the two weakest performances last night.
I have to admit that the lack of a group number and the grouping off of Idols was a great thing. I thought Scotty and Lauren were a major win with their lovely little country duet, and Naima sounded really good on “Solid” ( Jacob sounded like Foghorn Leghorn). The other girls “Teenage Dream” was alright, and the guys sloppy “Band on the Run” had its charm, but mostly it proved that there is indeed a voice issue with Paul, as in he’s suffering from something. His tone’s unique, but he’s not pushing his voice much. I’m thinking the whisper touches are less aesthetic choices and more to save his vocal chords.
Fantasia, the soul queen of the Idol stage, came back and showed them yungins how to sell a song, even if it’s weirdly titled like “Collared Greens and Cornbread”. She looked better than she has in a while, and she gave the Idols the best and most practical advice ever on that stage. “It can throw you things that you are just not ready for,” she warned. The woman has lived an actual life. I wonder how much some of those kids really, really, really LOVE music. I get the impression most of them do. I also think a couple of them need to figure out what it is about music they do actually love.
I will not mention the other performers. Or that atrocity called a song.
Paul being in the bottom over Stefano surprised me, as I thought “Tiny Dancer” was one of the worst of the night and “Rocket Man” one of the better ones. But reading the comments all over the web is quite enlightening. People really hate his voice. I guess it’s all a personal choice. I love it.
Kris Allen looks good, too. I still like him, and I stand by my choice of him over Adam. I know that irritates people. But I listen to Kris’s album more than Adam’s ( listen to Allison’s even more than that, but we must let bygones be bygones).
Next week is the theme “Rock and Roll Hall of Fame”. How wonderfully broad a theme.
Bye bye to Naima, whom I think can still succeed in the business, and to Thia, who I think has a nice tone but is clearly on the robot side of things. I wish them both well.
I admit it. The problem with this season’s contestants is the fact they don’t suck. The judges and America set up a top eleven that were generally solid singers. Some have horrendous habits, but overall, none of them are out-and-out terrible. I don’t viciously hate anyone, even if I think there is some immaturity and some ego issues. The group we have are all pretty good. Which is why all Idol experts are stumped at who the front-runner is. Most people, myself included, have Scotty winning based on the fact that he’s a good singer who is sure of his style and place in music, and he has yet to make a serious misstep in the voting rounds. This can change.
Not this week, though.
First- the bad. And bad means Naima. Oh, Naima, that was… I almost never hit the mute button. I’ve fallen asleep, changed the channel, left the room, but the mute button, in my mind, is the most offensive thing I can do to an Idol contestant. It means I don’t want to hear you, even faintly in my kitchen. Once I heard the Jamaican accent on “I’m Still Standing”, I went straight for my remote. Naima has a great voice, and is willing to do new things on the Idol stage, but… that was thirty seconds of horrible. I couldn’t bear a second more. And judging the judges- they didn’t like it much, either. And then there is poor Stefano, who went from first to among the worst, and this week did nothing to really redeem himself in my eyes, as I am now noticing vocal tics and strange pronunciations coming from him . What’s leeinin? I’m thinking Stefano and Naima are the two going home this week.
Then there was Paul’s wonderfully, insanely quirky and moving “Rocket Man”. Thank God Nigel allowed the instruments back. The restrained, oddly phrased yet compelling performance Paul gave was a real moment for me.
But the performance of the night was last week’s eliminated fool turned saved humbled returner Casey Abrams, who sat on a stool, and sang. Simply, elegantly, straight forward, with no growling like a maniac and stuff. It was lovely, and he earned his place back onto the show quickly.
If push comes to shove, I think it’s Naima and Stefano going home, although Haley and Thia continue to be at risk. If any of the middle bunch were in the bottom three I wouldn’t be surprised. Everyone (outside Naima and Stefano) were really quite good.
I’m still, nearly 10 hours later, trying to figure out what happened.
How did Haley not slide into the bottom three? How did Thia and Stefano not go home? How did CASEY- who wasn’t great but certainly not even close to the worse this week- get eliminated? Why do people hate the beard so much ( seriously, comments boards are violently anti-beard. At least Andrew Sullivan has Casey’s back)?
And why did the judges use the save?
Frankly, the entire episode reeked of manipulation and meta nonsense. Between the Hulk Hogan cameo (earning groans from my wrestling and reality TV hating family), the horrible group sing ( seriously, lose the group sing. I hate them all during the group sing), and the completely effed up Ford Music Video ( I really hate them all), and RyRy acting like some sort of deranged Brit presenter circa 1982 (I’m thinking Top of the Pops, but Paula Yates on anything might also be an apt comparison)- it was a weird and entertaining show.
I must admit, I like the Sugarland song, but I am a Jennifer Nettles devotee. And I worship J-Hud. (Nice to see George Huff there, too, singing behind the Oscar-winning Goddess. I loved George’s version of “Take Me To the Pilot”).
But the bottom three, while not wholly surprising, did shock when Casey was sent packing, only to be rescued a mere five seconds into his “make it or break it” song by the judges declaring that there is no need to discuss, Casey is staying. Casey’s reaction was the most amusing thing, even if I was genuinely scared for the dude, as he looked about ready to pass out on poor RyRy. Gwen bet he was gonna “vomit comet” the stage.
I would have paid a million dollars to see that.
Overall, while this week accomplished nothing, it was surprisingly a good week entertainment wise. Lord knows I now expect every Idol elimination show to be that bizarre.
Thanks, Nigel. You somehow left me perplexed and amused.
Once again I am at a loss. What do the judges hear in that place? It’s not what I’m hearing.
First: the bad. Haley. That was the true train wreck moment, a disaster of epic proportions, a surefire go home on Thursday card. Her version of “You Really Got A Hold on Me”, one of the greatest of the Motown love songs, was loungey and showed off the thinness of her voice, and she clumped around on stage like a hippo. It was painful to watch, and then they all praised her for it. What the eff, judges?
And then Thia- oh, Thia, who just is completely uninteresting and unable to complete her phrasing and just so- ugh. I have never seen in her the “greatness” the judges do. I certainly don’t hear any special tone. If there is one, it don’t play well on TV. And “Heatwave” must be retired, as it will always sound dated.
Stefano, sweetie with the cute lil’ dimple. That was a big fat no, and you lost all good will. “Hello” is a terrible song unless you are playing a Les Paul marked “AC” and with pre-makeover hair, singing it with an impassioned rock and roll growl.
Then there comes the “meh”. Lauren is “meh”. I still get the attitude from her, and she rolls her eyes while talking out of her ass about leanin’ to not take criticism too personal and y’all. I said previously that entitlement seeps from her pores, and I will not change my mind. It’s like she expects to win simply because she’s Lauren and she’s the best. Her vocal this week wasn’t all that great, and “You Keep Me Hanging On” is a fantastic song to sing. She had the attitude, mind you, but attitude only goes so far.
Jacob gets a “meh- wait, maybe not”. Marvin Gaye is soul brother number one, and his duets with Tammi Terrell are possibly my favourite Motown tracks. ” You’re All I Need” is certainly in my Motown top five. And kudos, Jacob, for not overdoing it ( it would have been easy to go all Praise Jesus over that song). I’m still not 100% convinced about Jacob’s voice or taste level, but I did really like this week’s performance. I said it. Bring it.
We knew Scotty would be a tough one, and it turns out “For Once In My Life” wouldn’t make a bad country song. I’m not the biggest Scotty fan, but I recognize that he is well suited to his genre and is actually petty much pitch perfect vocally. He rarely makes a vocal slip up, and he’s still pushing his boundaries. He’s a brave soul. It wasn’t super awesome, but it was at least good. I was expecting full on catastrophe.
Pia the Fembot™ gave another patented Pia the Fembot™ ballad the pitch perfect, technically spot on vocals that had absolutely no soul. When I watch her perform all I can see is “pageant hand”. I want to set her up on stage in a straight jacket shrieking to the Ramones “Psychotherapy” if it meant one performance where she wouldn’t do the damn “pageant hand”. And I might not then trademark Pia the Fembot (™).
Casey, whom I adore, really didn’t do much new with “I Heard It Through The Grapevine”. It was a solid vocal. But it wasn’t spectacular. Casey is in danger of boring me. That’s not good.
Now, for the good.
Naima, full-throated and controlled on “Dancing In the Streets”, bringing in the African drums. Maybe the breakdown dance break was a bit much, but it was at least interesting. It was by far her best vocal in weeks, though, and that helps.
James can sing pretty much anything as an Axl Rose song, as his “Living For The City” proved tonight. I love the fact he’s comfortable with who he is, and I also love the fact we all know he has that rock scream and he keeps using it with surprising judiciousness.
But my favourite this week was Paul, who looks less spastic with his guitar, and did a sweet and folky version of “Tracks of My Tears”. I like his vibe, and his taste level is superb. But in a week with a lot of sound alike performances and some really weird judging, he was a breath of fresh air. The arrangement was both familiar and new. And that voice is just so cool.
My bottom three are Thia, Haley, and Stefano, with Haley going home. She just doesn’t have anything to bring. Bye bye, Haley. Nice knowing you.
The title is just a fancy, music geek way of saying “No More Heroes”. Or “Hero”, as the case may be. Thanks to the Stranglers.
Ultimately, I was right about who would be eliminated, and Karen was sent en su camino feliz. The group number was less terrible but still awful. Lee Dewyze was fine. RyRy seems to be entering Mean Girl World. The Black Eyed Peas suck. Jennifer Lopez looks gorgeous no matter what.
Basically, this was the show. And all I have to say is: what a tremendous waste of time.
Still grooving to David Cook’s “Don’t You (Forget About Me)”. Love that.
Seriously, weren’t they supposed to make these show thirty minutes? Why did that change? So Black Eyed Peas could desecrate a classic Depeche Mode song?
I love comedy. Adore it. We Canadians are renowned for it. I am not easily offended, and firmly believe that if it exists and it happened, it can and should be made fun of in some way. There is a tasteful way and stupid way, but nothing is off-limits.
That’s why shows like 10 O’Clock Live appeal to me. There is always a danger when live TV, politics, and witty people collide, like a high wire act on a piece of cotton thread- it’s gonna break, you just don’t have a clue when, and there is no safety net (except if you are American Idol with Steven Tyler and Fox has given you a fifteen second delay for every show lest you bombard the precious kiddies of America with the word “Fuck”, which they all already use, God forbid).
But there is something about comedy I don’t like, and that is the underlying misogyny. Jerry Lewis once proclaimed women aren’t funny, and it’s become one of those things comedians say when there are no women on a bill or on a panel. It’s a big lie, of course, as some of the funniest people alive are women. Women are quicker to laugh at comedy shows, and they put up with men, so clearly we are all born with fantastic senses of humour. ( That was a joke, men. Jesus. You’re all not that funny, you know, so we don’t laugh at you. Much.) Joan Rivers, Phyllis Diller, French and Saunders, Jo Brand, Elvira Kurt, Rosanne, Ellen DeGeneres, Ronni Ancona- these are funny women. Hell, they are just funny people.
Lauren Laverne, I concede up front, is not a trained comedian. She’s not a comedy writer. She is new to the ins and outs of the way a comedy show works. The nasty shots taken at her through the comedy world and British media are not wrong about these things. They are wrong about her not being funny. Reading the reviews for 10 O’Clock Live is unpleasant at the best of times, but the comments about Laverne are sometimes unnecessary. The worst ones are the ones who just give in to the myth and proclaim that if Laverne isn’t funny, then women aren’t funny, and the show should just be the three blokes ( although there is a group of critics who seem to think the show should just be David Mitchell and Charlie Brooker ranting for an hour and that would be it. While I’d watch that show, too, that isn’t fair to Jimmy Carr, who I think has been a great sport and truly hilarious at times. But that is a different Kirsten rant for a different day).
I know I complained early on about the tokenism, that Laverne seems to be filling a role for the Channel Four satire show that really is undefined. There still remains an aspect of this, but I think I have figured out her role. It’s not glamorous, it’s not even particularly non-misogynystic, but it’s clear to me Lauren Laverne is there to keep the show from completely going apeshit off the rails. Champion ranters Brooker and Mitchell could go on for an hour each, and all three guys are notoriously quick-witted. Laverne is acerbic and dry witted, and not everything she says hits everyone, but she is a damn fine presenter and I really like her on this show. (Her comment on Thursday’s show about being a working mother means Bailey’s on her Corn Flakes was relatable to this working mum of three girls, one who is a teenager). I chuckle a lot when she’s on-screen. She’s not laugh a minute, but she’s not supposed to be. Her job is to keep the show moving, to be the person with the eye on the clock and make sure it comes in on time, and sorry, David, if that means you don’t get to say what is a very funny witticism at 11:00 pm.
Yes, she does those taped pieces, where she is edited and it works better. The timing can be fussed with. Bugger off, everyone can be made “hilarious” with editing, that’s the explanation I come up with for Louis CK ( I don’t get it. Sorry. But glad for you if you enjoy him).
But unfunny? That’s an unfair comment. And the idea she be replaced by someone like Holly Walsh or Miranda Hart? Also unfair. Not just to Laverne, but to Walsh and Hart, who are comedians and who would be promptly put into the role of mother hen. The complaint from the critics then would be “They aren’t presenters! THey’re comedians! Why are they doing the presenting job!” Honestly, the girls in this scenario, and ultimately the show, can’t win.
I thought that the most recent episode of 10 O’Clock Live was it’s best. The pacing issues will always be there as long as they stuff the show with so many ideas, but Mitchell is improving as a moderator/interviewer, Brooker’s dark humour is being well used, and Carr really is game for ANYTHING. But mostly, this 33-year-old single working mother of three girls feels a kinship of a sort with the pretty blonde former rock star with the great chignon and awesome wardrobe who makes me laugh.
You know something, I don’t have much in my life. Lauren Laverne makes it a bit better once a week by making me feel as if there is a better version of myself out there making at least one person laugh. Because she’s funnier than you are.
If it weren’t for Casey Abrams, I’d write off the damn thing.
The girls were terrible. The boys were mediocre.
Steven and Jennifer were effusive and uncritical. When Randy is the voice of reason, something is wrong.
And DO NOT SING SONGS BY FORMER IDOL WINNERS. Also, stop singing “Fallin’”. How many fucking times do I have to tell you girls, stop singing that song?
Every goddamned year.
Although, I give credit to James for singing Judas Priest. Never thought I’d see the day. And Thia wasn’t horrible.
As it is, there is too much screechy shit, too many runs, too many off-key performances, too many weird dance moves, too many people I already dislike intensely ( Clint Jun, Lauren Alaina, Jordan). I just want it all to stop.
Casey for the win. I love Mumford and Sons. And he looks like he belongs in that group. And I also love “I Put A Spell on You”, which was TyraBanksSays FIERCE.
I swear these reviews will get better once I start really giving a damn. Somewhere around top four.
The British satire news programme, 10 O’Clock Live, is currently hitting the midway point of its first series, and I must say, it’s been- well, interesting. A winning on-air team of very smart, funny people has given the show instant cult status and instant critical derision. The show is an oxymoron wrapped in a question wrapped in an enigma wrapped in bacon. It both aggravates and delights me.
Basically, I’m sitting here say I love the show despite its flaws and because of its strengths. It could be my own actively political mind, my deep interest in the United Kingdom as a political and social entity, or that I am a bit in love with each one of the Gang of Four that host the show. But I am really enjoying it.
Many of the issues I have with the show itself- Lauren Laverne’s role is still being figured out, the round tables and interviews are still feeling rushed and unfinished, pacing issues abound- are still being worked out. But the things I love- the rants by David Mitchell and Charlie Brooker, Jimmy Carr’s monologue, Lauren’s dresses ( I WANT THAT WARDROBE)- these things are perfection.
The show is doing a nice job, however, at stirring up some trouble. Milo Yiannopoulos created a brouhaha when he proclaimed that protesting was ineffective, a large enough one for him to write a column about the fall out of his appearance ( which was more a bitchfest about mean ol’ commies taking over Twitter). Weeks after the show had a roundtable about the selling off of government-owned forests, the plan went into “review”, or placed on the back-burner until the outcry dies down. Chances that the Royal Mail will be privatised are slim, seeing as a generation of politicians in the U.K. have tried and failed to get that idiotic idea off the ground. The show has been on during a spell of activity on the international stage has gotten the hosts plenty to work with, made easier by the delusional speeches given by horrible despots, most of them backed by an unending series of governments at home in order to keep the status quo.
Over the last few weeks, I have seen Lauren and Jimmy take on an interview with Stephen J. Dubner, one of the authors of Freakanomics. It was one of the smoothest interviews in the shows history, as Lauren has experience in sitting back a bit and allowing the thoughts flow naturally, and Jimmy seemed to follow her lead there. I love David Mitchell to bits, but honestly I always thought Lauren should have dealt with the majority of one on ones. I still think the show is afraid to leave her on her own unless they have her in an edited piece, which is just unfair. I’m sure that’s not what is going on, but it feels like that to me as a viewer. I do particularly love David Mitchell’s pedantry. “Literally” and “figuratively” are not interchangeable, Sally Bercow.
The show is developing an easy, breezy feel, with excellent regular features. The cast is settling into their roles well, and the interviews are feeling a bit less rushed, although they still have a way to go. The roundtables are still too shouty. But when the four hosts sit together at the table and talk- its bloody brilliant. The chemistry among the four of them is wonderful. Some moments I wish it was just the four of them discussing the news for an hour at the table and nothing else.
So the good things again: the cast of Jimmy Carr, Charlie Brooker, Lauren Laverne, and David Mitchell; the rants; the four host’s at the table chatting; the monologues; David’s pedantry and history nerd ability to reference William of Orange and the fall of Sparta in one episode; Lauren’s wardrobe.
The not so good: the shouty roundtables; Charlie Brooker’s hair; Lauren’s attempt at an American accent.
Getting better: interviews.
I am delighted with the show’s current state of growth and am looking forward for the next several weeks if snark and laughs. I hope by the end of the run, we’ll have figured it all out.
As I said two weeks ago in my review of the first episode of 10 O’Clock Live, live television is the toughest gig in the world. Throw in the fact that this show is not run by trained journalists but very smart comedians and one former musician turned presenter and you can see where some of the work needs to be done. It’s first episode was uneven. The second one was a near train wreck ( as much as I adore David Mitchell, he wasn’t great up against spin meister Alistair Campbell, who clearly is great at spin even if I disagreed with nearly every word he said. And that was a highlight for me). The third one sees the show finding its rhythms a bit better. It’s far from perfect, but as I have said since the beginning, it’s got a great premise and a strong on air team.
Reading through what I have on the interwebs has led me to conclude that people are morons.
Live TV is the toughest gig in the world. The variables are so great, really LIVE TV is hardly even attempted anymore. Hell, rarely is the first episode of ANYTHING really indicative of the series as a whole. Let me introduce to the pilot of The Big Bang Theory, a show I now love despite the fact the pilot was one of the worst half hours of my life. And every season of American Idol is plagued with technical glitches, bad performances, and Ryan Seacrest.
What I am saying is that the punditry is too hard on 10 O’Clock Live.
Idol makes it hard for me every year with the sob stories. I tend to get aggravated by them. Because so much focus is not on the (supposed) talent of the Idol wannabe and on the fact they overcame some sad but ultimately life affirming thingy. In the end, its how they handle themselves. David Cook handled his brother’s cancer with class. Danny Gokey pimped his dead wife. Guess who I ended up voting for?
But Idol decided not to play fair this year and presented me with Paris, a 23-year-old mum with a hearing impaired five-year-old.
Fuck, Idol.
I’m a mother of a hearing impaired eight-year-old. We mums of DAHH kids tend to fight for each other because it’s a tough life trying to communicate with someone with limited resources. Since her daughter uses hearing aids, I know that there is an ability for vocalization, but I really just want to go down to New Orléans and hug poor Paris and tell her that she has a group of people across the world that support her without even knowing her. And then tell her to move to Canada because Universal Health Care means my daughter gets new hearing aids every five years for free. Those things are expensive.
Paris, though, had a lovely voice that was brought down by nerves and pitch issues. Plus she sang an Idol winners song. Big no-no in Kirsten’s world. Don’t do that.
The rest of the contestants on this brief episode ( only an hour- huge sigh if relief) were perfectly pleasant. A lot of strong voices in the Big Easy, and several went through. There was the dude who showed his abs and basically slobbered all over Jennifer Lopez ( yeah, she’s gorgeous, but come on, people). The girl who gave Randy a bunch of photos and a visit with his high school (fake) football coach. J.C., the fifteen year old who looks like the kid animated in Up and sang like an angel. But my fave was Brett, the dude with the squeaky speaking voice, Mick Hucknall hair, and the ability to make me pay attention to “Bohemian Rhapsody” again.
I like the fact they are keeping the highly delusional off this year, and that the ones they have dismissed as not being good enough have taken it so well. No security guards to haul Idol wannabes out this season!
I usually don’t write about Idol this early. The audition rounds are meaningless to me. But with the sparkly brand new judging panel starting out, I had to watch.
This is my assessment.
Randy is no Simon. He lacks the verbosity needed to be Simon. Hell, if Randy can just not say “What up dawg” for one episode, I’d consider that growth. But he is now our senior judge and the last word. Hopefully, he can remember that he is supposed to be searching for real talent, and not get into a pissing match with anyone.
Jennifer Lopez was once in a mentorship role on Idol, and I remember her being a really good one. Her diva rep certainly followed her as she negotiated her contract, but ultimately she comes across as warm and friendly. She’s Paula like without the random tangents and weird speechifying.
Steven Tyler is batshit. I like batshit. I also love people who live and breathe music, and he does. He can’t resist a join in, adding a “Whoo!” or some percussive noise. HE combines the love of music with the Paula-esque wackiness. I love him even more for it.
The show itself benefitted from less crazy itself- there were a couple of bad auditions, but none of the dismissed where delusional on an epic scale. There were some dubious choices- I like Ashley’s voice, but she’s all wrong for the Idol machine, she needs to get her ass to Broadway now. But mostly, I was impressed by the judges critiques and the Idol wannabes that went through.
Lastly- I want a place to say “What’s with the jujubees on your yooyoobees?” Something tells me this season is gonna net me some quotables, baby.
TV hasn’t gotten worse, has it? Or does it just feel that way, seeing as the only show I still watch that debuted in September is Raising Hope, which benefits from being a sitcom that is funny. Laugh out loud funny. It has a ways to go, but it is literally the only new show I watch regularly.
It is a sad state. Most of the shows on my list this year were on last year’s. There are a couple of new ones- they’re British and I discovered them this year. But when it all comes down to it, it’s just sad that I can’t come up with newer stuff more often. And that House can still make my top 20 simply because of Hugh Laurie and Robert Sean Leonard’s performances and nothing else.
It’s that vaguely naughty title, right? It intrigues. I know the first time I saw it my SuperChannel lineup, I turned to my daughter and said “It’s gotta be British, possibly Channel 4, and it’ll be entirely about sex and men being idiots.”
I wasn’t wrong. But I was being dismissive. And that, in itself, is wrong. When one works and worships in the biz called show, one must never outright dismiss anything. It is about men being idiots and sex, it is a British sitcom, and it is on Channel 4. But it is simply the best sitcom in the world not starring Tina Fey.
It was just a bonus that it stars the genius double act of Robert Webb and David Mitchell. They don’t write it, unlike their other brilliant work, That Mitchell and Webb Look. The latter is an uproarious sketch show that almost equals for brilliance A Bit of Fry and Laurie. No, Peep Show, randy title and all, springs from the minds of Sam Bain and Jesse Armstrong. What deliciously dark and weird minds they are.
Seeing as my next album list post is music I am finding both depressing and oddly life affirming, some comedy from my favourite double act, Mitchell and Webb.
The strongest episodes of series one were all in the back half, with this and it’s conclusion being the two best of the lot. It mixes humor, history, and terror with equal pizzazz. No surprise it was written by current show runner Steven Moffat, the man who introduced the term “Melty Man” into the lexicon. These two episodes end up telling us a lot about how the Doctor works and how the relationship between Rode and the Doctor is much more than either dares to admit to each other.
We also get to meet one Captain Jack Harkness.
The Doctor and Rose are chasing some type of vessel through the time vortex. They lose it as it skips streams, but land in London during the blitz, about a month after the other vessel lands. While the Doctor goes off to talk to the locals ( Rose’s pleas that he scan for alien tech fall on deaf ears), Rose becomes distracted by the calls of a young child asking for his mummy. this leads to her climbing up the roof of a building and somehow she ends up hanging on the rope attached to a barrage balloon in the middle of the Blitz. Ah, Rose. You daft person, you. Wearing a Union Jack t-shirt in the middle of a bombing. Silly girl.
We meet Captain Jack Harkness, con man and former Time Agent, when he rescues our fair maid from falling to her death. Handsome, suave, and adaptable, Jack has stolen alien tech and seems to know an awful lot about the item the Doctor and Rose followed to London. He is all charm and harm. You can just feel it.
The Doctor, after embarrassing himself in a local night club, discovers a group of ragamuffins skulking around London during the air raid, stealing food from tables. He quickly pinpoints that Nancy is their leader, and questions them about this mysterious item, and the odd child with the gas mask that seems able to om-com a not working phone box. He is told to go to the hospital, which he does, and meets Doctor Constantine. The doctor gives the Doctor the symptoms and the reality- the people with gas mask faces and no signs of life are not really dead. But don’t touch the flesh. Then, in a truly creepy moment, Dr. Constantine begins to choke on his words and says “Are you my Mummy?”. Then he begins to change into the same zombie like creature as his patients. Rose and Jack track down the doctor in the hospital and our trio become cornered by the denizens of the hospital.
A cliff hanger ending of epic proportions.
It is telling that this episode, written by Stephen Moffat, the current show runner in series five. Moffat, a renowned comedy writer, and like Davies a devoted Who fan from childhood, is one of the most beloved set of stories in New Who. The episode is laced with hilarious lines, but Moffat has a dark mind, and the story is truly creepy. There is no reasonable explanation for what is going on, and the Doctor himself, missing most of the story, is perplexed by the goings on. Nothing is even remotely resolved by the end of the episode, and we are thrown by our antagonists inability to communicate effectively. We don’t know what’s going on. There isn’t even a real inkling. we suspect that the thing that the Doctor and Rose were chasing through time was involved, we assume Jack isn’t all he appears to be, but we don’t know. And the second half gives us some surprising answers.
Quotes:
Rose: Should that be a red alert?
The Doctor: That’s just humans. By everyone else’s standards, red’s camp. Oh, the misunderstandings—all those Red Alerts, all that dancing.
***
Capt. Jack Harkness: Could you switch off your cell phone? No, seriously, it interferes with my instruments.
Rose: [as she turns it off] You know, no one ever believes that.
***
The Doctor: It’s brilliant, I’m not sure if it’s Marxism in action or a West End musical.
***
The Doctor: Mister Spock? Rose Tyler: What was I supposed to say? You don’t have a name! Don’t you ever get tired of “Doctor”? Doctor Who? The Doctor: Nine centuries in, I’m coping.
***
Empty Child: Mummy? Are you my mummy?
It really is a fantastic episode. It’s hard to explain because so little is resolved in this episode, but strong performances from out regular cast and the newcomers make it memorable, and it is both surprisingly funny and terrifying simultaneously.
Ahhh, Glenn Miller. Lovely choice of music, Captain Jack.
I am an unabashed fan of New Who. I am also a fangirl for Harry Potter. This is just me laying it all out before I continue on. You know, full disclosure, yada yada yada.
This week, the hilarious and brilliant David Mitchell released his Soapbox vodcast and promptly created a firestorm. The world is going to hell in a hand basket, and he has the nerve to criticise Doctor Who. His complaint about Who being a children’s show being marketed to adults (and the sly reference to Harry Potter as the same without actually naming it) seemed overly curmudgeonly when I saw the piece the first time. For the first time, I found myself in strong disagreement with him, and even bitched to my thirteen year old daughter about it when I got home.
“Christ, Mum, show me what he said.” She then rolled her eyes at my outrage. And muttered something about how I never get worked up at the Mitchell and Webb sketches she deems borderline. Something about Digby Chicken Caesar as well. Those might be linked.
Every year the Emmy nominations get released and I get enormously cranky because the Emmys are very Hollywood based and neglect international television airing on specialty TV networks ( exception to the rule: Extras). They also neglect genre shows and are enormously repetitive. Years of seeing Buffy, The Gilmore Girls, and similar get ignored for constant over nominated shows like Frasier and ER makes the Emmys a suspect organisation.
Sadly, I still obsess over it, because that’s what I do. I obsess over award shows and get rather indignant when the voters don’t listen to my opinion. My opinion is always-ALWAYS- correct. Best they remember that.
THat being said, with the awards tomorrow night, here are my predictions for what should happen tomorrow. Sadly, there will be no love for two of the greatest TV shows in the world, Doctor Who and Peep Show. How that makes me sad.
DRAMA OUTSTANDING DRAMA Lost Breaking Bad Dexter Mad Men True Blood The Good Wife
I keep going back and forth between the cool, molasses paced sixties drama Mad Men and the dark, fiery psychopathic Breaking Bad, both from AMC. I’m leaning towards Mad Men, as last season was just so amazing to watch. The last episode remains earth shatteringly good.
I’ve never been a Lostie, but I can acknowledge it is a good show and is well produced. It just ain’t my cup o’ tea. Emmy has been known to hand out awards in final seasons just ’cause. It wouldn’t shock me if they did it this year. As for the other three, Dexter is waning, The Good Wife is a fine program but not my thing ( and not as good as the AMC dramas), and True Blood is one of the worst shows on TV now.
Will Win: Lost
Should Win: Mad Men
Ignored For No Reason: Fringe
OUTSTANDING ACTRESS IN A DRAMA
Julianna Margulies (The Good Wife)
Mariska Hargitay (Special Victims Unit)
Glenn Close (Damages)
Kyra Sedgwick (The Closer)
January Jones (Mad Men)
Connie Britton (Friday Night Lights)
Just give the award to Connie Britton so we can all move on with our lives please. This coming from someone who actually doesn’t like FNL.
Of course, it will actually go to Julianna Margulies, an actress I’m pretty ambivalent to.
Will Win: Julianna Margulies
Should win: Connie Britton
Ignored Unjustly: Anna Torv of Fringe. Seriously.
OUTSTANDING ACTOR IN A DRAMA
Jon Hamm (Mad Men)
Kyle Chandler (Friday Night Lights)
Bryan Cranston (Breaking Bad)
Hugh Laurie (House M.D.)
Michael C. Hall (Dexter)
Matthew Fox (Lost)
Hugh Laurie still doesn’t have an Emmy. I will continue to scream out “HUGH LAURIE DOESN’T HAVE AN EMMY HOW SCREWED UP IS THAT!” until someone hands him the gold.
That being said, I suspect Bryan Cranston might make it a three-peat.
Will Win: Bryan Cranston
Should Win: Hugh Laurie. I shall never cease to champion this man for an Emmy that he should have one SIX YEARS AGO and every year since.
Ignored for reasons beyond explanation: Timothy Olyphant for Justified.
OUTSTANDING SUPPORTING ACTOR IN A DRAMA
John Slattery (Mad Men)
Aaron Paul (Breaking Bad)
Martin Short (Damages)
Terry O’ Quinn (Lost)
Michael Emerson (Lost)
André Braugher (Men of a Certain Age)
I suspect it will go to one of the Losties. It shouldn’t. Anyone who has seen Breaking Bad knows what I mean.
Will Win: Michael Emerson
Should win: Aaron Paul
Ignored ignored ignored because on genre show: John Noble from Fringe. If he was nominated, though, he’d win. Right? Right.
OUTSTANDING SUPPORTING ACTRESS IN A DRAMA
Sharon Gless (Burn Notice)
Christine Baranski (The Good Wife)
Christina Hendricks (Mad Men)
Rose Byrne (Damages)
Archie Panjabi (The Good Wife)
Elisabeth Moss (Mad Men)
She’s the glorious curvy red-head who runs the show on Mad Men and has consistently been the best thing about the show. Christina Hendrick’s Joan is one of the great characters of the past few years. She’s a goddess and don’t you all forget it.
Will and Should Win: Christina Hendricks
Ignored: No one. This list is pretty solid. COMEDY OUTSTANDING COMEDY Glee Modern Family Curb Your Enthusiasm Nurse Jackie 30 Rock The Office
Oh, how I adore Glee. The singing, the dancing, the over the top dramatics, the insanity of Ryan Murphy et al.
It won’t win. Not because it doesn’t deserve to. But because Modern Family really is that much better ( guess which show I caught up on this summer).
Will and Should Win: Modern Family
Ignored after not being ignored last year: How I Met Your Mother, although I suspect I’m the only person on the planet who thought last season was the best since season two.
OUTSTANDING ACTRESS IN A COMEDY
Lea Michele (Glee)
Tina Fey (30 Rock)
Toni Collette (The United States of Tara)
Julia Louis-Dreyfus (The New Adventures of Old Christine)
Edie Falco (Nurse Jackie)
Amy Poehler (Parks and Recreation)
This category is always tricky. First season freshman phenoms sometimes swoop in and win. But Lea Michele didn’t give the best performance of the year, that was Amy Poehler, who deserves the god damn Emmy. I hate her show, but I adore her on it. You know how that makes me crazy.
Will Win: Lea Michele
Should Win: Amy Poehler
Why was she ignored: Portia de Rossi. Come ON!
OUTSTANDING ACTOR IN A COMEDY
Larry David (Curb Your Enthusiasm)
Alec Baldwin (30 Rock)
Matthew Morrison (Glee)
Steve Carell (The Office)
Jim Parsons (The Big Bang Theory)
Tony Shalhoub (Monk)
Oh, Christ. How do you pick. Seriously. How? Eliminate Shaloub ( again, how does this keep happening?) and look what we are left with. Matthew Morrison doesn’t stand a chance, take him out of it, and look what’s still there. How do you choose. How does Emmy pick a winner. I’m tossing a coin.
Will, should, and most likely will win: Larry David. That’s what the coin said.
Ignored: Ed O’Neill, who would deserve to win if he was up there instead of Tony effing Shaloub.
OUTSTANDING SUPPORTING ACTOR IN A COMEDY
Chris Colfer (Glee)
Neil Patrick Harris (How I Met Your Mother)
Jesse Tyler Ferguson (Modern Family)
Jon Cryer (Two and A Half Men)
Eric Stonestreet (Modern Family)
Ty Burrell (Modern Family)
Again. Take out the undeserving Cryer ( who inexplicably won this category last year). Pick one. Just… I dare you to. Coin time again.
Will, should, and probably will win: Chris Colfer came out on top of the coin game.
Ignored for Jon Cryer on a crap Chuck Lorre program: Kunal Nayyar, who stars on the good Chuck Lorre program, The Big Bang Theory. Parsons gets all the glory. Galecki is the straight man. Helberg and Nayyar are equally funny. Give them some love.
OUTSTANDING SUPPORTING ACTRESS IN A COMEDY
Jane Lynch (Glee)
Kristen Wiig (Saturday Night Live)
Jane Krakowski (30 Rock)
Julie Bowen (Modern Family)
Sofia Vergara (Modern Family)
Holland Taylor (Two and A Half Men)
Months ago I wrote about my love of British panel shows, a unique brand of U.K. comedy programme where a bunch of mismatched characters crack wise about politics, music, or general knowledge. Some of them even attempt to make a real game out of it, but come on, panel shows exist for very funny people to snark on various subjects and for us to laugh at their ire.
I mentioned two shows in particular last time, the music based Never Mind the Buzzcocks and the Stephen Fry hosted QI. The former should surprise no one who reads anything I have ever written, for as much as I love books and TV and film, my life is pretty much centred around the fact that I believe in the divinity of Ray and Dave Davies and The Kinks are The Village Green Preservation Society is my holy book/album.
I have to admit though that my geeky self prefers QI, mostly because I’m one of those people who read the encyclopedia for fun as a child. No, I am NOT kidding, ask my brothers. Some people surf the net for porn. I surf Wikipedia instead. For fun. Not porn. Analogy gone bad. Though not really.
Who really began to pick up momentum after “Dalek”, which remains one of the top three episodes of the first series. The follow-up ” The Long Game” is interesting, because it feels like it’s part Alien and part Babylon 5.
Adam ( Bruno Langley) was the kid genius picked up in “Dalek”, and he travels with rose and the Doctor to the year 200,000. On the news space station Satellite Five, something odd is going on. For one thing, it’s ridiculously hot. For another, the news staff seems to be missing the bigger picture. The Doctor, a devilish whirl of curiosity, not asking questions is the height of stupidity. He sees that the society is wrong, that the technology is old, but he can’t quite pinpoint why. The episode shows some of the worst part of being human, mostly the ability we have to shut off our curiosity and simply accept whatever we are told when we are too lazy to do the leg work ourselves.
Adam, though, remains a curiosity in his own right. A genius, he is stupid enough to try to use being in the future for personal gain. Wikipedia says Adam is the first companion to ever be kicked out of the TARDIS for misbehavior. I find that surprising. Adam get’s banished by trying to use Rose’s super phone to steal microprocessor designs from the future. What an ass. In the process, he get’s a giant hole in his head used by the journalists for transmitting news to the masses. Seriously, genius though he may be, Adam is a gigantic idiot.
I have to admit that I let out a gigantic Shaun Of The Dead fangirl ”Squee!” when I saw Simon Pegg as the villainous Editor. Even if he dies via exploding Jagrafess goo.
Random thoughts:
I love when the Doctor sends people off with a cheery smile only to turn all deadly serious in the next beat. No one does it better than Eccleston.
The Editor: “That thing”, as you put it, is in charge of the human race. For almost a hundred years, mankind has been guided and shaped. Its knowledge and ambition strictly controlled, through its broadcast news- edited by my superior, your master, and humanity’s guiding light: The Mighty Jagrafess of the Holy Hadrojassic Maxarodenfoe. I call him Max.
***
The Doctor: The thing is, Adam, time travel is like visiting Paris. You can’t just read the guidebook, you’ve got to throw yourself in. Eat the food, use the wrong verbs, get charged double and end up kissing complete strangers. Or is that just me?
***
The Doctor: You and your boyfriends.
***
Rose Tyler: Well, you’re not a Jagrafess. You’re human. The Editor: Yes, but being human doesn’t pay very well.
I skipped Sinatra week on purpose. I just couldn’t handle another bad week. My Idol show is so dreary this season I just can’t take it anymore. I’m on the verge of breaking up with my TV show.
That being said, I came back for top four. Because I have to know. But if the next couple of weeks remain horribly blah, I may not return to Idol and just follow Simon to X Factor.
Lee opens the show with a completely dull version of a dull song. Am I the only person on the planet that thinks “Kissed By A Rose” is the most overpraised, ridiculously cheesy song ever in history? If this is the night I’m in for, I might just commit seppuku. It doesn’t help when he sings it so weakly. He’s better than that. Disappointing.
Mike… the ego just kills me. Plus singing a song from a Free Willy soundtrack- just no. Why do the Idol kids hate me so? That being said, it’s a typical cheesy performance style with a nearly clean vocal. Whatever you say about Mike, he’s at least consistent.
How did Simon manage to not hear of Free Willy? Is it a cultural thing? If I have heard Girls Aloud and Sugababe songs, Simon has heard of Free Willy.
Lee and Crystal launch into one of my favorite songs ever in “Falling Slowly”. Lee’s pitchiness is obvious in the beginning, but when he launches into rocker shouty parts, he’s so fucking awesome my heart swells with pride. And Crystal is so awesome it’s almost unfair to the rest of the universe. An Idol moment in a seaosn that has had way too few.
Casey takes on the iconic “Mrs. Robinson” He has the swaybots in his corner, and it’s a clean vocal from him. He also changed it up just enough to make it interesting. It’s far above Lee and Mike performances. Too bad Simon and Randy decided to be total pricks and bring Kara’s early season crush on the guy back to the forefront.
Crystal’s song choice is “I’m Alright” by Kenny Loggins (lame) from Caddyshack ( fucking eh! awesome). Easily the best performance of the night. Again.
Simon has never heard of CADDYSHACK?????????
Casey and Mike sing the totally lame ass “Have You Ever Loved A Woman”. The less I say, the better, I think. Because the vitriol I have for that song is acidic. ( Shitty, misogynistic, horrible, faux-Latin hunk of aardvark ass comes to mind. And that’s me showing restraint on the topic).
Whatever, I don’t really care. Let’s just get this season over with and move on.
Watching all my heroes of TV criticism tweet back and forth about shows they want to love but don’t made me think about something that has gotten me in trouble from people I like in my life.
I am not the biggest fan of The Wire.
I wanted to love it, I did, but it never quite got me the way I was hoping. I like the show. I admire it a great deal. I’m not foolish to believe it’s terribly made or crappy writing.
On the contrary, The Wire is easily one of the best produced, best written shows in TV history. But I found its pace sleepy, and I never felt compelled to watch it.
I find the same thing happening with Tremé, the HBO series by David Simon, who brought us The Wire and wrote the book that Homicide:Life On The Street was based on. I admire it. I recognize it has great music, great writing, and great performances.
I do not feel compelled to watch it.
I have had this problem all through out the expansion of TV drama into cable. I loved The Sopranos about half as much as every other critic on the planet ( meaning I loved it a whole lot, but not enough to dedicate pages and pages to trying to figure out the significance of “Don’t Stop Believin’” or the fade to black). I can’t stand True Blood, even as my best friends talk it up to high heaven. My favorite cable produced TV show right now is technically not a cable show except in North America, because Doctor Who is produced by the public BBC in the UK. The United States of Tara, Californication, Weed, Damages- I watch these shows occasionally. I’m not an avid, active fan of any of them.
The exception to the rule are AMC’s two current dramas, Mad Men and Breaking Bad. I am obsessive over both and have been for a couple of years. They are so dissimilar to each other that I find it hard to believe AMC produces both. But I love the deliberate pace of Mad Men, a pace that I am not accustomed to and find intriguing. And I find Breaking Bad to be ferocious and frightening in its story telling, going to places I as a writer would never dream of taking my protagonist.
I want to love Tremé, I do. And I’ll keep trying for the first season. I just feel bad about not loving it straight off. It hurts me when I can recognize quality art but still feel unmoved.
Daleks scared the crap out of me when I was a kid. Mostly because they looked innocuous enough, but were heartless and deadly. The black and white morality they had set up for themselves was also petrifying. There were a lot of things I was afraid of- death, the end of the universe, falling down holes, never being able to find my way back after chasing a dog miles down the TransCanada Highway ( that actually happened when I was about three or four. I wonder why I need so much therapy). Daleks were the scariest thing of them all. Because they weren’t real and yet the message was clear- there are things in the universe that kill indiscriminately, simply because they can.
Dalek remains a series highlight because of its simplicity. Future enemy stories would become almost operatic in their scope, but this one is about one single Dalek loose in a bunker on earth. It allows Chris Eccleston’s Doctor to feel fear and hate, two emotions he had kept in check up to this point. It allows him to be helpless in the face of death and destruction, and it brings out the worst in him. Mostly, it brings about the one observation about his relationship with Rose we had hints at but no one ever vocalized. It takes a Dalek to point out that the Doctor loves Rose. This love makes him reluctant to make choices that would clearly save the planet from a killing machine. In the end, he let’s the Dalek trundle away to save Rose.
But there is something different about this Dalek. Broken and alone in the universe, tortured by it’s captors, Rose’s initial reaction is not fear but pity. This allows the Dalek to manipulate Rose into touching it, and it takes her time travelling DNA to repair itself. It then terrorizes the entire base of one Henry van Statton.
This episode offers an interesting insight of what happened between the 1996 Paul McGann starring crap TV movie ( again- McGann was brilliant, the movie he was given sucked) and the 2005 reboot. The Doctor, born in the era of the hippie, a pacifist at heart, with a reluctance to kill even if his life is a stake, turns into a firebrand with a certain amount of blood lust. The Dalek, a variation of classic Nazi villainy, with its fear of all that is unlike it and it’s orders to kill coming from the top, turns out to be shown a shred of humanity, and in return evolves after trying to exploit the very thing it wants to annihilate. The final showdown, with the Dalek feeling the sunlight as the Doctor begs Rose to move out of the way so he can kill it remains a stunning set piece, with Rose pointing out that the Dalek is changing for the better, but the Doctor has actually regressed.
It ends with a sadness, as the Dalek, unable to cope with being the last one, and unwilling to accept the change Rose’s DNA had affected in it, begs Roses to order it to die. Rose at first is reluctant, but agrees in an act of pity once again, and the Dalek commits suicide.
The stuff with Henry van Statton and his band of merry men was incidental. A billionaire with a space junk fetish and an inability to relate to human beings on any significant level is a whatever character, but this episode brings us to British supergenius Adam, who plays a role in the following episode. He seems just hunky dory to have hanging around at first. Then… well, we just have to wait and see there, don’t we?
Random Thoughts:
This episode has what I think is Christopher eccleston’s greatest performance as the Doctor. He was always great, but he trancends the script in some ways to give a fully realized and heartbreaking performance.
Billie Piper matches Eccleston step for step. She would never be as good in this show again, even though there are some great moment that she does have ove rthe next series and a half.
Americans like to torture. Heavy handed or what?
The Doctor: Alright, then. If you want orders, follow this one. Kill yourself.
Dalek: The Daleks must survive!
The Doctor: The Daleks have failed! Now why don’t you finish the job, and make the Daleks extinct?! Rid the universe of your filth! Why don’t you just die?!
Dalek: You would make a good Dalek.
***
Dalek: I can feel…so many ideas…so much darkness. Rose, give me orders. Order me…to die.
Rose: I can’t do that.
Dalek: This is not life: this is sickness! I shall not be like you! Order my destruction! Obey! Obey! OBEY!
Rose: Do it.
Dalek: Are you frightened, Rose Tyler?
Rose: Yes.
Dalek: So am I. Exterminate.
***
The Doctor: Broken. Broken. Hair dryer… [Pulls big gun out of bin.] Oh, yes! Lock and load!
***
Dalek: I shall speak only to the Doctor.
The Doctor: You’re gonna get rusty.
***
Dalek: I demand orders!
The Doctor: They’re never gonna come! Your race is dead! You all burned, all of you! Ten million ships on fire; the entire Dalek race wiped out in one second!
Dalek: YOU LIE!
The Doctor: I watched it happen! I MADE IT HAPPEN!
Doctor Who often tries to explain the human condition. Whether it’s our inability to ask questions in the face of authority (The Long Game), or creating our own downfall with our desire for cheap thrills (Gridlocked), or our desire for immortality against all rhyme and reason (The End Of Time, The Lazarus Experiment), the show uses an alien to tells us what we do right and what we do wrong. It sometimes gets heavy-handed with its message, but mostly, it gets it right.
“The Beast Below”, oddly enough,is both of these.
Amy and the Doctor end up on the Starship UK, the spaceship that carries what is left of the United Kingdom that fled earth. The Doctor sees that the society is the wrong shape, and both he and Amy set off to discover why that is. What they find is both frightening and tragic. My heart breaks just thinking about it.
It leads to an interesting question about human nature. It’s heavy-handed, to be certain- the Starship staff use a section of the Star Whale’s exposed brain to propel the vessel through the universe. They torture the Star Whale under the impression that it is needed to fly the ship instead of realizing it was there to help of its own free will. Things that are different are always feared. But surprisingly, the solution is not thought up by the benevolent Doctor. Appalled by the violence, the Doctor gets angry with the Human Race, the people he has saved time and again. “Nobody human has anything to say to me today,” he shouts angrily as he prepares to eliminate the whale’s ability to think and feel. Amy, though, sees the truth in the actions of the whale itself. The Star Whale saves the people of the UK on earth because it couldn’t stand to see children cry. Amy uses this observation to set in motion the events that free the Star Whale from a life of pain and the people on the Starship from a life lived in fear.
It’s still too early in the season to see the overall arch and where this episode falls in the story, although we see a matching crack like the one in Amy’s bedroom wall, and the episode ends with a bit of a thrill as we see the shadow of a Dalek against Winston Churchill’s wall during the phone call. The episode was surprisingly dark so early in the season, with some difficult questions asked amidst the thrills and spills, and certainly it’s very early in the season for the Doctor to show the cracks in his psyche like that. He often has been exasperated by humans, but he rarely loses his temper like that. Matt Smith’s Doctor is a very different Doctor indeed.
Random thoughts:
It always comes down to children, don’t it?
Magpie still has a shop. I hope that there is no Wire still involved.
The Doctor: Every five years everyone chooses to forget what they’ve learned… democracy in action.
Well, the second half of this is better than the first. Which doesn’t really say much.
We left episode four with a cliff hanger where UNIT and the Doctor were incapacitated by electronic pulse, used by the Slitheen to take out the experts. Of course the Doctor gets away. Of course he tries to convince the military that the acting PM is in fact an alien. Of course the military think that’s crazy. Of course the acting PM calls for the military to kill the Doctor. Of course the Doctor gets away. Of course the Doctor manages to save Rose and Harriet Jones from the alien threat. Of course the cabinet room of 10 Downing Street is reinforced against attack. Of course that’s where everyone hides.
I am, of course, saying “of course” because this is standard storytelling. Clichéd is too kind a word for it. It’s dull. Thank God for Christopher Eccleston’s line readings, which makes this episode better than it should be, and Penelope Wilton, who’s Harriet Jones remains one of the finer characters written by RTD in his tenure.
Needless to say, this episode serves essentially as filler for the good stuff, which begins with the next episode.
Oh, and it does have some very funny lines. That helps.
Random thoughts:
Say it now. Raxacoricofallapatorious.
I’m sorry, but the CGI Slitheen and the Rubber suit Slitheen are not as seemless as they would like to believe.
The Slitheen are living calcium?
And the Doctor is right. Why would Rose ever kiss Mickey considering what Jackie finds in his pantry?
***
The Doctor: Installed in 1991. Three inches of steel lining every single wall. They’ll never get in.
Rose: And how do we get out?
The Doctor: Ah.
***
The Doctor: I think you’ll find the Prime Minister is an alien in disguise, and- That’s never gonna work, is it?
Policeman: Nope.
The Doctor: Fair enough. [runs]
***
The Doctor: Fascinating history, Downing Street. 2000 years ago, this was marshland. 1730, it was occupied by a Mister Chicken – he was a nice man – 1796, this was the Cabinet Room. If the Cabinet was in session, and in danger, these were about the four safest walls in the whole of Great Britain. End of Lesson.
Yes, this is part one of a humorous two parter that appeals to the ten-year old boy in all of us. Farting aliens. So funny. It’s frankly the only time I wanted to smack Russell T Davies.
Funny doesn’t equal good, sadly, and I think this and it’s follow-up are the weakest of the series. I am including all specials, series finales, and all of season three. I would rather sit through any other episodes than these ones again. But I guess that the fact my seven-year old calls them her favorites speaks volumes about the target audience.
Rose and the Doctor return to the Powell Estate, where the Doctor informs Rose that she’s only been gone for twelve hours and Rose leaves to say hi to her mom. It’s only then that both the Doctor and Rose realize it hasn’t been twelve hours but twelve months (Oops. The TARDIS still seems to miss its mark sometimes). This is all pretty whatever stuff ( although mildly funny).
Then a spaceship crashes into the Thames, taking a hunk out of Big Ben in the process.
The rest of the episode seems like an odd mix of Benny Hill comedy and bad sci-fi. Because it’s the start of a two parter, it’s mostly just exposition, setting up the more exciting ( but still pretty lame) second part.
That all being said, there are some pretty good lines.
Random Thoughts:
Trinity Wells makes her first appearance. Trinity Wells is the American new anchor used by the Who staff to show the “American” POV of events via moments of a news broadcast ( usually, the President is pissed that the UK has taken the lead on something). She’s played by Lachele Carl, who is the only actor to appear in every series of Doctor Who since it came back to the air.
Penelope Wilton play ” Harriet Jones, MP for Flydale North”. A fan favorite, she plays a significant role in later series.
The Doctor: Actually, it’s my fault. I sort of, uh, employed Rose as my companion.
Policeman: When you say “companion”, is this a sexual relationship?
Rose and the Doctor: No!
Rose: You’re 900 years old?
The Doctor: Yep.
Rose: My mother was right, that is one hell of an age gap.
Mickey: I bet you don’t even remember my name!
The Doctor: Ricky.
Mickey: It’s Mickey!
The Doctor: No, it’s Ricky.
Mickey: I think I know my own name!
The Doctor: You think you know your own name? How stupid are you?
I know I wrote practically nothing about this episode, but really, there isn’t much to write about. Very little actually happens that moves the story along.
Simon Callow was my favorite thing about Four Weddings And A Funeral. Well, Callow and Kristin Scott Thomas. His larger than life performance buoyed the entire film, and lead to one of the most genuinely moving moments in the ’90s when John Hannah recites Auden’s ” Funeral Blues”, which is one of my favorite poems of all time. But that’s another topic for another day. What I am saying is this- Callow is magnificent.
I had always gotten the “Charles Dickens” vibe from the hyperliterate Callow ( I tend to get author vibes from people. It’s a weird thing, but helpful when talking to other hyperliterates in the world). So seeing him in this episode as Dickens was delightful. Leave aside the fact that the script takes several liberties with Dickens’ life and beliefs. I mean, besides the obvious. In 1869 Cardiff, we have a Dickens that is broken down, stuck, miserable, and lacking any real imagination. Not the recovering from a stroke earlier that year, or the one that would die of a massive stroke a mere six months later. Callow’s Dickens is an anachronism. It’s the middle period Dickens at the end of his life.
This means little to the story, though, which has the Doctor and Rose, with the help of Dickens and a Welsh girl named Gwyneth, discover the Gelth, who survive in a gaseous state in the walls of a local funeral home. They inhabit the dead bodies for short periods. (And I’m bitching about the accuracy of Dickens’ life?) Gwyneth can hear the Gelth and see things she’s not supposed to due to a riff of time and space running through Cardiff that she has become a part of. At first they seem lost and in need of help, and the Doctor feels pity for the homeless Gelth. Needless to say, it doesn’t turn out the way the Doctor wants. Never trust beings that inhabit corpses. They can’t possibly be up to any good. At least there is a big bang.
This is an episode that sets up a lot of the rest of the season. We get a mention of the big bad wolf, and Cardiff plays a role in the eleventh episode ( we also get a reason the Cardiff based production goes to the UK as often as it does- and the joke that all planets look like quarries in Wales). Overall, while at moments wildly funny, and containing vital plot points, this is a pretty inconsequential episode, buoyed by its performances and good humor.
Random Thoughts:
Rose looks slightly tarty in that “period wardrobe”, no?
And never hate on Nine’s jumper. I like that look. So sue me.
While the Doctor mentions a war in ” The End of The World”, this episode is the first actual mention of the phrase “Time War”.
The Doctor: I saw the Fall of Troy! World War Five! I was pushing boxes at the Boston Tea Party! Now I’m gonna die in a dungeon… in Cardiff!
The Doctor: Now don’t antagonize her. I love a happy medium!
The End of the World terrified me as a child. I knew that logic was that I would already be dead. Nut the end of the world. Well that is dead dead dead. And since I, like most irrational human beings, am terrified of death, nothing is scarier than the ultimate death. I still don’t do well with death now. And I’m closer to death than I am to birth. Okay, after writing that, I’m going to curl up in the fetal position and be crazy.
What I know is- I don’t want to see the end of the world. I don’t care how crazy hot Christopher Eccleston is as the Doctor. I’d make him take me to see the original production of West Side Story. I’m not staying.
Rose, though, really doesn’t kick up much of a fuss. “Don’t argue with the designated driver.” Well, fine, but I’m at least gonna sulk. And she does sulk. In an environment so foreign to her, she pouts like the petulant child she is. But she still stays. And she certainly doesn’t throw an all out tantrum about being there. No, she instead turns her fear into a rant about how she knows nothing about the Doctor as a man-human-person. She doesn’t even know at this point what species he is.
We are introduced to our first space station in this episode, a vast platform that serves as a viewing pit stop for rich folks and dignitaries to watch what is the ultimate piece of performance art- the end of a planet. We have a hodgepodge of aliens- The Face Of Boe maks his first appearance here, and we also have Trees, the Moxx of Balhoon, and Cassandra, the last human, or as Rose calls her, “a bitchy trampoline”.
Cassandra remains a personal favorite character of mine, not because of what she is, but because of what she represents. Essentially a piece of stretched out skin and a brain in a pot, she is called the last human despite not really being humanesque. She brings to the forefront the idea of what exactly constitutes being a human being. Rose is offended that Cassandra calls herself the last human, for Cassandra doesn’t resemble a human at all, but as long as her brain is working and she was born on the planet earth, doesn’t that make her a human?
The whodunit with the spiders is actually standard stuff. The villain wasn’t even a surprise. But what was good was the Doctor. We begin to hear a little bit roll out about exactly who and what he is, and we also begin to see a little bit of the angst below the surface. Eccleston plays this to perfection. He’s quiet when Jabe talks about the improbability of his existence, and we see the tears being held back. The doctor is tortured by something dark and secretive. He goes on to save the day, but remains unmoved by Rose’s pleas for mercy and allows the villain to die. He takes Rose back to her time and tells his story. “There was a war…”
The last of the Time Lords, the Time War ( RTD’s massive reset button to propel the story while allowing to honor aspects of established canon), it all starts to leak out here. And we get what is the greatest gift. “You’ve got me,” Rose tells him, and then they wander off to eat chips.
Random thoughts:
The Doctor: [opening Rose's phone] Tell you what. With a bit of jiggery pokery—
Rose: Is that a technical term, “jiggery pokery”?
The Doctor: Yeah, I got a first in jiggery pokery, what about you?
Rose: [playing along] Nah, I failed hullabaloo
The Doctor: I’m a Time Lord. I’m the last of the Time Lords. They’re all gone. I’m the only survivor. I’m left travelling on my own, ’cause there’s no one else.
Cassandra is voiced by the glorious Zoe Wanamaker. I recognized her right off.
Trees walk and talk. And there is always money in land, even five billion years from now.
“Tainted Love” is classical music, and “Toxic” is a ballad. Nice to know dance music remains a staple, right?
Yes, I’m going back as well. I’ve watched every episode of the reboot numerous times over the past five months. I think it is totally fair to go back to the start.
Not being obsessed with the Doctor as a child but aware of the series, its history, and its fervent fandom made me reluctant to even start watching it when the reboot came along in 2005. It took a couple of online friendships with devoted NuWho fans to even convince me to give it a go.
I love my online friends to death for it.
“Rose” has a lot of ground to cover. The new series was set up to honor the canon already developed in the previous 26 year run of the show, plus the truly terrible 1996 movie ( I feel so sorry for Paul McGann, who gives a great performance in that piece of crap as the eighth Doctor). But Russell T Davies also had to create a reset button of sorts, to explain a) why we have a new face ( although never specified, it is assumed in canon that Eight regenerated after creating the Time Lock that ends the Time War between the Daleks and the Time Lords, becoming Christopher Eccleston at his grumpy, funny, sexy best) and b) a new attitude. Eccleston’s Doctor is lonely and miserable when he stumbles back to earth to save the human race from the Autons, and an accidental meeting with Billie Piper’s Rose Tyler in the shop she works at throws them together in a way neither of them expected.
Rose lives on a council estate with her mother, Jackie, who reminds me of a more family friendly version of Edina from AbFab, with a less caustic tongue and a genuine love and concern for her daughter. Rose’s life is typical for a nineteen year old girl not in college- she works a menial sales job, has a boyfriend, and basically has few cares in the world. After being chased by living plastic and meeting the Doctor who blows up the shop she works at, she begins to take a good long look at her world and realize it’s not all it seems. She does the modern thing and searches for references to the strange man with a blue box online, leading her to meet Clive ( a one-off character that leaves an impression- I’m sure we all know a conspiracy Nutter like that). Clive has traced the Doctor through history, and is convinced he is an alien from another planet. As wacky as the Doctor is to Rose, she’s unable to believe that. It’s not till later, after escaping a plastic version of her boyfriend Mickey with the Doctor into the TARDIS ( “It’s bigger on the inside. It’s Alien. You’re alien”) that she begins to accept all the wierd stuff that’s going on as real.
Truth be told, as far as thrills and spills go, it’s pretty standard stuff. The Autons and their controller, the Nestene Conciousness, aren’t particularly creepy or thrilling. The climax is actually kind of silly. But that’s not why I love this episode. The tension created between Eccleston and Piper is palpable. I’m not talking romantic tension, I’m talking about an intellectual tension. Rose is more clever than her life allows her to be, and her humanity is actually what draws the Doctor to her. She has a strong moral sense and an empathy that makes her superior to most of the people the Doctor meets. He invites her to go long with him in his TARDIS, and she initially turns him down. It’s when he informs her it’s not just a spaceship but a time machine that she joins him. This is an important plot point. She senses his loneliness, and he senses her need to escape a life that is beneath her. She gives him comfort. He gives her purpose.
Random thoughts:
I saw the David Tennant series four episodes before the Eccleston episodes. Tennant is my Doctor, but Eccleston is easily a close second. I adore them both.
Rose: Hold on, if you’re an alien, why do you sound like you’re from the North?
Doctor: Lots of planets have a north!
Rose is actually a bit of a spitfire. The relationship between her and Nine starts off purely as friendship. But it does change as the series goes on.
I know there is a portion of the Who fan base that hates him and everything he did, but I am a devoted fan of Russell T Davies and David Tennant is my Doctor. You can tell me everything wrong with the RTD era and I can agree on some of it, but since I wasn’t a fan as a child, I really don’t find the new elements of Who to be a distraction.
Still, the news of Tennant and Davies leaving for other opportunities and the hiring of barely old enough to drink Matt Smith and the promotion of genius writer Steven Moffat made me think that this new incarnation had some life in it. I trust Moffat’s judgment. And Matt Smith does not disappoint in his debut as the Doctor.
On the contrary, I think “The Eleventh Hour” is the strongest series opener since 2005′s “Rose”. It has some of the humor I love about the RTD era ( frankly, I could have spent the entire hour watching Smith’s Doctor eating and rejecting food). Moffat is also much better at building tension that Davies ever was ( I was really thrilled with Prisoner Zero and the Atraxi).
I also see the potential of Karen Gillan’s Amelia “Amy” Pong as a companion. Moffat was careful to build a real back story and a pre-existing relationship with the Doctor, heightening our involvement with her before she even stepped foot into the TARDIS. We care because this little girl appears to be abandoned by everyone and is scared of the crack in her wall, and after meeting the Doctor, she becomes obsessed with him to the point therapy is required, and when we come to her as an adult, she is both scared and awed by the man she was convinced could not possibly exist. Amy has had a troubled childhood, leading to a dubious career ( kiss-o-gram? Is that a family friendly way of saying “stag party stripper”?) and a whole lot of people who seem to think her childhood meeting with the Doctor was just a symptom of deeper issues. No one, including quasi-boyfriend Rory, seems to believe that the Doctor is real, standing in front of them.
Left with only twenty minutes to save the earth with no TARDIS and no sonic screwdriver to aid him, the Doctor uses his wits to outsmart the mysterious shapeshifting Patient Zero, and then brings the Atraxi to task for threatening to incinerate a level five planet that had done nothing at all to deserve such a threat. Smith plays this scene with a quiet authority, all the while trying to build the look of his Doctor, coming out of the projections of his previous incarnations in tweed and a bow tie, looking like the aged professor with an appealing baby-faced quality and floppy hair. I believed him to be the same Doctor I have grown to love these last several months of Doctor Who fanaticism. I now regret having any doubts.
I will probably always be at odds with certain factions of the Who fandom who dislike so much of the past five years, as I can’t quite seem to understand the hate and disappointment they feel, and the first episode without RTD at the helm felt to me to be a continuation of his themes and style while being fresh at the same time. Having already watched the two following episodes, can tell you that I am not nearly as happy with one of those two episodes as I am with this, but Moffat seems to be doing exactly what I wanted him to do- he’s writing witty, scary scripts and making me love the Doctor. And ultimately, isn’t that what we all want?
Random thoughts:
Fish custard?
The crack in the walls are the obvious Bad Wolf theme, right? Or is it red herring?
Is there a significance to the fact Jeff uses a MYTH lap top?
A lot of online conjecture about the date on Rory’s ID badge. THis feeds into a future episode’s conspiracy theory I’ve been reading the last 24 hours.
I love love LOVE the little girl who played young Amelia. What a find.
The Doctor: I’m the Doctor; I’m worse than everyone’s aunt. [catches himself] And that is not how I’m introducing myself.
The Doctor: Who da man?! [Everyone looks at him unimpressed; petulantly] Okay, that’s… I’m never saying that again. Fine.
My favorite episodes are always one with more humor than thrills, but that’s because I’m naturally drawn to humor. Moffat is a comedy writer by trade, creating the rip-roaring hilarious Coupling. I worry that his humor may be too adult for a show paraded about as the optimal family show. Not every parent is me, and not every child is mine, as my girls all think Coupling is hilarious. That being said, this hour had masturbation jokes, possible stripper references, and Amy staring at the Doctor wide-eyed as he changes.
