MagneticMediaFed

Stumbling across it almost by accident last night, I was thrilled to see that the first episode of the new Showtime series This American Life had been uploaded to Showtime On-Demand, ripe for viewing. If you have the premium cable service (which, might I add, is mostly useless) I encourage you to check out TAL. Having listened to the radio show here and there (for what seems like most of my adult life), I’ve been quite excited to check out the transfer to television ever since hearing about the adaptation what seems like years (months?) ago. As it turns out, their efforts were wholly successful.

The magic of the radio show comes from that which we can not see (which, as I type it, makes complete sense). Interestingly, what really sells the TV version (the obvious answer being “marketing departments”) is the often breath-taking visuals. There are a lot of places on television in which one can see various slices of life, though I can’t think of a destination as visually (and editorially) distinct as This American Life.

If you don’t have Showtime On-Demand (and really, why would you?) you’ll be able to check out This American Life Thursday, March 22nd at 10:30pm on Showtime propper.

Listen to Ira Glass on NPR’s FreshAir

The first season of Dexter, Showtime’s great, white hope of a new drama based on the life of a serial-killer (who kills serial-killers), ended this past Sunday. Many people believe this is the show that might finally catapult Showtime to HBO-like heights. Not so fast, I say. More after the jump…

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Last night’s finale to season two of the Showtime pot-series Weeds might have had one of the best cliffhangers in recent memory (apologies if I said this about a show four months ago). In fact, things would have only been more interesting had a character actually been dangling from a cliff. Basically, every character in the show was put in a seemingly unescapable position except for Peter, the DEA-agent/boyfriend/husband to Mary-Louis Parker’s Nancy who was bumped off in what can only be classified as a ‘casual television murder.’

The only drawback to last night’s finale was the unfortunate realization that the show will be back next year and they’ll have to find way to resolve all of this (which will be mostly impossible without bending their already heavily bent reality beyond recognition). I was curious, before last night, if the show would even be back for a third season. Showtime likes to dump its hits before they get too expensive (read: Huff, Dead Like Me), but the post-episode teaser said a new season is indeed on the horizon. Call me crazy, but it would actually be kind of cool just END a show on a note like that– especially when there is no way you can write yourself out of it and live up to expectations.

I finally got around to checking out the first two episodes of the new Showtime series Dexter last night. It was good. It was really good. Or maybe I should say Michael C. Hall was really good. Its hard to make out the difference between the two since he’s in almost every frame. Certainly he’s great in the show. It wouldn’t matter how violent Showtime made this series if the character of Dexter wasn’t played to perfection. Hall, in the role, has so much menace in his eyes he comes off as truly frightening, though perhaps the real scares come from how easily it is to empathize with him. Its no small feat to draw emotion from a character who himself claims to be void of any. Hall plays the role of a “shell” as if it were Jake Lamotta mixed with Stanley Kowalski.

If the show has any fault, its in the setup. The whole serial-killer who hunts serial-killers (who hunts serial-killers) is a little too The 3 for my tastes, and all the scenes with his sister revolving around the politics of police just makes me antsy for the next episode of The Wire. Still, the series is good, and I hope to be caught up by the time the next episode airs on Sunday.NOTE: The first two episodes are also available for free at Showtime.com.

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Since about episode five or six of this season, Showtime’s Weeds has fallen off a bit from the season’s strong start. That is until this week when Zooey Deshanel showed up as Andy’s exgirlfriend. It was a hilarious role and perfectly cast. Perhaps the best guest roll in television since Forest Whitaker completely took over The Shield. As an actress, Deshanel has always been best with flighty characters, and here playing someone who had spent the past 48 hours eating nothing but salmon and Red Bull, she was pitch perfect. It also didn’t hurt that she was incredibly funny, which is important on this show since sometimes it becomes a little overly concerned with its inconsequential plotting. Knowing that this is Showtime and that series rarely make it to a third season because they can’t afford to pay them, I’m assuming that Weeds will wrap itself up in the coming weeks. This is a shame, when such a great character is introduced so late in the game, but I guess that’s how things work out.

Veronica Mars seems tighter this season. (WHAT?!) Wow, that sounded horrible. What I meant was that the writing seems tighter. The story, whether it be the main mystery or the individual mysteries seem to constantly expanding. Everything is relevant to something else, and those few things that don’t seem to fit are probably just the formation of important things to come. Also, does anyone else secretly (or not so secretly) want Veronica and Logan to split? While I did find the end of last night’s episode to be mostly romantic, Logan is best when he’s bitter, and frankly he just doesn’t seem all that bitter when Veronica is on her good side. This is a shame as Logan’s quips rank among the highlights of previous seasons.

Also, you can add the line, “Larry, you’re entering a world of pain” to the long list of Big Lebowski homages. And let’s not forget the seemingly late arrival of Weevil to the Hearst campus. It was actually probably a good idea to wait a couple episodes so that his joining the school’s custodial staff didn’t seem quite so forced. Now we have all the major players perfectly aligned for some sort of horrible future conflict. But first, perhaps we should figure out who’s the rapist?

Heroes — The last minute and a half of Heroes was so awesome it was infuriating. Infuriating, because it made me wait through 45-minutes of ho-hum setup and seemingly unanswerable questions. Infuriating, because it also will make me wait through 45 more minutes of ho-hum seemingly never-ending setup and, of course, more questions.

AND WOW, was it violent! I don’t think I’ve ever seen a woman nailed to the side of a stairwell with ice picks before. THANKS NBC!!

See, what all of these new super-secret-serials have failed to learn from Lost is that people want to see a story mixed in with their supernatural intrigue. Sure, any give Lost ep will boggle the mind and dazzle the senses, but it will also tell a story about a character, and when the hour is over you feel like you’ve learned something about why someone behaves the way they do, even if you’re left asking a million more questions regarding the madness that is the Lost universe.

Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip — A note for Aaron Sorkin: quit preaching to me! If I wanted political opinions I’d watch cable news. Or better yet, I’d watch The Wire. See, The Wire is one of the few shows that can say everything about everything without actually saying anything. Studio 60… has started to irk me simply for its lack of subtlty. Sorkin, I suppose, is an acquired taste. Maybe I have yet to acquire that taste. I’m curious if I will before I quit watching. However (as usual), Matthew Perry is still good enough to carry me over to the next week.

Weeds –  Have you noticed that once a season hits episode six or seven, it suddenly becomes void of discussion material? I did enjoy the scene with Andy and Silas laying the pool talking about how their lives suck. That was funny (if obvious).