MagneticMediaFed

I’ve listened to This American Life on NRP (or PRI, or whatever) here and there since I started obsessing over talk-radio back in the fall of 1999, but it wasn’t until their Showtime program began last spring that I really became a fan. Before that I don’t think I really “got it.” The pacing is such that you really have to give it some time before you get sucked in (not unlike a really great television show) and if the first story doesn’t happen to grab your attention during the dial can be awfully easy. But the series changed all that. Maybe it’s because I was already spending so much time parked in front of the television. Perhaps it was bound to happen. All I know is the storytelling was remarkable, the visual style felt unprecedented in its richness and by the time the six episode had aired I had become a vegetarian (which lasted through the summer).

So when some friends told me about a live This American Life stage show that would be put on in New York City and then broadcast live to movie theaters across the country, I felt that it was something I should certainly attend. I’ll tell you about it after the jump…

(more…)

The daily routine.

And so another mostly successful season comes to a close for America’s favorite (?) serial killer, Dexter Morgan. Good times were had, capture was evaded, blood was spilled, and all with a catchy Latin beat! I’ll slice and dice the details after the jump…

(more…)

So Deb, got something to tell ya…

I don’t know if Dexter will ever go down in history as GREAT television, due in large part to the fact that the seasons tend to sag in the middle. That being said, the show really knows how to bring it when push comes to shove comes to mass murdering. There are still flaws. Deb and Lundy I find to be physically repellent, and perhaps the reason I’m rocking a 100-degree fever right now, and while I more or less love watching “crazy,” Lila might be going over the edge a bit. I guess we’ll have to wait until next week to see where all of this leads, but this episode, the penultimate, was a ton of fun. More after the jump? Of course…

(more…)

Wow. That was unsettling. When I first watched Dexter on Showtime a little over a year ago I was expecting a certain kind of show. I was expecting something morally complex, intense and pitch black, to my surprise the series has always been far more fun than I (or anyone) would expect of a series about a serial killer to be. The thing is, despite the enjoyment that the week-to-week shinanagins may bring, Dexter has never really achieved the level of moral uncertainty I’ve long thought it was capable of… until this week. More after the jump…

(more…)

Up against the wall.

Before reaching the rather awesome, rather “yikes, how the hell does he get out of this one” conclusion to last night’s episode I was thinking to myself about the series’ strengths. One thing this show does so well is making Dexter’s escape from justice more about the particular situation, not about the actual ins and outs of the police work (or luck) that keep him from capture. More on what I mean after the jump…

(more…)

Better to burn out or to fade away?

This thing is killing me. We all knew the writers’ strike was going to be a major inconvenience, but I never suspected it would have the effect it’s currently having on my psyche. Ever since the writers took to the picket line three weeks ago, television has kind of sucked, and not just because my beloved late-night shows immediately went into reruns. Despite the fact that we’ve still been getting new scripted episodes these past few weeks, the strike has, in a way, highlighted just how solidly mediocre this fall has been. The new series, while marked by very few cancellations (honestly, who would have thought Cavemen would still be airing new episodes three weeks into November?), have generated no significant hits (with the exception of Samantha Who?, but it’s hard to say if it is the show that is successful or its Dancing With the Stars lead-in) while our favorite returning series from years past have either been wildly inconsistent (How I Met Your Mother), shockingly awful (Weeds) or just kind of a mess (Friday Night Lights). To top it all off the two series that have been consistantly good and occasionally great in The Office and 30 Rock are the first to run out of episodes. The whole mess can put your average television viewer into something of an existential conundrum: if interesting stories can vanish as quickly as they appear, what’s the point of it all? More after the jump…

(more…)

Dexter, look out!

Yeah, I wasn’t really feeling this one, but for reasons I’ve stated time and time again — the supporting cast either 1) isn’t that good or 2) is fine but playing characters that are illogical and unnecessarily flat. This week the big story was the amping up of the Doakes/Dexter battle of wits (or fists), and the whole time I kept thinking, “Man, if only I cared one way or another.” More after the jump…

(more…)

Sunday’s episode felt a little all over the place, but ultimately successful. Again, the side-characters are still the biggest problem, but it has almost gone to the point of being just a pesky annoyance instead of something that proves to be detrimental to the series as a whole. Except for maybe Doakes. I could really do without his endless hunches. After nearly eight years of the current administration hasn’t everyone in America learned a thing or two about hunches? More after the jump…

(more…)

Kind of a letdown on most fronts as Monday’s collection of comedies proved to be decent though rarely LOL-funny (even to the point of using “LOL” to describe situations that aren’t necessarily worth of laughing out loud, but just chuckling to oneself). They weren’t bad episodes. I never felt like turning the television off, but the laughs just weren’t there — except for The Boondocks, which is achingly funny. Brief thoughts on Weeds, Aliens In America and Samantha Who? coming up after the jump…

(more…)

In a series so full of repressed emotion, it can be genuinely startling to see our (anti?)hero really act out. Michael C. Hall can play silently creepy better than just about anyone, but this week we really got to see him act big, maybe for the first time (I was never a Six Feet Under die-hard, so perhaps others have seen this from him before). Acting big isn’t enough to make a good performance (though it can fool many), but Hall brought so much pain to his performance — I’m specifically referring to the scene where he confronts his mother’s killer — you absolutely had to sit back and say, “Yes. This is it. This is awesome.” More after the jump…

(more…)

It’s been a month since new shows started popping up and my god has it been a rough ride. I was able to keep for the better part of two weeks, but lately I’ve had to throw my hands up and declare that once again, the television has won. Part of the problem, for me at least, is this fall seems to have more decent shows than season’s past. There are always one or two really good new programs, but typically the rest of it is just dreck. This year there have only been a small handful of shows I would consider abdominal, but with an unusually large amount resting somewhere in the middle. But how does one justify sticking with a series that is at its very best just OK. I think now would be as good a time as any to look at where we are and decide how to move forward.

(more…)

Sunday marked the season finale of Deadwood. It also happened to be the series finale, kind of. David Milch, the show’s creator desperately wanted a fourth season to finish telling his story, but HBO balked. They said he could only have six episodes. In what initially seems like a completely backwards decision, they reached a compromise where the show would instead come back as two, two-hour movies for the network. If you do the math you’re left thinking, “Wait a minute. That’s four hours instead of a promised six? WTF, Mr. Milch?” I thought the same thing, but in an interview with Brian Cox on NPR’s FreshAir Mr. Cox made the point that a “movie” would actually allow Mr. Milch to work outside of the perameters he had already constructed. There’s more by clicking below…

(more…)

I always been on the fence with Weeds, Showtime’s best bet at grabbing some of HBO’s audience (and when you’re talking about a hot suburban mom selling pot, it’s possible to do that). It’s a funny show, but it never seemed it was ever funny enough. It also is suppose to be a biting satire on life in suburbia. In that regard the show is about as subtle as a .45 to the back of the head, but perhaps more importantly… so what? I feel like the whole “there’s trouble a-brewin’ in them there gated communities” angle is a bit played out. Maybe not even “played out” but wrong. As a product of the suburbs (and as one who secretly, deep down, kind of loves it), I think what really bothers me about those shows or movies that claim to poke holes in the lifestyle is that none of them seem to be asking the right questions. What’s interesting and funny about suburbia isn’t the fact that everything looks the same or that families are dysfunctional, but instead how things came to be that way and why people accept it and embrace it.

There’s also a weird give and take between the white characters on the show and the black characters on the show. Being Whity McSuburbia-lover, I can never tell if the series is being clever or vaguely racist. Maybe a little of both, in which case they might cancel each other out. Either way, Conrad and his family are arguably the best written characters in the series.

Last night’s episode, however, was mostly great (a rating that seems to be directly proportional to how funny the episode is). Now that the plot is moving and all the characters are established from the first season the show is able to sit back a little and let the situations drive the humor. I laughed out loud at least three times.

Tonight after work I sat down in front of the television to take in the season premiere of the Showtime comedy Weeds. It’s an unremarkable show on an unremarkable network, but they’re both trying and that’s usually worth something. Showtime has no easy hill to climb. If you ask and Tom, Dick or Larry on the street where you’re going to find the best programming on cable they’re going to say HBO. Maybe Larry will accidentally say Showtime, but that’s only because he’s a big Red Shoe Diaries fan.

Though if they’re ever going to make a move, now is precisely the time to do it. HBO is limp. It’s top show, The Sopranos seemed to hemorrhage viewers this past season (maybe because people don’t like having to wait 20 months between seasons, or maybe because the shows sexiness has apparently bored the creators). Its top comedy, Sex and the City is long gone and nothing seems poised to take the reigns. HBO still makes great shows (this week’s Deadwood was awesome and exactly what a ‘payoff’ episode should be), and even the greatest show, The Wire, which I’ll be talking about in more depth later in the week. But none of these shows have the buzz that the network once had. Showtime, if it played its cards right, could finally start to chip away some of HBO’s viewers.

Weeds is a big part of that plan. It’s a crowd-pleaser (maybe too much so). Throw in The L Word and Brotherhood and you’ve got yourself a respectable one-two-three.

ANYWAY, I’m watching the show (on the SHO) and laughing occasionally at the occasionally funny moments on this occasionally interesting series about a pot-selling suburban mom when something happens. Something that should never happen on a premium channel. What was it? Click below to find out…

(more…)

Stereogum has reported that the theme song to the Showtime series Weeds will be covered by a different artist in each episode this season. Pretty sweet, I say. Last season I found the show to be quite good, but hardly great.  Though its soundtrack was TOP NOTCH.