Wanting What You Can’t See

/ Katie Man / Leave a comment

storage lockers

Storage Wars is a reality show about people who buy other people’s junk. One of many shows about picking through trash and hoping to find treasure, Storage Wars sets itself apart by having a very unique premise. Instead of attending a garage sale or flea market and purchasing one item or two, the principle characters of the show attend auctions and bid on entire storage units. Consequently, when they win a locker, they are stuck with the good and the bad contained within. Spoiler: it’s mostly bad. But like searching for a thumbtack in your junk drawer, or for that one last cheesy Bugle in a bowl of Bits ‘N Bites, rummaging through a freshly purchased storage locker must provide the new owner with the delicious anticipation of unearthing a pirate’s booty. I can see why it might become addictive. Find one box of antique guns – or stack of comics – or rack of fur coats – and all the hours of sifting through bags of garbage become forgotten. The pursuit of hidden treasure becomes as rewarding as the gem you may eventually find.

Herein lies the fun of the show itself. It engages our imagination. Reviewing the show, Todd VanDerWerff writes how the mystery of the what’s inside the locker is more interesting than actually finding out what’s in it. In the words of one of the show’s stars, Jarrod Schulz:

“It’s not about what you can see. It’s about what you can’t.”

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Email Roundtable #2 – Family Dinner

/ kwoloszyn / Leave a comment

In honour of Canadian Thanksgiving we attempt to discuss our favourite TV families.

Kerri: First off, Happy Thanksgiving to both of you! I thought this was the perfect time to discuss our favourite TV families old and new.  Anyone want to begin?

Katie: Erm, I don’t want to start this one. Lead the way!

Jane: I’ll go: My favourite TV family is the Keatons from Family Ties. When I was young I used to watch that show twice a day. Once at 5pm then again at 5:30pm when we were having dinner. I grew up thinking they were the perfect family. I remember one episode where they buried a time capsule in their yard so one day another family could learn all this neat stuff about them. I made my family do that too. We used a cookie tin. I wish I could remember what we put in there.

Katie: I’ve never seen the show – what was it about the family that made it so special?

Jane: Family Ties was Michael J. Fox’s break out role. He played the Republican son (at the time I just understood he REALLY loved money) of two hippie parents Elyse and Steven Keaton. They also had a really cool older daughter named Mallory (that’s who I wanted to be when I grew up) and a dorkier younger daughter named Jennifer. Later they had a son named Andy. I guess he was used to keep up the cute factor when Jennifer got older.

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Girls

/ Jane Walker / 1 Comment

Finding a new TV show is a very tall order and I’m picky. I don’t mean to be.  But If I’m going to invest time, emotion, and thought into a group of people throughout the course of 2, 3, 4, sometimes 5+ seasons I need to be able to connect with them. I want to worry about them when they are in trouble, laugh at their silly mishaps, and happy-cry when everything goes the way it should. Yes, I realize that a TV show is made up of more than just its characters, but if I can’t make a connection with somebody then it’s usually on to the next show. And let’s be honest, it’s fun to be picky. Where exactly will I find my next Roger Sterling, Stringer Bell or Annie Edison?

Maybe Girls? My friend Mike (who I consider a TV expert) highly recommended this show to me so I’m going to give it a try. Here is what I know going in. The show focuses on four 20-something woman living in New York City.  It is a coming of age story starring, directed, produced and written by a lady named  Lena Dunham and executive produced by Judd Apatow. (Creator of one of my all time favorites, Freaks and Geeks.) So already I think it could be a winner. Continue reading →

Email Roundtable #1 – Pilots

/ kwoloszyn / Leave a comment

In honor of the start to the new Fall TV season we attempt to chat about shows we loved right from the pilot.

Kerri: I am officially opening up our roundtable discussion about shows we love from the pilot.
Who wants to start?

Katie: I don’t think there has ever been a show that I loved from the pilot. Actually, the only one that I can ever remember watching from start to finish, while it was on air, was Lost. Even when I didn’t have cable anymore, I still found a way to stream the show the next day.

That being said, I think it’s pretty hard to LOVE a show from the first time you see it. Most pilots are pretty bad. The exceptions that immediately come to mind are Treme and Curb Your Enthusiasm. Actually, Lost had an amazing pilot. I think it might have been Lost’s best episode. That plane crash was so exciting! And different from anything else I had seen on TV.

Jane: I loved Freaks and Geeks from the pilot. Looking back though, I think the fact that Kerri had really talked it up and the fact that I had a giant crush on Seth Rogen helped.

Kerri: That’s interesting, Katie. And, not to get too much into it, but you are a bit younger than me and Jane. Maybe it has something to do with the way we watch TV now. We are less excited about the start of any TV season because we know we can watch shows in full on DVD or Netflix or other less legal ways.

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Naughty Night: The Best Way to Watch Saturday Night Live

/ kwoloszyn / Leave a comment

As a kid, there was something delightfully naughty about watching Saturday Night Live. I can remember watching the show as a pre-teen and my grandma, who was babysitting me at the time, freaking out at particularly off-color boob joke. The show was on late, past my normal bedtime, and the zany, recurring characters were broad enough that it hardly mattered that I didn’t understand all of the punch lines. Yes, it was cool to watch Saturday Night Live as a 10-year-old.

And then, I got a bit older and slogging through the marathon session of television on a precious Saturday night didn’t seem worth it even if, as was most often the case, I didn’t have anything better to do. There was a long stretch of time that I didn’t bother with the show at all or would watch it on occasion or a few sketches here and there.

Well, I’m here to report that I’m back on the SNL bandwagon and it has little or nothing to do with the quality of the show. It has absolutely everything to do with the way that I am watching the show and having lower, or to be more precise, adjusted expectations (more on that later). And it has yet more to do with humankind’s all time greatest invention: the PVR.

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Homeland – Season 1, Episode 7 – “The Weekend”

/ kwoloszyn / 2 Comments

Best Episodes

We investigate our favorite episodes of our favorite TV shows. Be warned: these articles will contain spoilers!

“I figure we’re safe here” – Nicholas Brody to Carrie Mathison.

The idea of safety, who you are ultimately safe with and where you are ultimately safe, is central to “The Weekend” the seventh and best episode in Homeland’s stellar first season. Being safe and being at peace comes up several times in an episode that quietly explodes everything that has come before it and sets the table for the rest of the season.

But before we get into the episode, some background: Homeland was created by a couple of the folks responsible for 24. The show revolves around a CIA operative named Carrie Mathison (played by Claire Danes) who, during a stint in Iraq, finds out that an American prisoner of war has been “turned’ by Al-Qaeda. When Carrie finds out that Marine Sergeant Nicholas Brody has been released by his captors, he immediately becomes her number one suspect. Like 24, Homeland has many twisty, turny elements that make this kind of thriller exciting to watch. However, where 24 often employed shock for shock’s sake, Homeland stays more grounded and relies on character development to do its heavy lifting.

In the previous episode, after Brody and Carrie’s shocking back seat hook-up, Brody is interrogated by the CIA. During the interrogation, and at Carrie’s prompt, Brody is asked if he has ever been unfaithful to his wife. Brody says no. Carrie knows he is lying (and fooling the polygraph) but can’t prove it without outing herself to her colleagues.

“The Weekend” starts exactly where the previous episode left off:  Brody picks Carrie up in the parking lot of the CIA headquarters and they head to a bar that is improbably populated by a bunch of neo-Nazis. They get into a fight with a rather forward Nazi asshole and flea after they give him a beating. Then (and this is where the episode really starts) they take a trip to Carrie’s family cabin and settle in for the weekend. Continue reading →

Treme Season 2 Episode 5: Slip Away

/ Jane Walker / Leave a comment

Rock my soul, with the Milneburg joys,
Rock my soul, with the Milneburg joys,
Play ’em mama, don’t refuse,
Separate me from the weary blues,
Hey, hey, hey, hey,
Sweet girl, syncopate your mama.

I have two words for those who complain nothing happens on Treme: Pay Attention. From the first image of the pilot episode, we are thrust into creators David Simon (The Wire) and Eric Overmyer’s vision of New Orleans three months after Hurricane Katrina. The opening sequence is a series of disorienting close shots of instruments, feathers, cigarettes, booze, drugs and the stern faces of authority figures coming in and out of focus. We are not provided with establishing shots, we must establish ourselves in the world of Treme. If you don’t pay attention you’ll be left behind.

Another common complaint about Treme is that it that the musical sequences are dull and don’t add to the story. This one baffles me. These sequences are where all the best stuff happens. One of my favorite examples is from Season 2 Episode 5: Slip Away directed by Rob Baily. The first part of the sequence happens in Delmond’s (Rob Brown) apartment. As I Wish I Was in Heaven Sittin’ Down blasts from his record player, the camera slowly tilts up over the record strewn floor to reveal an agitated Delmond searching through stacks of records. As he sings, a few bars behind the song, his reflection in the mirror creates a singing twin. This reflection is neat because it physically shows Delmond’s conflict between his classical Jazz roots and the modern jazz he plays now. This conflict runs deeper than music, though, as it also represents his previous life in New Orleans with his father vs. his new life in New York. This conflict has plagued Delmond for two seasons and the next two scenes are its climax. As the song plays Delmond grows more and more agitated. Brown uses his entire body to convey this agitation. In one shot he seems to be close to finding what he is looking for as he grooves with his eyes closed to the music. In the next quick cut he is cramped in the frame hunched and frantic throwing himself off balance to get back to the groove he found before. Just as he is on the verge of finding that grove again, Delmond is interrupted by a knock at the door. I wish I could adequately describe what Rob Brown is up to physically as an actor here. All I can come up with is that it looks like his body is battling his brain for control. His body is lurching toward the record player while his head is being pulled towards the door. It’s something you have to see for yourself.  Knocking at the door is Delmond’s New York girlfriend Jill (Danai Gurira). She walks into the apartment and turns the music down. Her interruption sets up the love quadrangle of their next scene. Continue reading →

Watching “My Stories”

/ Katie Man / 5 Comments

My stories are beautiful creatures. They remind me of my mother, who used to kick my brother and me out of the living room when Coronation Street came on. “Get out or be quiet. My story is on.” I used to think that was a stupid phrase, “my stories.” It was a phrase associated with soap operas and weepy women. As a child, I knew that I would watch shows, programs, specials – but never stories. And I would never demean myself by watching Bore-nation Street!

But sometime between then and now I found myself happily blubbering at a 22 minute comedy. “I’m…so… happy… they got… MARRIED!!!!” I had become my mother and picked up a couple stories of my own: not just television shows that I enjoy watching, but series that delight and surprise me. Episodes that I anticipate, then watch and re-watch. Programs that I consider part of my life. I am that weepy woman and I feel no shame about it. Continue reading →