So we’re about a month into the new 2012 television season
and most shows have aired somewhere between 2 and 5 episodes depending on
pre-emptions for the Presidential debates or playoff baseball or late starts. I’ve
watched quite a bit of the new shows and kept current with my returning
favorites and a few things are catching my notice. For today, I’m mostly going
to focus on the serialized shows both on network and cable television. Shows
where watching from week to week is almost mandatory as the plots and
characters develop and you need to know what happened last week to understand
what’s happening this week and in the future.
We’re going to start with the best and that’s the Emmy award
winning Best Drama, Homeland. Words can not do justice to the amazing quality
this show has delivered week in and week out. Performances from lead actors
Claire Danes and Damian Lewis as well as supporting actors Mandy Patinkin,
Morena Baccarin, and even Morgan Saylor have been off the charts good. And
that’s nothing compared to the work going on behind the scenes by the writers,
directors, and producers. A show like this that is coming off such high
accolades like award wins and high ratings could have rested on its laurels and
moved along at a slow pace and not rattle any carts, but they’ve blown that
theory out of the ballpark. The breakneck speed that Homeland is running at
this season would give Usain Bolt a run for his money. They’ve taken their
status quo of Carrie Mathison’s psychological problems and Nicholas Brody’s
wounded turned soldier and allowed them to develop into the next stage of the
growth of their characters. It’s no longer about proving that Carrie was right
from the very start, it’s about changing the rules of the show and showing how
Carrie, Brody, Jessica, Dana, and the rest of the cast adjust to the new status
quo. Personally, I couldn’t be more thrilled to see what happens next and
that’s what television should be about; anticipating the next week.
A few other shows have followed this new concept of taking
their status quo and shaking it up. Walking Dead has followed up a lackluster
to most second season with two fantastic third season episodes to start.
They’ve taken the moral compass of the show in Rick and allowed him to grow and
develop into the leader the group needed him to be instead of the man he would
be under ideal circumstances. They’ve allowed a realistic growth of not only
Rick, but of Darryl, Carol, Maggie, and Glenn among others in a very unrealistic
world. And it’s this growth and change in characters that has allowed Walking
Dead to flourish and grow to unforeseeable heights. Another show that has
changed its status quo is the storybook based Once Upon A Time. Being a network
show, OUaT has the unenviable task of having to produce almost double the
number of compelling hours than shows like Walking Dead and Homeland and so far
they’ve been able to succeed at not having a majority of the show feel like
filler. After the first season when characters were developed, motivations were
figured out, and storylines progressed the premise of the show changed in the
finale as the cursed backgrounds of the characters were thrown into the
limelight and an almost new show was on the horizon for season two. And the
producers didn’t stop with the curveballs there as in the season premiere they
took two of the 4 or 5 main characters and took them on their own journey
outside the core of the show. And they’ve succeeded in my opinion. The show is
expanding their universe without losing the core heart of the show and that’s
something that has been hard to find in recent years of television, especially
network television.
Serialized shows like Once Upon A Time, Revenge, Revolution,
Fringe, Last Resort and others have been able to avoid the pratfalls of
previous serial shows like 24 and Lost in that filler seems to be less of a
focus now. As big a fan as I am/was of shows like 24 and Lost among others,
they did fall into the trap of having almost pointless episodes in the middles
of their seasons as they started big and knew they needed to finish big so they
coasted through portions of their season…whether it’s the development of the
quicker cable season or just a change in the philosophy of show runners, this
doesn’t seem to happen as much anymore. It’s never going to go away but I do
like the core change that television seems to be slowly developing.
That’s not to say every show is clicking on all cylinders as
I’ve found the start of Supernatural through a month very, very lackluster and
almost like a completely different show with characters I haven’t spent 6 years
getting to know. I also understand the criticisms that shows like Revolution
and Last Resort have received but I’m willing to give those shows some more time
as Revolution has slowly started answering some of their biggest critics
complaints with regards to the reality of the situation and Last Resort’s issue
of whether or not the entire concept is possible. Because at the end of the
day, to me, it’s not about the realism of the situation but the ways in which
the characters deal with the situation that’s been hoisted upon them.
Agree, disagree, have your own opinion…I’d love to hear it.
If it’s something you just wanna talk about with me or in general, email me at bvanalstyne@gmail.com or post on my
podcast’s page; www.facebook.com/TVforVendetta.
If you want to hear it discussed on air, send an email to vendetta@flawedcast.net and it’ll be
talked about in depth. And if you just wanna listen to two guys talk about tv,
check out TV for Vendetta on the Flawedcast network; www.flawedcast.net/vendetta.
So, get out that popcorn, grab a drink, watch some
television and I’ll be back soon with another edition of Devil’s Vendetta for
the couch potatoes of the world.
