Random Thoughts on Three Fall 2012 TV Premieres (Dexter, The Good Wife, Elementary)
(But first, Happy Thanksgiving, everyone, and happy birthday, Banana Boy! (Hey, you don’t like your real name used on the Internet, so be grateful I didn’t pick the more embarrassing of your childhood nicknames…))
So here it is. New fall season, three premieres. +/- format. Vague spoilers ahoy, especially for Dexter and The Good Wife. Hard to spoil Elementary, since it’s, y’know, the pilot. But don’t worry, I didn’t even hint at whodunnit.
+ The showrunners actually played the threat through — no “You have two knives!” or stupid not looking at the people behind the plastic curtain thing. Deb is putting sh*t together. Aw jeah.
– I’m not entirely sure what happens to li’l Harrison, ever. Sometimes he’s there so Dexter can be all “Am I a serial killer or a father?” and sometime’s he’s gone so Deb can be all “Look, I did something relevant to the plot!”
– I don’t think I like the li’l Dexter flashbacks to show us parts of the Morgan siblings’ psyches. Isn’t there a better way to show how messed up they both are? Instead of relying on such exposition-heavy bits?
– Yes, Quinn is handsome. Yes, Angel is sweet. But they are boring because this TV show is about a serial killer who is in danger of getting caught, not a cop who is in danger of getting fired because he has a drinking problem.
+ For the first time since season 1, I really want to find out what happens next during the premiere. That’s good, right?
– Whatever, annoying fake-out in the beginning. We knew it wasn’t going to happen like that. So nice try.
The Good Wife 4×01 “I Fought the Law”
+ Dexter writers, take note: this is the way to upend expectations. After the end of season 3, we expected a bada$$ nasty dude to come barrelling through Kalinda’s apartment door. We didn’t expect her actual husband to be even nastier and even worse.
-… (minus-ish?) I thought the episode was suggesting that Kalinda and Nick’s current relationship is not entirely consensual, but none of the reviewers whose comments I read got that vibe. Am I just reading something in?
(I also noticed that some comments on various review sites expressed worry that the show would take the domestic violence = cause of Kalinda being the way she is and/or into kinky sex, which I agree would be a sh*tty moral. But the impression I got was that the show might instead be working with how being strong or intelligent or into non-vanilla sex doesn’t mean that you can’t be in an abusive relationship, and needing other people’s help in one aspect of your life doesn’t mean you aren’t competent and awesome in others. But I guess time will tell.)
+ Nathan Lane. Nathan Lane. Nathan Lane. Nathan Lane.
+ Also David Lee. But I won’t repeat his name because you’re probably sick of it already, and also he’s fictional.
+ Also Kristen Chenoweth, who is not fictional but who was injured. :( Be both awesome and better, Ms. Chenoweth!
+ I don’t know about you, but I’m super excited for the moment when Kalinda will tell Alicia and Cary about Nick, and one or both of them will come down on that mofo with the fury of hell. Because that’s where this is going, right? I mean, did you see Alicia when that trooper threatened her kids?
+/- Yeah, the fight scene was a bit over the top. But I liked how it was choreographed so Kalinda was going for these actually-trying-to-hurt-you shots to the throat and groin, and buddy was just swinging and parrying.
+ So many interesting pieces in play. Having not only a female Watson, but a female Watson of colour could open the door to a boatload of exciting riffs on the often hidden gender and race assumptions in the Holmes-and-Watson trope.
– But it could also open the door to Jonny Lee Miller and Lucy Liu making out as Holmes/Watson becomes canon in the most predictable and boring way possible.
– If I had to choose one of Holmes and Watson to be a woman, I’d choose Holmes, because really? He’s an archetype. You can tweak him, but (don’t shoot me), it’s hard to see why I shouldn’t dismiss all these new snappy modern Holmeses by Miller and Hugh Laurie and Benedict Cumberbatch as (albeit superbly played) characters cut from the same cloth. Making Holmes a woman changes him, because suddenly his behaviour means something very different despite being semantically the same.
+ I do like that this Holmes has a heart in an arguably more canonical way than either of the other two to whom I compared him above. It’s interesting that he realizes, acknowledges, and apologizes when he’s been a jerk. Doyle-Watson tells us that Holmes can be super-charming (he gets a girl to agree to marry him in a matter of days), and I can believe that of Miller’s Holmes in a way I can’t of Gregory House or the BBC’s Sherlock.
– Lucy Liu is awesome, but.. OK, originally I wrote that I was worried that this Watson is being watered-down because of her gender, but I take it back. On further consideration, I think this characterization of Watson just isn’t very exciting, gender notwithstanding. I want a Watson who’s more than a cipher — a Watson who could be the main character on his or her own and would still be interesting. House, M. D. did this well with Wilson.
+ Weird but fun choice of canonical Holmes-isms to keep. Drug addict, aspiring beekeeper, Brit, Scotland Yard, sure. Asexual, current drug addict, Watson perceives him as unemotional, gone.
+ Speaking of which — Gregson! For once! Yay! Finally someone remembered you exist!
– The plot. Really? Really? You’re right, I’m not watching for the nuances of the mystery; I’m watching because I like Holmes and Watson, and if the adventure that serves as the pretext for them to hang out is a mystery, sure, that works. But seriously? “He knows we don’t have enough evidence to convict him” is TV-land code for “this is the stupidest murder plan that anyone ever pretended was plausible, ever.”
+ Dallas Roberts. That’s right, I judge the quality of actors based on whether they’re good enough to warrant a recurring role on The Good Wife. Deal.
I’m going to leave Elementary alone, because I’ve been watching it solely for entertainment and not critically. Conversely, I can’t help but critisize Dexter because I’ve been watching it for so long, and my goodness do they make some big mistakes over the years.
So, Dexter pilot. I thought it was good…at the end of the episode. It started off a little weak, and throughout the episode I felt that I was going to get a whole season of Dexter making up lame excuses to throw Deb off, or Debra constantly asking her psychiatrist if she can trust Dexter. The ending of the episode, which I won’t spoil, turned my expectations of the season completely around, and now I don’t know what to make of this season.
Quick thing about Deb: also glad that she pieced everything together. I know that making her LT was a political move, but she IS a good cop. She’s always the one following up on stray leads. It makes sense that she can put it all together.
I was also disappointed that they killed Detective Mike so quickly. I’m also not sure what to make of LaGuerta finding and hiding the blood slide (that does fit with her character – you know, hiding stuff). And as for Angel / Quinn…yeah I got tired of Angel story lines after the first season. He’s an interesting side character, but that’s about it. But I believe (nay, I hope) that the scene at the bar is a sort of “we’re closing the book on this story, because we know it was terrible” kind of scene. I don’t think we’ll see too much of that anymore. They’re friends again – great, we can move on.
The only other thing I have to say is, that was a hilarious video! (Dexter in 60 seconds)
Yeah, I was glad that the end of the episode brought a scene I was worried would come only in 7×08 while we slogged through stupidity and boringness. And I like it when Deb is competent, although I can see how being close to someone would make you less, not more, likely to suspect him or her.
Loved the opening scenes of 7×02 too :)