TV Review: Van Helsing

One of the reason that vampires have been a staple of horror fiction for over a century is because they are so mutable.  All vampires kill humans for blood; but the other characteristics are infinitely flexible.  Some vampires can fly (Forever Knight), some can go out in sunlight (Moonlight), some go “poof” when they are killed (Buffy the Vampire Slayer), some cast no reflection (Angel), some can transform into bats or wolves (too many to name), some are sexy (Frank Langella’s Dracula) and some can control mystical powers (Francis Ford Coppola’s Dracula). 

The new Syfy series Van Helsing comes at the vampire myth through a vaguely original lens (there is so much vampire fiction that nothing can be truly new, just different borrowed elements in a new combination).  An eruption of a super-volcano has plunged the world into a nuclear winter, and the lack of sunlight has allowed vampires to thrive.  They control the world as feral beasts, while pockets of human fight to survive.  One group of Marines, trapped in a hospital, have been guarding a comatose woman (Kelly Overton) for three years when vampires break in and one of them feeds on the woman, who awakens and promptly kicks some vampire ass.  The vampire who bit her is killed, but then he comes back to life as a human, cured by the blood of the woman who just happens to be a descendant of the famous vampire hunter, Van Helsing.

The creator of the series is Neil LaBute, who wrote the brutal yet acclaimed indie film In The Company of Men.  He also wrote the HORRIBLE remake of The Wicker Man with Nicolas Cage, so his street cred when it comes to horror films is dubious at best.  The idea of a world controlled by vampires is similar to that of the 2009 Ethan Hawke film Daybreakers, in which vampires ruled the world but were facing an ecological crisis because humans, their food supply, were becoming an endangered species. 

The acting is about what you’d expect from a Syfy series, namely competent at best.  Seeing the unfamiliar actors go through their paces makes you appreciate how lucky Joss Whedon was to find Sarah Michelle Geller, Alyson Hannigan, Charisma Carpenter and Nicholas Brendan for Buffy the Vampire Slayer.  Of course the first two episodes were busy setting up the premise and didn’t provide a lot of opportunities for emoting.

Frankly, I don’t like my vampires feral.  First of all, feral vampires are very similar to zombies, and I generally don’t like zombies.  I think an enemy that is intelligent and can plan is scarier than a pack of mad dogs wearing clothes.  Second, vampires that can pass for human provide for many more opportunities for plot twists; season 3 of Penny Dreadful packed a punch when the identity of Dracula was revealed to be a character we thought was nice.  There seem to be some intelligent vampires in Van Helsing, but except for a reference to “old ones” an explanation will have to wait for future episodes.

Supposedly Syfy is trying to ditch its image as the network with all those Shaknado movies and go back to being the network who picked up Emmy nominations for Battlestar Gallactica.  Most of their newer original shows (Killjoys, Dark Matter) and standard, disposable science fiction with attractive casts.  I watched Killjoys for two seasons, but I am dropping it as I can no longer keep the backstory straight.  Van Helsing, with its intriguing premise, is probably a step in the right direction; if nothing else it is an improvement over the bad Hugh Jackman movie of the same name.  

But the low-budget sets and generic actors will have to step up their game if they want to be as culturally relevant as The Walking Dead or even iZombie, much less get Emmy nominations.

TV Review: Mr. Robot season 2

Warning—I discuss Mr. Robot season 2, so there are SPOILERS (duh).

TV series are like babies; some will grow up to be President of the United States (like the West Wing), some will grow up to be drug-dealing pedophiles (the odious Dancing with the Stars), and most will grow up to be accountants with 2.5 children who die at 56 from a heart attack (any sitcom on ABC).  But when people are babies you just can’t tell.

Generally speaking, most TV shows that start out great begin to decline almost immediately.  Lost won the Emmy for Best Drama after its first season and then wasn’t even nominated again until its final season. It’s difficult to think of shows that started out okay and then got better.  Certainly Buffy the Vampire Slayer got better; also Angel, and Dollhouse.  Hey, what do those series have in common?

Season 2 of Mr. Robot was not as good as season 1.  I don’t mean that as condemnation; it was still one of the most compelling, best written, best acted shows on TV.  But where it differed from season 1 it seemed less interesting, and where it was the same it seemed imitative.

The main difference between seasons 1 and 2 that I noticed was the lack of a propulsive impetus that kept the plot in season 1 always moving forward.  There was a constant sense that things were building to a climax, events were out of control and there was no slowing down or getting off the train.  The episode that took a side trip away from the E-Corp plotline and was all about Elliot breaking his girlfriend’s drug supplier out of jail (after he put him there) felt like a distraction, even though it packed a powerful emotional punch.  The E-Corp hack was an impending train wreck that you could see coming but couldn’t avoid.

Season 2 spent a lot of time backtracking, losing momentum to restart the narrative.  We spent several episodes seeing Elliot in his new lifestyle, only to find it’s all in his mind and he’s been in jail.  The show carefully created this interesting yet improbable character named Ray who needs dialysis and runs a black market website, then we find he doesn’t exist, he’s just the physical avatar of Elliot’s warden.  The show sets up conflict and deadlines, then they all turn out to be figments of Elliot’s imagination.

Also, more of the decisions by Sam Esmail seemed random.  The use of Phil Collin’s “Take me home” over the burning of E-Corps millions seemed less like a quirky, idiosyncratic choice and more like pulling a song out of an iPod on random.  Elliot’s old boss Gideon Goddard (Michael Gill) being killed by some guy in a bar (only to be resurrected in a sitcom fantasy to be run over by Alf) seemed like a waste of a guest spot of a good actor.  Almost all the plot twists in season 1, even the ones from left field, felt like part of a design; in season 2 they just felt arbitrary.

But why dwell on the negative?  The show expanded the role of Joanna, Tyrell’s gorgeous, thoroughly evil wife, and actress Stephanie Corneliussen imbued her with fascinating malevolence.  Grace Gummer and Michael Cristofer joined the regular cast and were given multi-dimensional characters that were interesting but not bizarre.  BD Wong’s Whiterose was like the Rabbit in Alice in Wonderland, always enticing characters further down a rabbit hole that only he (she?) understood (maybe).  Regulars Carly Chaikin (Darlene) and Portia Doubleday (Angela) both portrayed formidable characters that thrived with more screen time and deeper backstories.

And then there is Rami Malek; excuse me, Emmy-winning Best Actor in a Drama Rami Malek.  Elliot’s emotional range is so limited it is hard to know exactly how good of an actor Malek really is, but no show on television today relies more heavily on the performance of its main actor, and Malek never disappoints.  He got to show a little more range this year, playing in a 1980’s sitcom fantasy and, in the season finale, doing a middling impersonation of Christian Slater.  But his vacant expression always somehow showed wheels within wheels going on in his head.

Series creator Sam Esmail assumed the unusual mantle of directing every episode of season 2, and he brought a distinctive visual style and an appreciation for all of the techniques available to a director to establish tone and mood.  He varied the soundtrack, playing jaunty spy music when Angela sneaks into to plant a bug in the FBI’s computer system, and then used an eerie Aimee Mann song in the scene in the finale where Darlene is shown the extent of the FBI’s knowledge about FSociety.  Esmail kept the show visually interesting, no mean feat in an industry where quality television direction is usually measured by how many set-ups you can complete in a day.

Of course the season ended with a cliffhanger, one that once again cut a little close to the Fight Club source material.  If I were handing out grades I’d give season 1 an unqualified A, season 2 an A-/B+.  Again, that’s not a criticism.  Being brilliant is hard; maintaining brilliance over time is nearly impossible.  Expectations get raised, tricks are revealed, tropes and gimmicks become familiar.  My hope for season 3 is that we spend less time in Elliot’s head, and more time working out the consequences of the 5/9 hack in the real world.

The most curious thing about Mr. Robot season 2 is that, despite all the publicity and awards, the ratings for season two fell from season 1. The ratings aren’t just a season-long hemorrhage, but started low from the first episode of season 2.  Is this a factor of Mr. Robot appealing to a too-high falutin’ audience? The new reality of Too Much Television and Too Many Channels?  How long will USA support one of its flagship shows if the ratings continue to fall?  We can only wait and see what season 3 brings.

Emmy ratings fall--no one can watch the winners

This just in—the ratings for the 2016 Emmys sucked. The only surprising thing about this is that the show surprisingly good. The pace was good, finishing early enough that there was some sense of padding at the end.  The In Memoriam was one of the best I’ve ever seen, interweaving photographs with film clips during lyric breaks in the song “Hallelujah” (my only critique is that they included non-TV performers like Muhammad Ali, Prince, David Bowie, and movie actor Anton Yelchin, whose last TV credit is over ten years ago). The winners were a pleasing mix of old favorites (Julia Louis-Dreyfuss cannot win too many Emmys) and new sensations like Rami Malek and Tatiana Maslany.  Jimmy Fallon’s ad libs were amusing, and the Jeb Bush cameo was (here is that word again) surprisingly funny.

So, what’s the problem?  Effective counter-programming, like the JonBenet Ramsey docu-drama?  Hardly; if there was real interest in the Emmys, the viewers would show up and DVR the competition. 

I believe the reason for low Emmy ratings is the same force that correlates Oscar ratings with the popularity of the expected winner for Best Picture.  When a popular movie is favored to win, as in 1998 when Titanic was a lock for Best Picture, the ratings soar.  When an indy film like Argo, or 12 Years a Slave, or Birdman, or The Artist are favored?  Not so much.

I have written before about the Balkanization of our viewing choices, about how television used to be an all-inclusive community that is being broken up into pay cable/streaming services niches.  I think this lowers the community unifying effect of TV, and also drives Emmy ratings down.

The big winners were, unsurprisingly, Veep and Game of Thrones, both repeating as Best Comedy and Best Drama.  Both are shown by HBO, a premium cable service relatively few households subscribe to.  There were two network shows up for Best Comedy, Modern Family and Black-ish; the rest were on premium cable (Veep, Silicon Valley) or pay streaming services (Transparent, Master of None, Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt).  On top of the unavailability of most of the nominees, most were directed at a narrow target audience.  Political humor obviously dominated Veep; Silicon Valley was about high tech humor, a definite niche; shows like Transparent and Master of None have their audience but they aren’t exactly as large as Cheers’ target audience.

The only Best Drama nominee on a broadcast network was Downton Abbey on PBS, again a show with limited appeal to the heartland.  Homeland and Game of Thrones are on HBO; House of Cards streams on Netflix, and Better Call Saul, Mr. Robot and The Americans all are on basic cable.  Again, none of these shows is aiming at the same audience as CSI, NCIS, or Dancing With the C-listers.

Television is better than ever, with high quality shows like Mad Men, Breaking Bad and Game of Thrones on an ever-expanding number of platforms.  But gone are the days when an action show like Mission Impossible could get multiple nominations for not only best drama but also multiple acting nominations (winning Best Drama and Best Actress in 1967).

Maybe the broadcast networks should stop televising the Emmy Awards.  HBO took over the TV movie category years ago; Drama and Comedy are now dominated by cable shows and streamers; the only niche left to broadcasters is reality.  It used to be a prestige thing to do, and the Emmys could be used to promote upcoming new shows on the network airing the Emmys. 

But viewers are trailing off, and new shows no longer all debut in September.  Maybe the Emmys should take the hint and move to basic cable.  Or better yet, just use twitter. 

TV Review: Agents of SHIELD -- I'm done

As a huge Joss Whedon fan, I had some trepidation four years ago when Marvel’s Agents of SHIELD debuted on ABC.  Joss’s (his fans call him Joss) contribution was tangential, mostly in the hiring of his brother Jed to be the showrunner.  The early results were so-so, but after about five episodes or so the characters kicked in and it became appointment TV.  It was nowhere near Buffy or Angel quality, but it was solid genre television in a medium that usually gets genre shows wrong.

The show did well for three years, managing to make Brett Dalton’s character Grant Ward interesting despite his woodenness (making him a [spoiler!] Hydra agent made his character much more understandable), the inscrutable Melinda May (is it racist to call an Asian character inscrutable?) became . . . well, scrutible (the series started to be good the moment she left her hotel door open as an invitation for Ward to join her for the night), and the adorable tag team scientists Fitz and Simmons were fuel for shippers.  Anchoring the whole thing was estimable character actor Clark Gregg, grounding the silliness with needed quippy gravitas.

I even stayed with the show when they started linking to the Marvel movies and you couldn’t follow the plot on Agents of SHIELD unless you saw Captain America: The Winter Soldier on opening weekend.  More and more characters acquired powers that verged on dopey, and it didn’t help that the “contagion” of augmented powers was spread by fish oil pills. They had some good guest stars (Kyle MacLachlen was outstanding) and the added battling Bickersons married couple of Lance and Bobbi (Nick Blood and Adrian Palicki provided some needed levity.

However, after watching the first episode of season four, I’m done.  The show was supposed to be about the “little people” who worked at SHIELD, the Rosencrantzes and Guildensterns who toiled in the bureaucracy while Thor and Iron Man saved the world.  The technology got to be increasingly questionable, but it was always recognizable as science fiction.

Then they introduced Ghost Rider.

You remember Ghost Rider from that really bad Nicolas Cage movie (I understand he was in a graphic novel before that, but when Nic Cage interprets a character everything that came before vanishes) in 2007, right?  He sold his soul to the devil to get vengeance, and now he rides around with a flaming skull killing bad guys.  This is science fiction?

As soon as I heard that Ghost Rider was going to be a main character on Agents of SHIELD, I knew it was a “jump the shark” moment.  Gone is the concept that these are the “normal” people in SHIELD who help the superheroes; now we have augmented people chasing a demon.  With a flaming skull.  Oy.

I am also not buying the plot resonances from Captain America: Civil War.  I think the first two Captain America films are the two best features in the Marvel oeuvre, but the third one makes no sense.  The “Sokovia Accords” now require augmented people to sign an agreement and submit to oversight, or they won’t be permitted to save the world?  Yeah, that’ll teach them!  The argument between Captain America and Tony Stark over the proposal to “regulate” the Avengers is completely one-sided; Stark should know that no amount of “supervision” can keep Thor, the Hulk, and Hawkeye (what is his superpower again?) from doing what they want to do.  And if the Avengers are to be watched, there is always the ancient question—who watches the watchers?  The whole idea that a UN oversight committee could prevent collateral damage when the Avengers were busy saving the Earth from destruction was a bureaucratic wet dream.

As much as I’ve come to enjoy the actors on the show (even Chloe Bennett as Skye, or Daisy, got less irritating), I am getting off.  Adding Marvel’s fantasy character Ghost Rider to a science fiction show like Agents of SHIELD is just more corporate synergy, like the idea that Once Upon a Time can be used to find new venues for all of Disney’s endless princess characters.  It may work, but it is television driven by branding, not imagination or storytelling.

Throw in the fact that Lance and Bobbi were written off the show to be in a spin off that was subsequently spiked, and I see a TV series that is not making good decisions.  The key to making a successful TV series is making decisions—you have to make about a million right decisions to create a good show.  Once the decision making process goes wrong, you start making decisions to correct previous mistakes and pretty soon you’re in Lost Season 5.

So I am jumping off here, erasing my “series record” instruction from my DVR.  The question now is what will I do with the one hour a week I’ve just gained?