The Box in the Living Room: Round 3

Grey’s Anatomy is a good example of how shows like CSI benefitted from thinning the inter-character conflict down. Of course, at some point shows like CSI start to need the characters to be more than a two-paragraph summary on a pilot outline and they would be well served to start showing a little more about what makes them tick. Contrarily, Grey’s has shown flashes of being a brilliant show about doctors on occasion: Instead of “Crazy and Highly Unlikely Medical Feakshow of the Week” most of their stuff has been interns trying to get a chance to get in on routine but interesting procedures. The patients are given enough time to show some character and in some cases even comment on the situation in a way that parallels the main character’s lives. In the season premier Joe the bartender brings something out of George that makes him show some previously unseen cleverness: That’s good melding of character and story.

Shepperd and Meredith’s blah love triangle? That’s not character development, that’s self-indulgent whinging. They tried to meld it to a story by having a patient who was a scorned wife hate Meredith after overhearing about the unintentional affair. The problem there, as is so often with dropping the soap, is that the whole situation could be resolved if people talked the way they would in real life. The obvious reply from Meredith to the patient was, “I didn’t know he was married, the jerk lied to me about it and now I’m just as mad as you are.” Case closed. Instead she sits there and takes it for the sake of letting Dr. Sheppard (the wife) show a compassionate side by coming to Meredith’s defense. Dumb. These slips into soap opera crud make it hard to remember the parts where they get it right as a medical drama.

The rumor is that last season’s finale (episode 10) was not originally supposed to be the finale, the third episode of this season was (episode 13). Having seen that episode, I can say that this seems very likely and the though soap has remained dropped, but the show has just enough going for it to keep watching for a bit and if they could manage to be even half as effective with some plots and characters as they are with others, the show would be one of the best on TV.

Maybe once they get their Christmas presents they’ll pull it together.

Desperate Housewives

Yes, yes, I watch this stupid show. I know. I know.

Here’s the deal with Desperate Housewives: It’s darkly comic blend of corny soap opera, mystery, social commentary and satire made it deserving of about half the praise it got last year. It certainly wasn’t the kind of show that would go down in the annals of history as among mankind’s greatest achievements (despite what the tabloids might suggest) but it was quality entertainment and one of the few true examples of the much-bandyed, rarely-achieved “guilty pleasure” genre. I mean, yeah it had a lot of over-the-top (sometimes way over the top) plots and characters but it always managed to wink at the camera and say, “I know you’re not buying any of this, but it’s pretty fun anyway.”

You had to agree.

But season two is where the rubber meets the road. The big mystery that tied the first season together into a semi-cohesive whole is over, and tragically season two has swept it aside as if it hardly mattered. Now the new mystery is one that many fans are finding less than engaging, the writers are dropping the soap so hard I swear they’re throwing it down, like a gauntlet, daring the viewers to challenge their wit. Susan and Mike on again/off again? Slip. Edie and Susan fighting again? Slide. Susan getting nosy with the uninteresting new neighbor? Whoops, there it goes, watch your toes. Gabrielle fights for the—what—400th time with both Carlos and John? Whoa man, those are some bold moves you’re making there… be careful not to tread too far into new territory.

The Lynette character continues to get uninteresting stories out of an otherwise potentially interesting situation. Bree’s mother-in-law is an ill-disguised stand-in for Rex as a constant challenger to her poise and sense of sophistication. While later episodes have made Bree’s run-ins with the insurance company and George’s dark obsession the most compelling plotline of the season (by far, and considering that it was almost something lost in the shuffle last year, that should speak volumes) early on there is almost no redeeming reason, from a story standpoint, to engage the show.

People have suggested that the writers need time to get the ball rolling again. Last year they had a pre-existing set of bonds to play off of (the friendship between the leads and Mary Alice) while this year most of those bonds have been pushed aside due to circumstances (Bree’s mourning, Lynette’s new job, Gabrielle’s social embarrassment, etc). But to me that sounds like they simply wrote themselves into a corner with the finale last year and it shouldn’t take five episodes to shake things up again. As someone pointed out, among the lead characters, none of them could really even be considered housewives any longer making the show basically a long form version of The Burbs.

I liked The Burbs. If I want to watch it, I have the DVD. It came with the frame. Desperate Housewives, if it doesn’t shape up soon, is going to out with the trash.

Survivor

I watch Survivor despite its reality show status for two reasons: One is that I don’t classify it as a reality show. To me, it’s a game show filmed and edited in a reality style. Despite what you may think, I don’t dismiss reality shows out of hand, I just don’t think most of them are very interesting and precious few of them do anything original. Two is that I love the social/game interaction in Survivor. As someone who finds both human nature and game strategy fascinating, Survivor offers a sometimes unique (if not tainted) glimpse at how people respond to unusual situations in a high-stakes game, how those situations arise and what impact they have on the players.

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