Noel: Now that we've wrapped up the year in books, DVDs, movies, and music, we should probably take a moment to acknowledge the medium we actually spent the most time enjoying in 2006: the glass teat itself, television. The big news story of the year in TV is the way new serialized dramas have almost completely failed to catch on with audiences, with the major exception—the one that proves the rule, perhaps—of Heroes.
Heroes definitely qualifies as one of those shows that I jump to watch once it's safely recorded on my TiVo, and while it wasn't my favorite show of 2006—I'll save that revelation until the end—I've mostly been delighted by the way it's played out so far. I was worried at the outset that Heroes was going to be stingy with the actual superheroics, since all these characters are still learning about their powers, but the combination of giddy enthusiasm and cautious horror with which they've been testing their limits has been fun to watch. It's simultaneously true-to-life and fantastic. The story's moving along a fairly good clip, too, though there are a lot of mysteries—ones I don't care much about, to be honest, like the Petrellis' mob ties—that the creators don't seem in any hurry to resolve. And there are definitely some characters I like more than others. But it's no accident that Hiro has become the breakout character of the 2006 TV season: His eager, self-aware-but-not-sarcastic geekiness reflects a lot of what Heroes' fans see in themselves, and hope to see in the series for as long as it runs.
Scott: Screw audiences: Serialized dramas (and comedies) are here to stay, and people will just have to get with the program. I really have no more patience for TV dramas that don't move forward, even as I acknowledge "the perils of serialization," which I'll get to in greater detail when I talk about Battlestar Galactica. Even an otherwise-solid show like House loses me eventually, because rewinding and pressing "play" just isn't enough anymore; like a shark, a show has to keep moving forward, or it will die, doomed to regurgitating the same formula. (In this case: patient comes down with mysterious illness, House and crew nearly kill victim with misdiagnosis/experimental treatment, House has eureka moment and patient is all better within five minutes.) Granted, people have trouble committing to serialized dramas, because if you miss an episode, you lose the thread entirely, but that's all changed in the age of DVRs, and I don't think TV's brightest talents will ever retreat to the old way of doing things.
That said, I applaud Heroes for intrepidly moving forward when other serialized shows, in an effort to pace themselves for runs well into the indefinite future, spin their wheels rather than tie up story threads. (Ahem, Lost, ahem.) But I have a feeling this show is going to make us pay for our devotion in the end, because there are termites eating away at its foundation. First, the things I like: The superheroes generally have interesting powers (Hiro's ability to bounce around the space-time continuum, Claire's indestructibility, and Isaac's gift for drawing the future are particular favorites) and they're made even more interesting by how they work together; the purported villains are either fascinatingly ambiguous (Horn-Rimmed Glasses) or genuinely frightening (Sylar). And we agree that things are progressing at a good clip. My problem is that I'm tired of about 70 percent of the characters. I don't care about the boring Petrelli brothers (though Adrian Pasdar's Nathan could break out of his shell soon), or boring mind-reader Parkman, or boring Niki/Jessica (Ali Larter won't have to do those good-girl/bad-girl mirror images forever, will she?) or the ultimate bore, Mohinder, who's presumably the Professor Xavier of the bunch, but has to go through obscure dream sequences and fits of self-doubt first. (And how about that existential computer prompt: DO YOU WANT TO QUIT?) I find myself hoping that the show's creators, having concocted an irresistible premise and a gratifyingly complex story structure, will just hand the whole enterprise off to Joss Whedon, so we can at least have a little color in the writing. And yet, for all my complaints, there's usually one or two thrilling sequences in every episode that keep me coming back for more. I think I'm going to live to regret it, though.
As I hinted at the beginning, the third season of Battlestar Galactica has lately shown signs of creative exhaustion, but first, it opened with four or five of the best, most politically loaded episodes in the series' history. Life on New Caprica under Cylon occupation has presented a delicious opportunity for allegory that the writers have seized upon with exhilarating verve. Just swap "Iraq" with "New Caprica" and "American" with "Cylon," and viewers are forced into a troubling reversal of identification: Suddenly, we're rooting for the insurgents who plan terrorist attacks and suicide bombings (!) in order to disrupt the occupation, and jeering the traitors who join the police force in a Cylon-led effort to restore order. While you could make the case that the show's creators have other models in mind, including references to the French Resistance, it's the only current American show to empathize with the plight of occupied peoples. Unfortunately, BSG hasn't always known what to do now that it's back in space, and I'm sure that uncertainty is owed entirely to its open run on the SCI FI Channel. If the goal is to defeat (or at least elude) the Cylons and settle on Earth, I'm sure the writers could plan for that goal if they knew the show would end its run in, say, four seasons. But nothing on SCI FI has received anywhere near the attention of BSG, so there's really no saying when the damned thing will end. As a result, you have too many episodes that serve as place-holders, and others that are so self-contained that they don't connect at all to the overarching story thread. Still, these are just a few loose threads in an otherwise impeccable show; here's hoping the writers can keep it from fraying.
Noel: I just finished watching Battlestar Galactica's second season and have all the third-season episodes waiting on my TiVo, but I've been reading the grumblings about how this season has started to roll off the tracks. I'll find out soon enough, I guess, though I've discovered that so-called "disappointing" seasons of cult shows (like The Sopranos and Gilmore Girls) are often much better than I'd heard. Cult shows inspire such intense feelings that fans feel every bump harder than they should. When you're in for the long haul with a series, there's always going to be ebb and flow. (Just ask any fan of Buffy. Or Alias.) That's why I'm wondering if it might be better to start watching—and, for the creators, making—serialized TV in big chunks, to de-emphasize the iffy episodes and keep the arcs clearer. (Although what's lost by that method is the element of surprise. I can't imagine what it was like to watch those jaw-dropping final episodes of BSG season two as they happened. Most of its biggest surprises, I already knew.)
All of the above should lead me to talk about Lost—and Gilmore Girls, for that matter—but neither has really been good enough to bring into a discussion of the best TV of this year. Plus I want to talk about what's wrong with Lost—and why I'm going to keep watching anyway—in more detail, before the show resumes in February.
Instead, I'll talk about Veronica Mars, which inexplicably (to me at least) has been irritating former fans all season. Man, I don't get it. Yes, the third season isn't as good as the first—one of the most unimpeachable runs of series TV in the medium's history—and it may not even be as good as the second, which was hopelessly tangled but still full of angst and wit. But the "more accessible" version of VM has been cracklingly entertaining, week after week, from its sardonic take on modern campus life to its thematically resonant initial mystery, which was all about Stockholm Syndrome and victims becoming as bad as their victimizers. (Patty Hearst may be a lousy actress, but her guest appearance made for great symbolism.) So, yeah, the Logan-and-Veronica romance (known fannishly as LoVe) is making both their characters do some silly things, and it's time to put a moratorium on Veronica getting doped-up by bad guys. But the new mystery introduced at the end of the first arc looks promising, as does the possibility that Veronica can now entertain the romantic attention of floppy-haired emo kid Piz. It's just too bad that we've lost Ed Begley Jr., who was such a delight.
Anyway it's not like the new-viewer-friendly Veronica Mars is any more popular than the old one. It's still only hitting a niche. But at least it's on the air. Which is also the case with one of your favorites of the year, yes? Still holding on in spite of low viewership?
Scott: Yes, things were looking a little rough for Friday Night Lights—by far my favorite new drama of the year—but it's one of those cases where the support of those passionate few who have been watching the show had an impact on a network's decision to keep it. (Why doesn't this ever happen with movies?) Truth be told, scheduling conflicts kept me from watching the show early on, and its absence from NBC's iTunes offerings also screwed me over, since I really insist on watching shows from start to finish now. Thankfully, Bravo ran a marathon last weekend and I blew through all 10 episodes in a day and a half, drawn in helplessly by its unusually somber tone and wonderfully textured look at a small town driven (for good and ill) by its high-school football team. After reviewing all three underdog football movies in 2006—Invincible, Gridiron Gang, and We Are Marshall—it was a pleasure to see the game dramatized as something that's isn't always inspirational. The weight of expectations lies heavily on everyone here: The coach (played with magnetism by Kyle Chandler), who can only disappoint a community that will accept nothing short of perfection; the players, who bow under the pressure of ring-bearing alumni and their dim prospects after high school; and the young women who expect more from their star boyfriends than fate or hormones will ultimately give them.
What I appreciate most about Friday Night Lights is that it's a drama. Not a cop drama. Not a courtroom drama. Not an emergency-room drama. And not even a sports drama, at least under the usual triumph-over-adversity formula. Like the games in Hoop Dreams, the stakes in Friday Night Lights are dangerously out of proportion as far as what they mean to the people involved, which of course makes those fourth-quarter snaps real nail-biters. (Will the timid backup quarterback be able to fill impossibly big shoes? Will the cocky-but-likeable tailback impress the scout whose approval he so desperately seeks? Will one more loss cost the new coach his job?) I suppose you could write off the off-the-field drama as high-school soap-opera material, but I find every key relationship in the show affecting, from teen romances (tentative and advanced) to the nuanced business of a coach and his strong-willed wife battling through a period of extreme duress. Thank goodness NBC ordered the back nine: At least we're assured of one winning season.
So how about you, Noel? Can you keep from getting attached to shows that aren't long for this world? I wish I could, but I'm in love with lost causes.
Noel: This one isn't so much a lost cause as a guilty pleasure, but I'm glad Fox stuck with Justice through its full 12-episode order, in spite of bad reviews and low ratings. I can't pretend that it was groundbreaking television, but it was routinely the most fun hour of TV I watched each week, for as long as it lasted, because it was so preposterous and so clever. I loved the way this high-powered L.A. law firm applied cutting-edge technology and innovative legal techniques to help clients with no money, and I loved the way the Bruckheimer TV team used its best CSI whiz-bangery to illustrate such thrilling stuff as jury selection and precedent research.
But for all its goofiness, Justice also had a sense of humor about itself that wasn't as self-indulgent as what goes on at the increasingly impossible Boston Legal. And it had a simultaneous cynicism about and faith in the legal system that felt very real. Plus, those cases were cool: a paparazzi falling out of a high-rise (or was he pushed?), a woman getting decapitated by a poorly constructed roller coaster (or did she jump?), and so on. And the show's big gimmick—spending the last five minutes of every episode showing what really happened—never failed to send chills down my spine, even though most of the codas only proved that our heroes' theory of the case was right all along.
Anyway, as near as I can tell, Justice is officially no more, and I doubt we'll see a DVD set. Just another piece of TV ephemera, floating around my memory and leaving a hole in my heart.
But enough mourning. Let's talk comedy! Let's especially talk about the return of NBC's "Must-See TV" Thursdays, which was a happy surprise after all the network's claims that it was largely abandoning scripted dramas and sitcoms for game shows and televised pervert-traps.
Scott: I'll have to leave you to talk about 30 Rock, which I skipped to my everlasting regret after early reviews seemed to favor the supremely annoying Studio 60 On The Sunset Strip. (Metacritic.com has the latter beating the former 75 to 67, but I'm guessing the results would be radically different if those same critics were surveyed today.) NBC has finally made episodes available on iTunes, so I'll catch up soon.
But any Thursday with a new episode of The Office is Must-See TV for me, even if NBC decided to surround it with sitcoms built around Pauly Shore, Carrot Top, and Jeff Foxworthy. Much has already been written about how this show has miraculously emerged from the long shadow of the BBC series to become every bit its equal. Still, it has its own special merits, mainly due to an ever-expanding cast of characters (many of them writer-actors) who are all brilliant in their own way: Stanley, whose eternal misery is alleviated only by Pretzel Day; Toby, the sad-eyed H.R. rep whose halfhearted battles with Steve Carell's Michael Scott cost him a plush robe and slippers; and new additions like Ed Helms' Andy, who provides the perfect foil to Dwight and knows all the lyrics to The Indigo Girls' "Closer To Fine."
The third season has handled some tricky issues with great care. The merging of the Stamford and Scranton branches, for one—though the BBC series deserves a hat-tip for providing a partial blueprint—and the Jim & Pam non-romance, which is a far more dangerous proposition given what has happened to sitcoms when unrequited love gets requited. Karen has proven a worthy romantic rival to Pam—smart, pretty, and up for some pranking—and the dynamic between the three of them has made the show funnier. But mostly, The Office has become like The Simpsons used to be for me, a weekly inventory of lines and moments that I find myself quoting back and forth to friends. Some random highlights from this season: "The Schrutes use every part of the goose"; Prison Mike; great Indians throughout history, from M. Night Shyamalan to Apu from The Simpsons; and of course those transcendent Michael/Dwight performances, like "Lazy Scranton" and that weird loose-limbed dance to "Ain't no party like a Scranton party, because a Scranton party don't stop."
So, any favorites for you, Noel? How much should I regret not having seen 30 Rock?
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