Firefly

You know, every so often I find myself wondering what all the fuss over Firefly is about. It was a show canceled almost out of the starting gate, and viciously tampered with in its brief run on the air. When the suited monkeys at FOX pulled the plug after airing only 11 of their initial 14-episode order -- and most of them wildly out of sequence -- they received an astonishing amount of fan reaction, given that they did everything in their power to prevent this show from gaining a following. Why then did it resonate with people? Why did it sell so many DVDs that Universal bought the rights to make a proper blockbuster out of it? And why do fans continue to hold conventions to express their appreciation for the actors and crew who barely got the time to establish their characters and the universe they inhabited?

Then I sit down with it for a few days, and all those questions just seem silly. Yes, it never got to build on its potential, and as such remains no more than a fascinating experiment, but I firmly believe that Firefly, not Buffy, would be Joss Whedon's defining creation had things worked out differently. It may have only had 14 episodes with which to set down some sort of Orson Scott Card-cum-Western universe, but damned if it didn't work. Frankly, I don't know how something this ambitious even made it to the air in the first place, especially on FOX.

Whedon sets the bar impossibly high with the two-hour premiere, titled "Serenity," an episode that did not air until 9 others preceded it, because -- you know, what, if I stop every time to point out where FOX did this show wrong, I'll never get through this review. Suffice to say, it makes no sense to dump this pilot, as it is one of the best and deepest series premieres ever made. Then again, I didn't get the full impact of its brilliance until at least the third time I watched it, so perhaps the decision wasn't made entirely out of greed and stupidity.

I don't know why exactly it took so long for the pilot to click with me, as Whedon doesn't waste a single second of its two-hour length. The opening battle introduces us to then-sergeant Malcolm Reynolds (Nathan Fillion) and Zoe (Gina Torres), two rebel soldiers on their last legs as something called the Alliance sends in ships to bomb them to oblivion. Whedon drenches these moments in shadow, lighting the scene up only when a bomber puts another crater in the planet. Six years later, Malcolm's the captain of his very own ship, a deteriorating, Firefly-class cargo ship, Zoe's married the pilot Wash (Alan Tudyk), and an innocent little pixie named Kaylee (Jewel Staite) keeps the hunk of metal running. They may not have much, but this ragtag crew will follow their captain to the ends of the 'Verse. Well, except for mercenary Jayne (Adam Baldwin), who will happily sell the rest into slavery if the money's good.

Mal and co. make their living salvaging derelicts and delivering smuggled goods to buyers and sellers. When an Alliance cruiser busts their raid, the Serenity has a hard time offloading their booty, and they stop on a planet to pick up some passengers: a "shepherd" (preacher) by the name of Book (Ron Glass); Simon Tam (Sean Maher), a young doctor looking to get off-world without Alliance attention; and some mystery dude who is bound to cause some sort of trouble. Also accompanying the crew is Inara (Morena Baccarin), a member of the ultra-high class escort class known as the Companions, who uses the Serenity's built-in shuttle to meet her engagements. When mystery dude turns out to be a Fed, we discover that Simon smuggled his sister River (Summer Glau) on-board, and the two are fugitives running from the Alliance.


The pilot wastes no time fleshing out these characters. Despite a story that takes some big turns, "Serenity" is so great because it's really made up of countless tiny moments, from Wash at the helm playing with toy dinosaurs, to Book quickly disabling the Fed: Whedon, the man responsible for a great many of the best-developed characters to ever grace television, makes hs earlier efforts look like child's play. There's more development in this single pilot than the entire first season of Buffy.

But the pilot is no fluke; Whedon and his writers packed each episode so full of character development that attempting to discuss the show on an episodic basis is futile. Believe me I know: there's a 5000-word version of this post that's as much a tribute to wheel-spinning as it is a review of this show. The plots, good as they are, come a distant second to the characters; this is true of all of Whedon's shows of course (well, not Dollhouse, but that's new and not yet fully explored), but Firefly plays like 5 seasons worth of Whedon T.V. rolled into one.

Book, the kindly preacher, has a murky past, bits of which surface in was that simply make the details even fuzzier. Jayne loves his guns so much that, when Mal somehow finds himself married to a subservient farm girl, he offers the Cap his most prized possession -- a gun he dubs "Vera" -- to trade for the attractive stowaway. His loyalty to the highest bidder comes into play when he betrays the Tams for a fat bounty in the gripping "Ariel," and even in Mal's oxygen-deprived flashbacks in "Out of Gas." Simon, who comes off as foppish and sheltered, reveals a deep love for his sister and a willingness to lose everything to protect her. Zoe and Wash have just about the most stable relationship ever seen in the Jossverse, but occasionally Wash can't help but feel jealous over Zoe and Mal's extremely close -- and extremely platonic -- relationship.

Mal, of course, is another beast entirely. As objectively as I can view a piece of entertainment, I'd without a doubt rate Mal as one of the best-written, most interesting characters in Joss' or anyone else's shows. (Personally, I'd rank him second only behind Fred in my list of favorite Whedon creations). He's always interested about getting the job done and isn't at all afraid to make some seemingly heartless decisions, yet he cares for anyone under his charge like family: when Simon and River are kidnapped by zealous hill folk in "Safe," Mal comes to rescue them and, when Simon asks why the Captain came back for them, he simply responds that Simon and River are a part of the crew. But for all his professionalism, he has an unflinching ability to turn even the calmest situation into a brawl, at which point his ability to take an obscene amount of punishment benefits him: these altercations range from hilarious (the duel in "Shindig") to terrifying (the torture in "War Stories"). Even more interesting are the moments when his steely resolve comes to the fore, such as the downright fearsome coldness in his eyes when he breaks free of his torturers in "War Stories."

As with the rest of Whedon's "families," one person keeps everyone else together, no matter how bad things get. Buffy had Willow, then Xander, Angel had Fred, and Firefly has Kaylee, an irrepressible ray of sunshine who just so happens to be a mechanical genius. As Mal so rightly puts it, "I don't believe there's a power in the 'Verse that can keep Kaylee from bein' cheerful." When the Fed shoots her in the gut in the pilot, the entire crew rallies to save her and no one seems a mite concerned about killing Simon for indirectly causing it all -- as with Willow in the early seasons of Buffy, Joss isn't above putting her in jeopardy constantly to ratchet up the drama. Though Jayne makes a number of crass jokes at her expense, everyone clearly cares for her, particularly Inara, who constantly fields Kaylee's doe-eyed wonder without a hint of condescension.


As a matter of fact, my single favorite scene in the series involves Kaylee. In "Shindig," Kaylee spots a, frankly, gaudy dress in a window shop but nevertheless regards it as she does Inara's finest clothing. When Mal needs to sneak into an upper crust party to speak with a potential client -- the fact that Inara's there has nothing to do with it, of course -- he shows up with Kaylee, frilly dress and all, in hand. Now, I'm a very empathetic person: pretty much everything but non-Whedon television can move me to tears, and I feel shame for those too drunk or dumb to feel it for themselves. I literally watch Ricky Gervais' shows through my fingers as if they were horror films. Yet when Kaylee stumbles into the middle of high society wearing what looks like a pink Christmas tree, it never once occurs to me to be embarrassed for her. Jane Espenson turns the cliché on its head, instantly shutting down the snotty aristocrats who jeer her and making her the star of the ball without resorting to some insulting Pygmalion-like "transformation," with men listening rapturously as she gives them the skinny on the best and worst ships you can buy. I can't tell you how thrilled I was that they never paraded such a sweet character around for a cheap laugh.

As I've already noted, picking highlights from this set is a fool's errand. If you're in the mood to laugh, try "Jaynestown," in which Jayne returns to a planet he raided years ago, only to find out that the money he unwittingly dumped to break out of the atmosphere made him a folk hero. Or you can go with Whedon's own "Our Mrs. Reynolds," in which Mal wakes up from a drunken celebration to find himself betrothed to the sort of woman Joss has made a career to "liberate." Quotable lines abound as the rest of the crew reacts with various degrees of amusement and disgust, but the choicest quote has to go to Book warning Mal of taking advantage of the girl who seems so anxious to please her new beau: "You'll go to a special level of hell reserved for child molesters and people who talk at the theater."

But, as with all Whedon, the cream of the crop comes with pitch blackness. The de facto finale, "Objects in Space," casts River's madness and bounty hunter Jubal Early's sadism against the cold nothingness of space, giving the whole thing a certain existential feel without ever letting itself get too smart to neglect the well-paced plot. Early himself is a masterstroke of a one-off villain, providing a nice contrast for River but with a terrifying lack of morals -- he casually threatens to rape Kaylee if she, and later Simon, do not help him. The aforementioned "War Stories" turns Niska from the somewhat cartoony Bond-esque villain from "The Train Job" and makes him truly frightening, though not as scary as Mal when we meet his "true" self (though the attempted group therapy Mal and Wash hold as they're being electrocuted is pretty gorram funny). Jayne's betrayal in "Ariel" sets up one of the best thrillers in the Jossverse; one of the chief problems of Joss' shows is that the writers hold back as much information as they can so they can sucker punch you all at once, but by knowing that Jayne is selling out River and Simon long before it happens, the entire episode is chilling, and it only gets better when two mysterious agents start killing everyone in their path to get to their targets -- including fellow Alliance personnel).


If I must pick a favorite, though, I'd have to go with Tim Minear's hallucinatory "Out of Gas." Kaylee spent the first few episodes casually mentioning something about a faulty catalyzer, and it dies at last, leaving the ship with no power and no life support. Pieced together out of sequence, in some ways it strikes me as representative of the constant tampering with the show, only here it's put to artistic use. And now that I revisit the show after going through Joss' other series, I can't help but think of it as Firefly's version of "Fool for Love" or "Selfless": it acknowledges the Serenity as a character all its own and, like Spike and Anya, charts its evolution, though instead of clothes or relationships, it advances as each person joins the crew.

For many people, the show's mixture of cyberpunk and classic Westerns made it unpalatable, but I fail to see the problem: at their cores, science fiction and Westerns are about explorations, of lawless, unexplored frontiers where man is only answerable to his conscience, or the conscience of a mob. The characters certainly fit easily into Western archetypes: Mal as the ex-Confederate (though he never fought for the right to keep slaves) making his way in the desert -- or space, as the case may be; the Alliance the bureaucracy seeking to tame the wild beauty even as it also conforms to an Ender's Game-like evil government; and Book, the man of God with the terrible past. The Reavers of course stand in for the "savages," though you could truly call these men savage. Even the guns are a throwback, with Zoe's weapon in particular being a direct rip from Steve McQueen's rifle in Wanted: Dead or Alive (the actual gun was the same prop used for Brisco County, Jr.). While it can be jarring to go from mining dead ships in space to a dusty frontier town, the overall tone never shifts wildly enough to create a disparity between the two styles.

So yes, Firefly will go down as the greatest "what if?" series in T.V. and not the best show ever made. Its fans will eventually give up entirely on the possibility of a sequel to either the series or the spinoff film, though they'll still host convention after convention (good). I don't know how it could have ever run for more than a few seasons, even if its massive budget wasn't an issue. Nevertheless, I've never seen a show so abused and so short make such a good argument for its greatness. As much as I can't simply dive into the middle of Buffy or Angel, I find myself glued to my TV for a few days every time I break this out (and I've been watching Firefly a great deal longer than the rest). The show's rich tapestry of character interaction and an ingrained sense of continuity only made Dollhouse's disappointing failure to establish a solid mythology for itself with its first season more glaring -- I'm not casting aspersions, mind you; Dollhouse is an entirely different show. Dollhouse might be Joss' most ambitious show thematically and stylistically, but Firefly more than matches it in scope. What a shame it only got to be the martyr.

Wall Street

Who could have guessed that Oliver Stone, a director obsessed with the past, be it the '60s or Ancient Greece, would make a film that would one day seem eerily prescient? Wall Street certainly had its fair share of current events on which to comment when it debuted in late 1987 -- what with Black Monday and the market crash occurring around the same time -- but recent events have cast the film in an entirely new light, one that only makes the excesses of the film's businessmen seem even seedier.

What struck me about the film almost immediately was its attention to detail: Stone brought aboard several business consultants to ensure his film looked just like the real stock floors and boardrooms -- right down to the ratio of women to men in higher positions. The fat cats never rest on their laurels as peons slave away for mediocre wages while they reap all the benefits: they may not be doing "real" work, but executives and brokers move faster than Olympic athletes and wrack their brains over numbers more than engineers. Only the best survive, and they devour the ones who lag behind even for a second. Yet for all its seriousness, to these men it seem little more than a game.

Into this world comes Bud Fox (Charlie Sheen), a stockbroker looking for a big client to deliver a fat paycheck. He sets his sights on one of the biggest players in town, Gordon Gekko (Michael Douglas), a corporate raider who makes no bones about his willingness to get ahead by any means necessary. Bud tries to win his favor with a box of cigars, but G.G. wants something a bit more substantial. The young broker's father, Carl (Martin Sheen), heads the union of an airline company, and so he begins to feed his potential client information about the company. Over time, Gekko takes the lad under his wing, promising wealth, women and power. He needs to stop worrying about that pesky thing called "legality," is all.

Soon, Bud flies in private jets, buys a swanky home and even scores a hot trophy blonde, the materialistic interior decorator Darien (Daryl Hannah). The sky's the limits. Bud sits in the middle of the rampant, free-market greed of Gekko and the moral compass of his father. Carl just wants his fair share for the union, joking with his son that "money is only something you need if you don't die tomorrow." By contrast, Gekko, in a fiery speech to a company resisting his buyout, coldly admits that "greed, for lack of a better word, is good." Bud only looks on with admiration.

Few directors are better suited to chart the frenetic world of trading like Oliver Stone, who nearly bounces off the wall with energy as he shuffles the corridors with the sharks. He's clearly using the camera to make a point about the pace and casualness of decisions that can put thousands out of work just to bump up profit margins, but Stone never outright condemns the system. No, he's not quite the pinko Commie we make him out to be, and a part of Gekko's infamous "Greed is good" speech isn't all evil: greed really does motivate people to do make some great breakthroughs, and there's nothing wrong with prosperity. Instead, Stone judges those who resort to insider trading and other illegal activities to fuel the unchecked excess of the '80s.

In retrospect, Wall Street reminds me of the worlds Bret Easton Ellis creates: these men aren't really prosperous, they've just buried problems under glitzy illusions. The film never treads in Ellis' dark territory, of course, but you can still practically see the cocaine dust that coats everything. Gekko's mercenary tactics are scarcely removed from the elaborate house of cards that made us all think everything was great until it suddenly collapsed.

The only real weak component of the film is Hannah as Darien: supposedly her ideology conflicted with the shallow nature of the character, but she could have always said no. Nevertheless, she can't bring down such a smartly-written, expertly paced exposé, and Wall Street ranks as one of Stone's finest achievements. Yet I can't help but look at the end, in which Bud rebels against his golden god and must face the SEC, with a certain grain of cynicism: Bud knows he's going to jail for what he's done, but we've all seen businessman after businessman walk away scot free. How strange that I thought his probable incarceration to be almost idealistic.

Catch and Release

One of the strangest genre offshoots in film is the "moving on" subset of romantic comedy, in which the protagonist, having endured an unspeakable loss, must find love again while reconciling their guilt over moving on with life. Well, I say "strange:" learning to love again is a natural occurrence in the real world. But its depiction in film typically leaves me scratching my head. All too often, the protagonist finds love within months, and not just a steady relationship but love every bit as true as the one that was lost. Kevin Smith's Jersey Girl was a nice exception, advancing the story nearly a decade before trying to foist another relationship on the widower, but even then that time-jump served as an ellipsis for all that grieving.

Susannah Grant's Catch and Release might set the record for the shortest period of mourning ever put in one of these films. Gray (Jennifer Garner) mingles with the crowd at her fiancé Grady's funeral, internally monologuing about how much she hates having to deal with people at a time like this. This opening scene tells you everything that's about to go wrong with the film: Grant, the Oscar-nominated writer of Erin Brokovich, makes her directorial debut here, but she's clearly a writer first and foremost. The monologue only retreads what Garner quite capable conveys in silence on screen, drawing out what might have been an affecting moment into a clunky, repetitive bore. Oh, and the funeral just so happens to be on the day they were meant to be married, because apparently real life doesn't quite suck enough. Gray lives with Grady's roommates and friends, Dennis (Sam Jaeger), Grady's business partner; and Sam (Kevin Smith), an armchair philosopher who recites nuggets of wisdom gleaned not from books, but from the boxes of the herbal tea that he sells.

Also in the house is Fritz (Timothy Olyphant), Grady's other business partner and friend. Fritz immediately grates Gray, hooking up with a caterer at the funeral and even sleeping in Grady's bed. Gray doesn't understand why Fritz even stuck around after the funeral, until she notices that her fiancé sent $3,000 to an undisclosed recipient once a month and that some woman is leaving messages on his cell phone. Piecing together the evidence, as well as Fritz's worried attempts at misdirection, Gray realizes that her husband had an affair and that, according to Colorado law, all of Grady's money could potentially go to this woman's young child.

It's some weighty setup that might have worked had the film been about not canonizing the dead, but instead Grant uses this revelation as a justification of Gray's sudden and inexplicable attraction to Fritz, going from crippling grief to making out with a new dude within the week. And even if Fritz wasn't staying with the gang solely to run damage control for his dead friend, he lacks chemistry, with Gray or any other character, and instead suggests that a pretty face is all you need when you're dealing with death and betrayal.

Likewise, Jaeger and Garner fail to light up the screen. Jaeger's Dennis harbors his own feelings for Gray, but he spends so much time simply being forlorn around her that, as she hops into someone else's arms at an alarming rate, he seems to be more shaken up than the widow. Garner, who has a natural charm, is never given sufficient slack to roam with her character and to find her own voice, instead serving as a puppet for Grant's forced lines.

That lack of natural delivery is what leads me to believe that Grant, not the actors, deserves the blame for the stilted nature of the dialogue. Case in point: Kevin Smith, who put his own spin on his lines because he felt that he couldn't deliver what was on the page convincingly. Smith got away with it because he blamed the changes on his insecurity as an actor, yet his "colloquializing" of the dialogue makes him far and away the most interesting character of the film. For someone primarily known for appearing on-screen as a silent character who only pipes up to deliver a moment of alacrity to a conflicted soul, Smith brings his natural, conversational wit to the role and owns it: he's funny, warm, charming, lovable, sincere and -- in one moment that frankly should have come later in the film than it did -- heartbreaking. He's so good that everyone who appears in the scene with him gets a personality boost: Dennis becomes a great straight man, Gray gets out the emotion that for some reason she never properly exhibits elsewhere and Fritz, well, Fritz doesn't suck as much life out of the thing as he does without Kevin. The best, most touching, most realistic relationships in the whole film actually are Sam's interactions with Grady's lover and toddler.

But not even Smith can buoy this leaden, self-important snore-fest, a film that rushes the lives of its characters along yet still takes nearly two hours to reach its conclusion. That contrast between narrative length and running length leaves Catch and Release an interminable mess, a basket of cliché right down to its title, which becomes maddeningly punnish when we learn how much the characters like to fly fish. If you must watch it, do so to see Kevin Smith prove he could have a fun second career as an actor -- or maybe third; he does write comics now and then -- and for Juliette Lewis' off-kilter massage therapist, but bring a pillow for the rest of it.

Doctor Who — Series 3

I must admit that the degree to which I enjoy Britain's campiest export, the legendary Doctor Who, completely surprises me. After all, even this rebooted version has a Star Trek sort-of feel to it, right down to showrunner Russell T. Davies' utter lack of subtlety when it comes to getting across any sort of message. But it also shares some traits with its clear inspiration Buffy the Vampire Slayer, particularly its ability to turn on a dime between comedy and tragedy. The previous series' finale, "Doomsday," was one of the most moving non-Whedon fantasy episodes I've ever seen, even if it suffered from some serious bloating. Losing Rose deeply upset the Doctor, setting up a potentially great emotional fallout for the third series.


Sadly, Davies seems to have come to the conclusion that the proper way to advance from "Doomsday" was to fall back into pure camp, which he does with vigor. Supposedly, the ballyhoo over the selection of comedienne Catherine Tate as the guest Companion in the series-bridging Christmas Special "The Runaway Bride" rivalled the uproar over Billy Piper's casting as Rose, because the internet, despite being the ultimate repository of human knowledge, never truly learns. Funnily enough, she's the only good aspect of an otherwise forgettable 45 minutes. I'm not kidding: I had to look up the wiki page for the episode to remind me of some of the plot points. Nevertheless, the final moments uncover some of the Doctor's lingering anguish over Rose, leading Tate's Donna to rightly prompt him to find another person to keep him company.

That person turns out to be Martha Jones, played by Freema Agyeman, a medical student who finds herself partnered with the Doctor when an interstellar police force illegally warps the hospital where she works to the Moon in order to search for a murderous alien. Even though she winds up on the TARDIS at the end, a moody Doctor quickly informs her that he's just taking her on one trip because he has no intention of replacing his last Companion. Of course, she sticks around, as, whether he can admit it or not, he needs someone to help him out, not just with his missions but with his grief.

These moments of interplay are, unfortunately, the only consistently rewarding aspect of the early part of the series. "The Shakespeare Code" gets points for introducing the idea of the Bard tackling a sequel -- I must admit I laughed pretty hard when he proudly announces his intention to produce "Love's Labour's Won" (apparently a genuine unfinished transcript bears this title, though whether or not Shakespeare meant it to be a sequel remains a mystery) -- but as a whole it just gets off some half-hearted references to the man's work and just sort of expects us to believe that Martha, a black woman, is treated with the same level of respect as the Doctor, despite the time period. "Gridlock" is even worse, with Davies' wretched script not so much trying to teach us about increasingly clogged motorways as bashing us about the heads like Paul Haggis with a bad case of 'roid rage.

Things pick up slightly with the first of three multi-part episode arcs, this one concerning the re-emergence of the Daleks, who just don't seem to understand the term "extinction." Their appearance offers a much-needed boost, and their plan to combine human DNA and Dalek machinery is sufficiently nefarious after the opening episodes failed to give us a standout villain. Sadly, it falls apart in the end when, as with so many of these arcs, the reach exceeds the grasp and all the fun seems to fizzle out just as you're about to reach it: the hybrid, Sec, obviously must reconcile human emotion with his Dalek coldness, but the conclusion he reaches made me wonder why I just sat through these two episodes. I suppose its airing position (in the middle of the season as opposed to the end) should have clued me in to the fact that such a seemingly grand development would actually have little impact, but it's still odd that the writers would so casually throw away such a promising story.

The jumbled end of the mini-arc sends the show right back to into its early-season morass, tossing out a horribly paced take on the Fountain of Youth and parody of the American series 24 that is so wrapped up in "satirizing" the style and tone of that show that they neither advance an interesting plot nor even send up 24 that viciously. Both "The Lazarus Experiment" and "42" (see if you can spot that reference) represent everything that grates in the series' weaker moments: laughable villains failing to personify even the obvious messages they're meant to teach us. Not even Tennant can salvage these, as both episodes box in his manic energy and his ability to turn on a dime, forcing him to simply lead the plot home.

Ergo, it should come as little surprise that, when they let Tennant have an entire mini-arc to play more or less an entirely different character, Doctor Who leaps back up to the level it enjoyed with its previous series. In the opening moments of "Human Nature," Martha and the Doctor escape an attack by the incorporeal, telepathic Family of Blood, who require the Doctor's Time Lord life force to save themselves. To protect himself, he places his force inside a watch he entrusts to Martha and must live as a human for three months. The TARDIS lands in 1913 England, and the Doctor lives as John Smith, a teacher for a military school while Martha works as his maid. Completely unaware of his true identity, Smith has a spark of the Doctor's affability, but as filtered through the mindset of old England: he gives his consent to several prefects to beat a young boy -- who has ESP and sees his future involvement in World War I when he touches a gun -- for freezing up in a shooting exercise, and his interactions with Martha have more than a little tinge of the casual racism permitted by society.

Smith falls for the school's nurse, Joan, played by Spaced's very own nerd goddess Jessica Hynes. Hynes plays Joan as a proper matron, but she brings a warmth to the role that makes you care about her despite the fact that she only just appeared. When the Family of Blood tracks the Doctor down, Martha must convince Smith that he must give up Joan and even life as he knows it to become the Doctor again. Tennant's acting in these moments is downright incredible, turning what could easily have been a mere plot point into an agonizing decision: when he asks Martha "Why can't I just be John Smith? Isn't he a good man?," it's heartbreaking, and the moment when Tennant switches back into the Doctor's mannerisms ranks as one of the more impressive 180s this side of Jossverse personality shifts. Collectively, the Family of Blood two-parter represents some of the strongest writing and acting to grace the series, with the kind of emotion that previously only graced finales.

And it's not even the strongest part of the third series. If Russell T. Davies serves as Joss Whedon's British counterpart -- I'm speaking in terms of aspiration, certainly not skill -- then Steven Moffat is his Tim Minear. But where the Davies-Whedon connection falls down when the issue of quality and skill arises, Moffat might just live up to the comparison. Outside of Who, he penned the "British Friends" hit Coupling (I can only pray that, when I get around to that series, it really isn't like that ghastly program) and the acclaimed miniseries Jekyll. But it's his work on Doctor Who that'll win him a special place in the heart of the internet for generations to come. His previous offerings, the astounding two-parter "The Empty Child"/"The Doctor Dances" and the bittersweet "The Girl in the Fireplace," each won Hugo awards and remain high points of the series.


This season's offering, "Blink," might just be his best yet, despite the fact that the Doctor barely features at all. Instead, we follow Sally Sparrow, a young woman who receives strange warnings about some creatures known as the Weeping Angels in the form of pre-recorded messages from the Doctor hidden away as DVD Easter eggs. Whenever Sally attempts to solicit help from someone, they disappear only to write her a letter from the past talking about the Doctor and their new life. One police officer even meets her again, albeit as an old man with a fulfilled life. It's a masterpiece of disorientation that is nevertheless not quite as impressive as the fact that Moffat makes the villains of the episode, which are statues that can only move when nothing can see them, truly terrifying. The strange messages work in the early bits, but when we see just how the Doctor's message came to be recorded, the explanation only makes the previous stuff even better. "Blink" won Moffat his third Hugo for the episode, but honestly, I just feel sorry for the people who were in his category.

The third series ends with a three-part episode that brings back the Doctor's arch-foe, The Master. The first two episodes of the arc, "Utopia" and "The Sound of Drums," continue the momentum of the previous episodes; the former features Derek Jacobi as a Professor in the far future attempting to save mankind, only to reveal himself as the Master when the Doctor's presence reawakens his true self, hidden in a watch of his own. The Master, now played by John Simm, steals the TARDIS and, by the time the Doctor and Martha make it back to the present via a returned Captain Jack Harkness' Vortex Generator, he's Prime Minister of England -- something hinted at in brief moments throughout the series.

He's even got a better laser tool.

Sadly, it all falls apart at then end, despite a climactic and revealing showdown between the Doctor and the Master. A battle of wits over brute strength, it manages to be funny, insightful and gripping, culminating in wonderful moment of clemency that, in its own way, is harsher than the bloodiest revenge. Then the writers, by sheer necessity of the hole they placed themselves into, must literally hit a 'reset' button at the end. An unfortunate way to cap off a strong second half.

Despite its late-series upswing, the third installment of New Who lacks, especially when compared to the previous two series. Agyeman pulls off the agony of Martha's unrequited love for the Doctor with aplomb, but she never has the independent strength of Rose, and her family certainly never grows as Rose's did. I know that she's meant to be filler as the Doctor never considered her more than a replacement for the Companion he came close to loving, but the role still confines an actress who seemed aching to bring something more to the table.

Because Martha is so under-written, Tennant must pick up the slack, which he of course deftly manages. Strange then, that the best episodes are the ones where the Doctor plays little role. Tennant may be on the screen in 1913, but he's John Smith, through and through. And he's at his most interesting (this season, at least) with his pre-recorded dialogue in "Blink," set to a drab background that made me think of the trigger video from Videodrome. If the first series of the reboot focused on the big heroes, and the second on those who accompany them, I don't quite know what the focus of this set of episodes is. Perhaps it's the villains; despite the weakness of most of the enemies in terms of being memorable, but the villains call the shots throughout the series. The Family of Blood forces the Doctor into hiding, the Weeping Angels strand the Doctor in 1969 after stealing the TARDIS and The Master leaves him in the distant future.

Yet, even if the villains form the nucleus of this series, it lacks the focus to flesh out this core. It's still an enjoyable season, but no longer one that flirts with greatness, as the last two series did. I've heard good things about the subsequent series -- at the very least, Moffat scored yet another Hugo nomination, though the competition looks pretty fierce this time around so his streak may end come August -- so hopefully it rebounds back to previous heights.

The 25 Best (and Five Worst) Buffy Episodes

[WARNING- CONTAINS SPOILERS]

Few shows grabbed me as immediately as Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Even in its shaky, skin-deep first season, it displayed enough quirky wit and character development to keep me interested. But from that campy, American horror version of Doctor Who came one of the greatest character dramas ever put on television. While I prefer the darker tone of its spinoff Angel, I cannot deny that Buffy The Vampire Slayer is the bigger beast, and one of the greatest shows of the modern era. But unlike Angel, picking the best episodes of this series is fairly straightforward; I imagine my top 25 would not differ wildly from any other fan's, and I'm almost certain the top 10 I came up with contains the exact episodes in everyone else's, give or take one or two and with differing orders based on the ranker's preference. Of course, this doesn't mean that there are only 25 good episodes, but that the payoffs of this show are more apparent than the more subdued tone of Angel. And even though most of us pick the same episodes, the best of Buffy varied considerably in tone, where Angel's highlights tended to be the ones that plunged it to knew depths of existential despair. But enough talk, let's get down to business:

25. Villains (6x20)

While the Dark Willow arc occasionally seeped into the realm of the overly melodramatic, it remains a high point of the show, and "Villains" is the single strongest of the four episodes. Willow's been building to this all season, and she really comes unhinged in a terrifying way in these 42 minutes. Alyson Hannigan was, like most of the actors on both Buffy and Angel, so effortless and natural in her acting as to almost pass under the radar, but here she unleashes with fine fury. I never thought someone so cute and unassuming could be so terrifying -- not even her alternate reality vampire-self pointed to this level of horror. The final scene with Warren must be one of the two the most shocking of the series.

24. The Zeppo (3x13)

This has no lasting importance to the third season arc, but it is one of the more brilliant high concept episodes of the show. In it, the typical A/B plot structure is turned on its head, pulling Xander's quest to figure out his importance to his friends and his own sense of self-worth while shuffling a (presumably) action-packed apocalypse prevention story to the background. It is likely the series' most instantly quotable episode and remains my favorite of that short but oh so sweet list of Xander-centric episodes.

23. The Wish (3x09)

Hi Anya! "The Wish" introduces what would become one of my favorite characters in a fantastic alternate reality episode in which Buffy never came to Sunnydale. It is equal parts disturbing and disturbingly hilarious, though the character deaths at the end are rather sobering and show just how close their real-life doppelgangers come to death at every moment. I actually felt my heart skip when the Master snaps alternate-Buffy's neck.

22. Doppelgangland (3x16)

Of course this would have to come right along with "The Wish." Seeing Vamp Willow interact with the real Willow is both funny and foreshadowing ("I think I'm kinda gay"), but it also gets across a deep level of character development and arc advancement. While it bears little importance to the bigger arc, this episode stands as likely the best example of Season 3's impeccable ability to move things forward without ever letting on.

21. Earshot (3x18)

What starts as an amusing concept (Buffy can read minds and thus hears the salacious simple-mindedness of the men around her and learns just what Joyce and Giles did under the influence of band candy) turns into a harrowing post-Columbine drama, even though it was written before that terrible tragedy. It takes yet another twist at the end which, though it moves away from a school attack, is every bit as relevant to examining the mindset of kids who snap. A true gem.

20. I Only Have Eyes For You (2x19)

One of the big sleeper hits of the series. It starts off seemingly as a disconnected, kooky concept and ends up eerily holding up the mirror to Buffy and Angel's relationship when the spirits of two dead lovers -- a teacher who incurred the wrath of the student she loved when she broke it off -- imbibe them. The possession ends up bringing out Buffy's guilt in unleashing Angelus while serving to remind us that Angel is still buried in that demon, even without his soul.

19. After Life (6x03)

The opening salvo of season six immediately put to bed my fears in reviving Buffy after her noble death in the last season's finale. This early mini-arc culminates in the darkly atmospheric "After Life," in which Buffy confesses to Spike that they did not rescue her from Hell, but tore her from Heaven. Many complain that Buffy went too dark this season, but thank God they never shied away from the implications of this episode.

18. Superstar (4x17)

Probably the funniest spin on fanfic ever. Watching little Jonathan make himself into a combination of Buffy, Superman, James Bond and Bill Gates was a riot and a half, and then you mix in everyone's fawning adulation and you've got a winner. You can see a lot of the initial antagonism of Season Six in this episode, what with a nerd manipulating others in an unethical yet pitiable attempt to fit in. Bonus points for finally turning Marc Blucas' lack of talent into intentional comedy (they also managed this in the season finale).

17. Lies My Parents Told Me (7x17)

Just when you thought you couldn't learn anything else about Spike. Buffy's most fascinating character gets yet another episode to shine, this time revealing the tragedy of his relationship with his mother and hammering home just how different a vampire he was long before he fought to win his soul. The juxtaposition between Spike's and Robin's relationships with their mothers is brutally effective. It also finally breaks Buffy of her dependency on Giles.

16. Chosen (7x22)

Season 7, though action packed and never really dull, too often neglected its characters at the expense of just making everything bigger. Funnily enough, the biggest episode of them all managed to make it all worth it. It ended up a stunning action climax mixed with moving character and story resolution, all of which remained true to the characters. And I dare you not to cry when you realize it's all over.

15. Conversations With Dead People (7x07)

After a season exploring the very depths of Buffy's constant inner turmoil, the writers let her really flounder throughout much of the final season, but she gets across some astonishing late-game progress in this episode, which also advances most of the other characters. Andrew and Jonathan reappear, only for the two more innocent members of the Trio to suddenly take a dark turn. And anything and everything to do with Dawn's segment (in which the First poses as Joyce) is just shiver-inducing. It also marks the first -- and one of the only -- time that The First Evil really unsettled.

14. Who Are You? (4x16)

"Face/Off" with hot chicks. I could stop there, but that would rob a superb hour of TV its due. Faith's body swap with Buffy could have been played up for laughs or just been unintentionally hilarious, but -- apart from a few amusing bits -- it mainly serves to get deep down into what they each think of each other and particularly brings out the more sympathetic and wretched side of Faith. It's also genuinely suspenseful and marks one of the few times the Watchers Counsel comes off as frightening instead of just a complete annoyance.

13. Normal Again (6x17)

Mix the finale of the show "St. Elsewhere" with the early alternate reality gem "The Wish," then add a dash of "The Twilight Zone" and you've got a recipe for the most fundamentally disturbing hour of Buffy ever produced, made all the more unsettling by the fact that you never know which reality is the true one. It's also darkly funny when the doctor lists all the plot holes and contrivances of the show to convince Buffy that Sunnydale and Slaying are just a hallucination. And, like any good piece of head-screwing, it leaves us totally unsure of whether or not it all really was just a fabrication.

12. Selfless (7x05)

I make no bones of my love for Anya, so this ranking might be biased. Then again, this whole list is because I made it and I can only speak for myself, so leave me alone. We finally learn what motivates Anya and we see her start to create her own sense of identity after so many centuries defining herself by that which is related to her (vengeance demon, Xander's gal). On the humorous side, there some nice winking references to her past as a virulent communist, and the scenes from 880 are only more funny as they're shot in the style of an old hand-cranked camera as if they were really in 50s America (which itself is a sly reference to how little a difference there is between the sexism of these medieval warriors and a moment of our own past we've yet to fully outgrow).

11. Innocence (2x14)

The episode that firmly established Buffy's direction. Before this, the series was little more than a subversive take on horror clichés with flashes of pathos and depth, but even Joss believes that this episode drew a line in the sand, establishing just what the writers could do and what the series could achieve. Even years later, he Angelus arc remains untopped for many fans, and it's not hard to see why even from this arc-opener. Also, it contains the best demon killing of the series ("What's that do?").

10. Graduation Day, Pt. 2 (3x22)


People say Season 3 was short on emotional impact, and they're right. But who can ignore the visceral thrill of this finale, which packs action on top of action and sends Sunnydale High out in the best possible way. For many (including myself), they never found a better villain than the Mayor ever again -- even though I prefer seasons 5 and 6-- and he goes out in top form. There may be no single episode of any of Joss' programs as exhilarating at this.

9. Fool For Love (5x07)


I've explained my Achilles heel for Buffyverse flashback episodes in my Angel reviews, so let's get right down to the meat: "Fool For Love" is a subtle gem that shows how Spike grew from a timid, awful poet into the killer of two Slayers. It does so in the form of slowly piecing together the modern physical appearance of Spike, from his hair (which goes from naturally brunette and wavy to blond and curly and finally to the streaked platinum we know) to his coat. As the pieces come together, we see why a soulless vampire might fall for a Slayer, and that Spike was always more than meets the eye.

8. Dead Things (6x13)


For the first half of Season Six, the Trio dicked around and basically were like the Three Stooges of Evil (with a liberal dash of Kevin Smith-esque pop culture arguments). But with "Dead Things," we see the boys cross a threshold that forces them to finally confront serious consequences of their actions. Meanwhile, it gets to the core of Buffy's post-resurrection issues without letting her off with any simple solutions. Few episodes of this or any other series are as psychologically dark and complex. It got Season Six back on the track to excellence after a noticeable downturn in the middle.

7. Passion (2x17)


"Innocence" matured the show, but "Passion" showed just how dark Joss Whedon could go. Angelus' cold, swift killing of Jenny remains forever seared into my mind, and it is the most shocking moment of the show, even above Willow skinning Warren. This episode leaves me numb whenever I watch it. Yes, Angelus may have been little more than a mustache-twirling villain, but the greatest villain of all time (Iago) had no motivation, and look how scary he is. Boreanaz's acting throughout the first season was at the very least borderline laughable, but he brought his A-game when Angelus emerged, and this is the finest example of how far he could go.

6. Hush (4x10)


Some people say that Joss Whedon desperately wanted an Emmy and created his most out-there concepts to win one. I don't know if that's true, but if it is, I'm almost glad he never got one because it means we kept getting some of the best TV ever made. The first of these high concept pieces, "Hush," remains a deserved fan favorite and the episode that even non-fans know. Robbing the characters of the speech that makes them so funny was daring, but it resulted in a brilliant silent comedy with vital character and story development. Special props go to Giles' flashcards, which made a barnstorming reappearance in the seventh season.

5. Once More, With Feeling (6x07)


What better foil to an episode of silence than a musical? It's so funny that it's easy to miss all the rich character development, but there's a lot of pathos buried in these peppy numbers, the sort of narrative and character progression absent from nearly any other musical show or film. The Anya/Xander bit hints towards Xander's fears about becoming his father and points towards the dissolution of their engagement, while Spike gets to let off some steam over his confusion regarding Buffy's new attitude. And nothing can compare to SMG morosely admitting (through song, of course) to her friends just what they did when they resurrected her.

4. Restless (4x22)


Released a full year before David Lynch got back on the horse after a decade of misfires with "Mullholland Dr.," "Restless" is the best and worthiest successor to "Twin Peaks:" an endlessly deep, ambiguous, foreboding and complex dreamscape. After a season full of rich but sporadic character growth, it forces the heroes to find their footing and sets up the show to come. Each of the dream sequences has something that earns a good laugh, but soon it spirals into cryptic and disturbing warnings to the slumbering Scoobies. The fact that this is not number one should be telling you something about the fierce quality of the top three.

3. The Gift (5x22)


Really, only one season finale in the series ("Grave") was less than excellent, but "The Gift" stands out even among its brethren. As with the whole season, it manages to cram the action and character reaffirmations of S3 with the intense emotional force of the second season. The fight with Glory is spectacular (not to mention full of enough remembered continuity to make even the most examining viewer squeal with delight), but the final moments in which Buffy gives her life to save the one thing she has left in this world are devastating. If you don't cry when you see Buffy's tombstone you have no soul, and if you don't get out a teary chuckle when the camera zooms out to see the last line of the epitaph you have no sense of humor.

2. The Body (5x16)


Has there ever been an hour of TV more depressing than this? If there is, I don't know if I could withstand it. The greatest of those so-called "Emmy grab" episodes, it is the ultimate rumination on death from a man who gave us so many memorable character demises. Its simplistic, brutally realistic look at mortality reminds us that death can come at any moment and it doesn't have to be epic, even in entertainment. And to think that it was the first death of natural causes in the whole series. I tear up just thinking about it.

1. Becoming, Pt. 2 (2x22)


You don't know how much I debated with myself over the ordering of the top three. Any one of them would be the single most defining hour of any other program, and I have to choose between them. Ultimately, I picked "Becoming" over the others because, apart from being an emotionally draining, darkly poignant thrill-ride, it works as a self-contained, utterly frank coming-of-age story that strips Buffy of just about everything, until the fifth season showed just how much more she had to lose. By all accounts, the show could have ended here and it would have been utterly compelling (but thank God it didn't). Beautiful, haunting, and exhilarating: television doesn't get any better than this.


Honorable Mentions:

Consequences (3x15)

While Season 3 may have been short on emotion, the fallout from Faith unintentionally killing a human cut the core of her character and why she so completely envied Buffy. Anyone else would have made this into some growing up moment for her (and indeed it was...for Buffy), but the writers took a more realistic turn and threw Faith into her darkest area yet. This is pretty much what they wanted to do with "Ted" but couldn't risk with their star player.

No Place Like Home (5x05)

A terrific mix of humor, character development, and story advancement, NPLH gets to the bottom of just what's up with Dawn and sets her down as a character truly deserving of pity. It also sets up a more mature Buffy, although she's still not ready for what she's about to go through (could anyone be?).

Angel (1x07)

The first episode that hinted that Buffy could be something more. Eventually, they took the Buffy/Angel relationship too far in their third season "just get me to my spinoff" section, but here Whedon got across with actual subtlety the doomed-but-maybe-it-will-work-after-all-OK-it-won't-but-it's-fine-for-now poignancy of their relationship. The final image of Buffy's cross burned into Angel's chest is one of the most iconic to me. This, along with "The Prophecy Girl" pointed to the Buffy we came to know and love.


The Five Worst Episodes of Buffy

Unfortunately for Buffy, just as picking out the top 10 takes no time, so too is it easy to pick out the duds. I had to really rack my brain to come up with 5 bad episodes of Angel, but I actually had to leave a few off this list. Buffy was a bold first show with a constantly evolving foundation, so slip-ups were inevitable. So, as we celebrate the finest the show had to offer, let us also reflect on the moments that were thankfully all too brief.

5. The Killer in Me (7x13)

What disappoints me so much about this episode is that it had not one, not two, but three potentially magnificent storylines and promptly wasted them all. Spike's malfunctioning chip was both funny and deadly serious, but they bring back the Iniative complex (which I guess wasn't totally destroyed when the Iniative shut it down, proving that they truly can do nothing right); Willow turning into Warren after kissing Kennedy could have been a great subconscious expression of her guilt and grief over Tara, but it turns out it was all the work of Amy, who had no reason to hex Willow; and the notion that Giles might be the First would have explained his off behavior as well as delivering a killer gut-punch to both the Scoobies and the audience. Instead, it all gets solved in one episode, hugs are had, and heads are placed in hands to absorb the shock of such bad writing. What a terrible waste.

4. Where The Wild Things Are (4x18)

The last of Tracey Forbes' three episodes and the first of two to appear on this 'worst of' list, "Where the Wild Things Are" took pretty much the exact concept seen in the season's earlier, vastly superior "Fear, Itself," only to remove everything interesting and fill the gap with incessant shots of TV sex between Buffy and Riley. Of course, considering how stiff Blucas is, there's really no better job for which he is suited. Plus, the subtext of a religious nutbag who left the children in her care sexually repressed was too over the top and bluntly overstated to be of any interest. Let us thank the TV gods that they banished her to permanent obscurity following this pile of tripe.

3. As You Were (6x15)

The fact that they brought Riley back is enough to gain my scorn, but the actress who plays his wife makes Marc Blucas look like '70s De Niro; her performance is so awful that she won an Emmy for it in a parallel universe. The Finns aside, the episode is still dumb and utterly pointless and throws off the momentum "Dead Things" gave to the season after that noticeable drag in the middle. Thankfully, things got back on track once Riley left for good and the season barreled magnificently towards its wonderful conclusion.

2. Beer Bad (4x05)

Aside from one or two admittedly funny lines, this is the worst episode I've ever seen to warn teenagers against alcohol. Think about all the terrible, pandering, condescending episodes of TV ever devoted to the dangers of underage drinking, and despair. Some lines are genuinely funny ("Fire bad!"), but everything is just so insulting to the audience and so much of the dialogue misses that the few bits that connect cannot hope to make up for it. At least it finally broke Buffy of her childish sulking after the Parker debacle.

1. I, Robot...You, Jane (1x08)

Even the worst episodes of Whedon television have something going for them. In fact, it's usually bad execution that makes them memorably weak. But not "I Robot, You Jane." No, it starts with a broad, uninteresting concept --the Internet is a dangerous place? Even for 1997 this was redundant-- and combines it with an inane MOTW villain, wheel-spinning character development (the last thing we needed to see even in this early stage was a nerdy, shy, helpless Willow), and just plain unfunniness and you've got the most insufferable hour of Whedonverse television ever produced. Thank God they got it out of the way in the first season of his first series.


So there you have 'em. Agree? Disagree? Feel free to post your own favorites and comments.

(See also: my picks for the 25 best (and 5 worst) Angel episodes)

Star Trek: The Original Series — Season 1

Sloppy direction aside, JJ Abrams' fresh take on the Star Trek franchise so thoroughly won me over that I finally decided to delve into the biggest sci-fi franchise of all time, the one responsible for "mythology" shows (that is, programs that create not only plots and programs but backstories and worlds), a revitalized interest in space and space fiction perfectly timed with the Apollo missions, and, most infamously, extreme fandom. I was always quick to dismiss the pointy-eared weirdos who swarmed conventions, conveniently ignoring the fact that I dressed up as Darth Vader for Halloween every. single. year of my childhood.

"Why bother with this show?" I wondered in the frequent patches of my life where I have nothing better to think about. I knew about the ears, the stiff acting, the heavy-handedness; why did I need to suffer through it all to confirm it? However, if I can watch classic films now horribly dated, why can't I extend the same courtesy to television? What right do I have to mock dated special effects, when one day I'll have kids who will look back at Lord of the Rings and The Matrix and laugh at our bad CG (that day is coming, I promise you)? Fortunately, the film's release coincided with the release of the original series on Blu-Ray, the first season of which was available for streaming on Netflix.

So, was I right? Well, yeah. Star Trek's shortcomings have been pointed out by naysayers for four decades. Shatner's distinctive staccato delivery -- which actually doesn't feature prominently until you get further into the season -- is ripe for ridicule, as are the sets, the costumes and a great many of the plots. But for the all show's didacticism, it's got a certain charm about it. It reflects the idealism of the age, even as America was slowly tearing itself apart over Vietnam, appealing to both the hippie notion of peace and the general excitement over the space race.

Creator Gene Rodenberry and his team are clearly tied into a late-'60s outlook, attempting to promote racial tolerance as well as using the military aspect of Starfleet to comment on the Vietnam War. Even as they promote a tolerant utopia, there is a noticeable lack of equality between the sexes -- look for the short skirts and Kirk's constant flirting. Nichelle Nichols even planned to quit her role as Uhura, not only because her role as a space secretary left her with little to do but because off-screen she had to field racist comments. Only a direct intervention from Martin Luther King, Jr. himself convinced her to stay.

Nevertheless, on-screen, Rodenberry's vision offers something for everyone. As I watched the series, I came to think of Kirk as what George W. Bush might be if he was more intelligent: he always seems to arrive at a peaceful and diplomatic solution to a problem, yet most of the episodes reach these conclusions, curiously, through a fight with an alien. Or sex with an alien. Foreign relations, indeed! Rodenberry clearly molded his main characters on archetypes, but occasionally I was genuinely taken aback that Kirk wasn't wearing a cowboy hat.

What surprised me the most about this series is that, for a show with such a rich mythology and self-contained universe, the episodes are not at all serialized. Each episode plays out as its own piece of pulp space opera, with plots that generally fall into one of three categories:

1. Stranded. For a ship as supposedly advanced as the Enterprise and a crew so thoroughly versed in these situations by the end of the season, Kirk and co. sure do find themselves stuck on a planet or in space often. In "Miri," the crew warps into the orbit of an Earth-like planet, a crew beams down to find only children, who promptly steal the communicators. The utterly bizarre "The Squire of Gothos" finds the ship disabled and the crew tormented by an apparition posing as a mad 19th century nobleman.

A subset of this style is the Bringing Back an Infection episode. After a completely normal trip to a planet, the crew returns only for the ship to remain in the planet's system because someone came down with a futuristic case of swine flu. The most enjoyable of these, "This Side of Paradise," features flowers that shoot euphoria-inducing spores, infecting the entire crew. They even awaken Spock's human side, allowing him to finally confess his love to the one that got away (who is conveniently on the planet in question). His sudden burst of emotion goes from comical to tragic when Kirk must break his crew of the spells, again separating the two would-be lovers.

2. The Fight. This is where Rodenberry's vision of "utopia as ushered in by the United States" comes into play. In these episodes, Capt. Kirk either finds himself in a starship battle with with a technologically superior enemy, or somehow he ends up on a planet haphazardly punching a man in a lizard costume:

Oh yeah, it's every bit as awesome as it looks.

Clearly Rodenberry and the writers are trying to make a point about being too quick to jump into a fight without ever trying to understand what could be motivating the foe (big Vietnam message there), but they're also clearly in support of Kirk's actions and they paint Starfleet as a great uniter. Nevertheless, a great deal of the season's finest offerings fit into this category. "Balance of Terror" pits Kirk against a Romulan Bird of Prey, exposes the common lineage between Vulcans and Romulans (allowing McCoy to voice his prejudice over Spock's race) and ends with a speech from the Romulan captain that reveals how close he and Kirk might have been had cultural differences not dictated otherwise. "Space Seed" introduces of Khan Noonen-Singh of "KHHAAAAAANNN!" fame, a genetically-augmented super-warrior who placed himself in suspended animation to survive the Eugenics Wars of the '90s. It's a taut thriller with some of the best pacing of the series. "The Devil in the Dark" pits Kirk and Spock against a strange silicon-based creature killing miners. Kirk immediately sets out to kill it, until a Vulcan mind-meld with the beast reveals an incredible intelligence -- and a very good reason for the attacks.

3. Time Travel or Time Travel-esque Snafus. This one is a curious bird: for a show that attempts to carve out a wonderful future for us all, Star Trek sure does like to go to the past a lot. Matter of fact, if it happened any more often Rodenberry could have reached across the pond and worked out a Doctor Who crossover. Besides the aforementioned adventure with the creature that turned everything into a 19th century chateau, the Enterprise winds up in then-present 1960s America and must bring aboard an Air Force pilot after accidentally destroying his plane. Kirk and Spock must figure out what to do with him, as the pilot will of course report what he saw if returned, altering the flow of history, yet he must be returned so that the man will father the first astronaut to visit Saturn

Time travel forms the backbone for the finest episode of the season and, if the lists I've read are any indication, the series as a whole, "City on the Edge of Forever." The crew discovers a space-time portal, which McCoy enters after accidentally injecting himself with a paranoia-inducing serum. Kirk and Spock follow him to Depression-era New York, where they meet Edith Keeler, a social worker and a pacifist speaker. Kirk and Spock discover that she was supposed to die until McCoy's arrival changed the timeline and that, if she continues to live, her rhetoric will convince Roosevelt to stay out of WWII, allowing Nazi Germany to develop the atom bomb and conquer the world. The hitch? Kirk, naturally, falls in love with Edith, though at least he seems to genuinely care for her for reasons greater than the quest for nookie. The final moments are heartbreaking, and they throw the camp of the rest of the series into sharp contrast.

For some reason, the time-space portal looks like a big-screen T.V. in The Flinstones.

In 2006, the series was digitally remastered, ostensibly to at least partially update the numerous dated effects. Some of the changes -- specifically the spiffed-up backgrounds -- add a nice touch, but it soon becomes painfully clear that the people behind the restoration did not feel like spending a great deal of money. All shots of the Enterprise have been completely redone in CG, but the finished product looks more like the beta animation of a home-made video game than the literal flagship of a multi-billion dollar franchise. A nice comparison of the more positive aspects of the remaster can be found in this review.

While the episodes may not form any sense of serialized continuity, they serve to flesh out the personas of the three leads (Kirk, Spock and McCoy), establishing Kirk as the maverick with the heart on his sleeve, flanked by two foils of his conscience: McCoy representing the more emotional, aggressive side to Spock's reasoned logic. They also explore ideological themes such as trust and tolerance, even if the way such topics are dealt with seem conservative by today's standards. For all its camp and intentional overacting -- the top prize must go to Shatner for chewing so vigorously through the scenery that he ate his way out of the sound stage as Kirk's evil half in "The Enemy Within" -- Star Trek's heart makes it a show for the ages, a program that overcomes the technical and social limitations of its time and, if anything, actually is tailor-made for the current climate of hope.

Numfar, Do the Dance of Joy! 'Dollhouse' Renewed For Second Season

http://www.thrfeed.com/2009/05/dollhouse-second-season.html

Look at it. Just look at it. I resigned myself to the inevitability of Dollhouse's cancellation long ago. Never mind the history with Fox: it simply wasn't a very good show. Then everything kicked into high gear in the middle of the season and I found myself biting my nails with every Whedonesque update. Early predictions following the finale's abysmal ratings (disregard that cancellation naysaying!) were understandably grim, with every cynical critic and insider betting the farm that Dollhouse would be put to pasture -- I apologize for that horrid metaphor-mixing, but I'm happy right now.

Then, something wonderful happened. News began leaking that Fox entered into serious talks with Whedon and the show runners, suggesting that the network had not simply canned the series in frustration. People started throwing out statistics involving DVR and online playback, as well as the inevitable profit margin afforded by a Whedon series on DVD -- consider how many times Serenity has been re-released on DVD and Blu-Ray in its short lifespan. The actors urged fans to email and even call Fox's offices, resulting in their answering services crashing from the influx. Within two weeks, the tide had completely turned, and all signs pointed to renewal. This can mean only one thing: President Obama has so re-shaped the American landscape and outlook that even Fox television can give us hope.

Now with sources confirming a renewal (the official announcement comes Monday, May 18), I have at last given in to the hope and excitement that I refused to allow myself to feel in the storm of gathering hype. I'm so excited that I'm writing this, a distraction from my usual style of shoddy criticism, because, well, I write when I'm excited (note to self: get laid). But while my head may be in the clouds right now, I've at least kept my toes on the ground, and I realize that Dollhouse still has a hell of a fight ahead of it. So let me discuss some of the conditions that will likely accompany the show's renewal and what they might mean for the series. (WARNING- THE REST OF THIS POST WILL CONTAIN SPOILERS)

1. Budget cuts. Get ready, because they're coming. Most of the early insider reports that hinted towards the show's renewal mentioned that Fox would expect drastic cost reduction to increase the chance for profit. The problem is: what can they cut? The only serious investment in the show was the actual Dollhouse set, but its costs were more or less negligible because they essentially took the place of the pilot the crew never shot (Fox paid for an order of episodes rather than funding a pilot to determine whether or not to pick up an entire series). Everything else has been fairly inexpensive. I don't know how much the actors and crew are being paid, but given that a sizable chunk are relative newcomers, while the rest (Williams, Dushku, Acker, Lennix, etc.) don't seem like the kind of A-listers to draw hefty paychecks, so I wonder if cutting cast would necessarily reduce costs significantly. Nevertheless, fans have been right to point out that Angel was on the receiving end of a budget cut for its fifth season, and most of us can agree that the show flourished under the pressure.

2. The time slot. Placing an un-proven, dense thematic web of a series on Friday nights was an early sign that Fox had little faith in the series' success, but it drew fairly healthy numbers for the time, even if they were consistently well-beneath even modest predictions. When paired with another science fiction show (the ailing Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles) the show did well enough, but when Fox switched the lead-in with the final few episodes of Prison Break, both shows suffered horribly, and Dollhouse never recovered.

Some articles on Whedonesque reported that Fox is planning to keep the show on Fridays, which means one of two things: 1) Fox still doesn't believe that Dollhouse has a shot in hell of making a profit but just lack anything else better to risk or 2) they are genuinely trying to make Fridays a feasible night for profit. With DVR becoming more and more prevalent -- though I still don't have one... -- networks are slowly coming around to the possibilities of such devices. While it allows people to zip past the ads, devices that let consumers watch their favorite shows anytime slightly relieves them of the need to time their shows just right. Maybe we'll get lucky and it'll find its way to Monday nights with 24, but if the show does stay on Fridays, it still has a shot if networks continue to look at the many alternative methods of TV viewing that have popped up in recent years. Just please don't set it up to compete with Lost (as if all the recent Abrams vs. Whedon stuff hasn't been annoying enough already).

3. No more Remote-Free T.V. On the one hand, Remote-Free T.V. was an interesting venture designed to capitalize on the pros and combat the cons of DVR programming. By reducing the average 15-16 minutes of ads per hour to just a few 90-second breaks, Fox banked on the idea that it would take more effort to fast-forward through the brief commercials and would instead just sit and watch those. A great idea for the viewers, but cutting that much potential ad revenue from both Dollhouse and Fringe (which was also on the bubble for a while before getting renewed) threatened a show that was on shaky ground from the start and which both the show runners and executives admitted needed time to grow. While I enjoyed watching Dollhouse's later episodes, getting sucked in for what felt like an eternity, only to look at the clock and see I was only halfway through, the reversion to a normal T.V. format is actually a boon for the show's chances. Cutting out a whole ten minutes of time will save a lot of money, and the ad revenue will increase.


So, we know what Dollhouse has to contend with on the business side of things, but how should it adapt to these situations, not only to ensure profits increase enough to guarantee the show a solid run but to ensure that the show is good enough to deserve one. I do not presume to tell Joss Whedon or his crop of talented writers how to script their shows. Heck, I would not even presume to tell Dan Brown how to write novels -- though if I did, my advice would be brief: "Stop writing." But sitting here in my own cramped space of the blogosphere, what harm could I possibly do? It's not like anyone reads this anyway. So here are a few things I'd like to see happen to ensure that this renewal is not a fluke:

• More Dollhouse-centric episodes. Not only would this cut down on costs, but the most interesting episodes of the first season largely took place within the Dollhouse -- "Man on the Street," "Spy in the House of Love," "Briar Rose." When we stay in the Dollhouse we see it for what it really is: a vile machination run by people so intelligent that they've blinded themselves to the ethical nightmare of their work (or at least they just cover it up well). With Ballard, the only main character to exist outside of the organization, now working for them, we can spend more time in the set that's already been bought and paid for, and we can get to the bottom of the Dollhouse (which in turn could lead to a breakthrough more quickly, allowing at least some of the Dolls to break free and bring the place down).

• Let some characters take the week off. The chief problem with the series so far is that no one, not even the people who don't get their minds wiped at the end of each episode, is progressing very much. Reducing recurring and even main characters' screen time offers the possibility of focus on a select few per episode. After all, many of the best episodes of Buffy and Angel revolved around a single character. Plus, by rotating the cast slightly, you might only have to pay someone for 9 episodes as opposed to 13 (the second season will likely be another truncated one, by the way).

• Don't regress. The finale was clearly set up for the possibility of being the final episode of the series period, and because of it (and because it was made by Tim "there is no hope" Minear) we seemingly ended on a note of futility: Echo got all those personalities wiped, and went back to square one, except for the fact that she remembered her real name. Now that it's coming back, it's imperative that Joss not allow the show to return to the ghastly "Doll of the Week" format that defined the lukewarm and occasionally ice-cold first half. They need to hit the ground running with this one, to deal with the fallout of Alpha's attack and to address what Echo went through. Preferably, someone needs to awaken and fight the Dollhouse, but on nobler terms than the psychotic Alpha.

• Fix Victor. This one is pretty straightforward. I can buy Dr. Saunders' scars, as the real Dr. Saunders was killed before he could patch Whiskey up, and that the lack of a living medical staff left her permanently scarred. But now Whiskey is a qualified surgeon, and scar prevention is advanced even today. It's only natural to assume that they could make him look almost completely normal in the future. Not only does this allow Enver Gjokaj (one of the finest actors on the show) the chance to stay and do something, it reduces makeup time and costs, saving some cash.

• Make Amy Acker a part of the main cast. Yes, I know, it's silly to suggest a promotion at a time when budget cuts are on the horizon. But I went back and watched the last few episodes and, combined with the memories of my Angel binge at the end of last year, I'm certain that Amy Acker is just about the best actress on television. I couldn't name you five people on all four of Joss' shows who bring it as consistently and as amazingly as her (Nathan Fillion and Alan Tudyk are the only ones I might rank above her). I'm not sure why she doesn't get more work (I mean, it's a shallow industry, so even if she had no talent at all, have you looked at her?), but damn it, Joss better not waste this precious resource. Of course, this is totally wishful thinking, as Acker has already been cast as a lead on ABC's new show Happy Town (maybe she auditioned out of fear that Dollhouse would never make it), so the likelihood of her even appearing as frequently as she did are quite low.


So, Kevin Reilly, the man who helped keep NBC's crop of excellent comedies afloat when they all debuted to bad ratings (The Office, 30 Rock) and who became the latest president of FOX, delivered. Perhaps Reilly believes that, like those aforementioned shows with their shaky beginnings, Dollhouse is a potential gold mine, one worth the effort of digging to reach the riches just a bit further beneath the soil. As much as I've taken Fox to task over the years, Reilly's good people, and he happens to be one of the few at the front of a changing entertainment landscape who sees ways to work within the shifting paradigm. This stunning news gives Dollhouse a literal second chance, but we can only hope that, come the fall, Whedon comes out swinging and reminds everyone why he's the best damn writer to ever grace the small screen.