Cinema Suicide

It was a fun and frustrating week in Genre TV.  The Emmy’s were last night, and as happy as I am for John Lithgow’s Dexter win, and Aaron Paul’s Breaking Bad win, I have to say I’m disappointed that Dexter didn’t pick up the best drama award.  As much as Bryan Cranston deserved the threepete for Breaking Bad, I was kind of hoping for Michael C Hall to win best actor after what was the best season of Dexter’s run, or any shows run for that matter.  The week in shows was just as up and down.  While some shows are moving towards amazing finale’s, others are going through the motions as if they could care less.

WAREHOUSE 13 – My wish came true, Claudia was sent into the field again, this week escorting Artie on an investigation of a home wrecking artifact.  The artifact, Mata Hari’s stockings, worn in the episode by a Femme Fatale (played by Dead Like Me’s Laura Harris) after the riches of the men she seduces.  As happy as I was to see Claudia back out there in the spotlight, I can’t deny that Pete and Myka’s storyline had me quite literally laughing out load.  Robert Louis Stevenson’s (writer of Jekyll and Hyde) bookends, one an eagle, one a lion have merged into an artifact that pulls the freakiest of all Freaky Fridays.  This Griffin bookend causes Pete and Myka to switch bodies while Myka is attending her High School Reunion.  The scenes of Pete in Myka’s body are great, but it’s the songs playing behind these scenes that really had me smiling.  The Macarena, Savage Garden’s Truly Madly Deeply, and Chumbawamba’s epic Tub Thumping took me right back into the late 90’s.  It was Eddie McClintock’s version of Myka in his body however that was the funniest moment of the season.  A girly pitch to his voice with a distinct level of self-righteous tone made the rendition spot on.  When they find another pair affected by the artifact, they realize that their body swap is about to go one step further as the two are joined as one constantly changing entity.  In the end, it all works out, everything back to normal, and Pete and Myka are unmistakably connected more than ever before.

SCREAM QUEENS – What does it take to embody a true Scream Queen?  First and foremost, you’ll need to play the scared victim really well.  Then, you’ll have to turn the performance around into the tough vengeful protagonist.  But don’t forget, you must do all of this while remaining SEXY.  Sexiness was the week’s theme on Scream Queens.  An acting challenge on making the mundane seem sexy led to some embarrassing moments.  The week’s director’s challenge had the girls playing a snake-wielding stripper.  Jessica shined, and won the episode.  Allison, the bitchy girl of the season was cut for an unintentionally creepy performance sadly reminiscent of the robotic girl aliens form Mars Attacks.  The first challenge of the show had the girls do a horror themed photo shoot.  The winner of the challenge was awarded a spread in Fangoria magazine, an awesome prize that was fittingly judged by Debbie Rochon, former hostess of Fangoria Radio.  Rochon is the truest definition of the Scream Queen, and I’d love to see her act as a mentor on a more permanent basis.  I had the pleasure of working with Rochon on Richard Griffin’s Splatter Disco, and I can honestly say, this woman is one hell of a hard working actress.   She’s constantly working, and not many horror actresses working today can pull off the Scream Queen title better.  The girls on the show could really learn a lot from her.

HAVEN – You remember Sam Raimi’s 1990 flick Darkman?  Well, when I heard that this week’s mysterious villain on Haven was the Dark Man, a part of me was hoping for the return of Liam Neeson’s Batman-esque crusader.  I’m not naive, I knew this wasn’t so, but I need to build up whatever false anticipation I can in order to bring myself to scroll to this show on my DVR each week.  Turned out, the Dark Man was really the angry personality of a blind man which separated itself in the form of his shadow to embark on a Haven killing spree.  The Incredible Hulk he is not.  The Dark Man wields a shadow sword that can penetrate human flesh, and plunges it through the chests of his victims.  In one particular killing, a woman is stabbed through the back while seated on her couch.  The effect is so poorly done, that the padding clumps up around the woman’s neck making it obvious to even the most untrained of eyes that she is propped up.  Effects on shows like this are usually not great, using mediocre CGI at best.  This however, was a practical effect that just screamed amateur hour, and really took me out of the scene.  In the subplot of the episode, Nathan battles with affection, after all, the guy can’t feel anything.  I just can’t tell if the cold delivery of his interactions is deliberate, as a character detached from people, or ironic, as an actor detached from his craft.

TRUE BLOOD – The second to last episode of the season started with Eric’s girl Pam scolding Bill Compton as an “infatuated tween.”  HAHAHA!  Indeed!  I hear loads of people complain about the Sookie love triangle storyline of the show, but we can’t forget, the Charlene Harris books on which the shows are based follow the romance closely.  I can be cynical however, of the constant side stories that bog down episode after episode.  Really, who give two shits about Arlene?  These stories might be a major part of the books as well, but series creator Alan Ball needs to do a better job choosing what to cut.  The problem is, they’ve created such a massive ensemble cast that the show sometimes ventures into Soap Opera territory.  I have to admit that the Lafayette story intrigues me, especially the creepy scene this week with his talking cult idols, but I have no clue where its going, or why now.  Don’t get me wrong, from Jason’s dimwitted commentaries, Sam and Tara’s tortured souls, and Jessica’s trouble adapting to her new life, I love these characters.  I just wish they could focus more time as the season ends, to the potentially awesome villain they’ve created with Russell.  In this week’s episode, Russell promises, “soon there will be anarchy, then there will be me.”  I’ve hoped for that the past three weeks, and so far, I’m disappointed.  Eric sets a trap for Russell using Sookie as the pawn.  The enticing promise of being able to daywalk by drinking Sookie’s blood, leads the men to kidnap Bill and Sookie.  We know the affect lasts mere minutes, but Eric traps Russell outdoors, handcuffing Russell to himself.  The episode ends with both men handcuffed in the sun, their flesh burning rapidly.  Will they kill of Eric?  God I hope not, he’s the best thing this show has going for it.  In two weeks we’ll find out on the season finale.  Did I see Godric in the preview for the finale?

EUREKA – Café Diem must have used some magic mushrooms in their lunch special this week, because Eureka residents were hallucinating big time.  Actually, A GD invented E bomb caused Henry’s shared memory PTSD device to short circuit into the minds of Carter, Allison, Fargo, and Jo.  Obviously.  The characters were seeing the people they subconsciously fear the most.  For Allison, that was Carter’s ex, Tess.  For Carter, it was Allison’s ex, and if you’re a Eureka fan, I’m sure you were excited as I was to see the brief return of Nathan Stark (so named after Iron Man Tony Stark).  Stark was killed off via dematerialization in season 3.  Until I saw him again, I didn’t realize how much I missed this characters snarky attitude.  In this episode, he was Carters hallucination, so the snarkiness was amped up to 11.  In his first scene of the episode, Stark appears to Carter’s surprise.  As Carter remarks on his “dead, undeadness,” Stark looks at his reflection in the mirror and replies, “nope, not a vampire,” a mention of his brief stint as a True Blood vamp upon leaving Eureka.  Nothing gets past the Eureka writers.  It has to be a fun job writing for a show where you are quite literally a scientist of imagination.  The other character return of the episode was Beverly Barlow, the leader of the anti-GD Consortium.  It’s revealed that she has led an effort to rebuild the bridge device that could send our heroes back into their universe.  What’s her motive?  We’ll find out on next weeks Eureka finale.

Fall TV Preview coming next week.  Tune in, same TV Eye time, same TV Eye channel.

Editor’s note: Once again, running late. Not off to a good start with this thing. But I guess all new components have a sort of grace period where they take some time to work the kinks out. Stay with me. I’ll get this shit figured out in time. In the meantime, Tony’s back with more of what’s happening on TV.

As the summer season starts to wind down, some shows begin to fizzle out.  This week, a visit to the Warehouse, and a couple of strange little towns on SyFy.  We take another class on how not to act.  And a vampire favorite more tangled than the worlds largest ball of twine (Fun Fact: it’s located two states north of Bon Temps in Cawker City, Kansas).

WAREHOUSE 13 – We all remember Popeye throwing back a can of Spinach to the result of a heavily inflated set of biceps.  Well, tonight’s Warehouse 13 follows a similar premise as the agents are sent to investigate a college wrestling team on a mysterious winning streak.  The wrestler’s muscles gyrate and expand like waves, only, unlike said sailorman; their end result is spontaneous combustion.  There’s no spinach involved here, just an energy drink being tested on the team by an overzealous stockholder, using an old Viking ladle with the power of adding strength.  Forced to take some time off, Pete’s absence in the field results in the always-cute Claudia teaming up with Myka for the investigation.  While Pete and Myka have a sarcastic, all be it, beat-perfect rapport of cooperation, I found Claudia’s style of investigation to be an awesomely fun departure.  Interrogating a witness while sitting Indian style, full of charm and saucy wit, I couldn’t help but want more. H.G. Wells makes her return (Yes, HG is a she), played by Jamie Murray, best known from her stint as Lila from season 2 of Dexter.  All in all, a good episode, full of great characters and hilarious props like Timothy Leary’s hallucinogenic glasses, and PT Barnum’s organ growing top.

EUREKA – Geeks, dorks, and nerds, what’s the difference really?  Eureka is full of them.  Eureka fans are them.  And I myself am proud to admit that I am as well.  Maybe not a scientific smarty pants like the Eureka populace, but a dork none-the-less.  Each week the minds of this amazing little town are inventing, solving and discovering the grandest of scientific breakthroughs.  These breakthroughs are nothing without the characters that inhabit the town.  This week, a Paleontology expert fabricates the discovery of a fossil using a chemical solution that speeds up the petrifaction process.  Of course, being Eureka, the solution leeches into the surrounding area affecting a number of the townspeople with the rapid fossilization of their skin.  Frozen in time, I couldn’t help compare the petrified townspeople to the Weeping Angels from the “Blink” episode of Dr. Who.  Zoe makes her return to town, and it seems that Alternate Universe Zoe is a bit smarter than the Zoe from the Eureka our heroes were sent from.  At the end of the episode, Henry serenades his alternate universe wife with an epic rendition of Thomas Dolby’s ‘She Blinded Me With Science.’  With Fargo on the turntables, Henry finally establishes a connection with the woman the universe has chosen.  In the end, Carter does as well, as he and Allison finally hook up after 4 seasons.  “Blinding me with science – science!”

SCREAM QUEENS – Jamie Lee Curtis shrieking as Michael Myers stalks her down a dark street.  Barbara Steele’s damning promise of revenge muzzled behind a mask.  Marilyn Burns covered in blood running from the drone of a chainsaw.  Shelly Duvall cowering behind a door as a knife plunges through it.  Janet Leigh mutilated in the shower.  Karlie Lewis showered in a plume of maggots.  What was that last one?  Who the hell is Karlie Lewis?  Exactly!  She’s one of the mostly unmemorable cast of Scream Queens, the one to get the axe on this weeks episode.  The annoyingly whiny contestant Sierra actually did well this week, after two weeks of the worst performances on the show.  Maybe it was because the acting challenge involved crying on queue, which she does constantly on her own.  The director’s challenge involved a scene of a decaying corpse and a showering of maggots, and I thought every performance was atrocious.  The first challenge of the episode was actually the best of the season so far, an exercise in performance capture that really tested the girl’s creativity.  Ty was again impressive, but Sierra was the standout, and actually won leading lady for the episode.  Comparing these girls to some of the most memorable female horror roles in history may be unfair, but it definitely illustrates how far down the totem pole these aspiring actresses really are.

HAVEN – I have to say, the mystery of this weeks episode was, surprisingly, kind of cool and well executed.  An aspiring young artist sketches town landmarks and people from Haven, only to discover that these images can manipulate the real thing.  A sketch of a man is folded as his bones snap in half.  Another man is sliced in three as his sketch is shredded.  In the final confrontation of the episode, a landscape drawing of the entire town is threatened as a flick of the paper explodes a church steeple.  Actually some pretty cool effects.  But again, the show has so many shortcomings, that any moment of likability is quickly erased.  The acting is so hard to ignore, standing out for the uninspired delivery of Emily Rose and supporting cast as flat as the Ancient Greeks view of planet Earth.  The writing however, continues to be the shows core weakness.  Each wild mystery is handled so nonchalantly that any connection with the audience is immediately lost.  A bunch of voodoo paintings are killing people!  How can this be so easily explained and accepted?  It can’t, unless you count bad writing as an explanation.

TRUE BLOOD – If last weeks episode was the spark that should have caused an explosive set of episodes to end the season, what was tonight’s?  It was the writers taking a giant piss on that spark, putting out any notion of ending the season where I’d hoped.  Sure there’s two more episodes left, but WHAT THE HELL?!  I expected an episode full of amazing confrontations, a set of actions that would put into motion a finale nothing short of an epic bloodbath.  What we were given instead was a ton of new information, which further bogs down an already overweight season.  New characters were introduced, and the polluting side stories again took precedent.  When we finally thought we were steeped in an actual central storyline, the writers took us right back out of that story.  Finally we are told what Sookie is, a Fairy.  When she finds out, she remarks, “I’m a fairy?  How Fucking lame.”  The rest of the episode we are shown a lot of Sam’s back-story, which is unexpected and untimely.  Lafayette and his new beau have a fun trip on some V, revealing their ancestral origins.  Fun, and really well stylized, but again, an unnecessary departure.  Eric, instead of preparing for battle, prepares for his true death as he spends the episode writing wills and making amends.  The brief time we see Russell, he is till mourning the loss of Talbot, using a male prostitute as a vessel to say goodbye.  That’s it!  If the final two episodes don’t deliver what us True Blood fans really want, then the Vampire revolution will have nothing on the outcry of the True fans.

Editor’s note: Running a bit late with this one so you’ll have to cut me a little slack. Tony had this in on time but it being summer and all that, I’m a freakin’ busy guy! My skills be in demand. In fact, what this means is that I couldn’t find a break in my day job to make this happen and Monday night is True Blood night where a planned launch of this article after the show was over was derailed by an offer I couldn’t refuse. So, TV junkies, suck it up because here’s your TVEye for the week.

This week, we have some horny A.I., whiny actresses, overstuffed writing, and a hematophagous Big Brother.

EUREKA – Let me start by remarking on the joy it brings me that the Battlestar Galactica spawned pseudo expletive FRAK has leeched over into Eureka and other shows in the SyFy channel universe.  Douglas Fargo yelping Frak just brings a fun familiarity to a show that doesn’t take its self too serious, and for that, delivers one entertaining hour after another week by week.  This week, the town of Eureka encounters a glitch in all of it’s A.I., a pretty large problem by Eureka standards, seeing as the town is run by robotics.  The chaos starts when a cute Wall-E-esque robot is caught peeping at Eureka’s resident badass starlet, Jo in the shower.  Soon, other A.I. take on curious emotional attachments.  The completely robotic Deputy Andy begins wooing Jo, Fargo’s futuristic camping tent B.U.F.F.Y. (biomechanical unfolding fully automated yurt) literally falls for Fargo, urging him to quote “stay inside me.”  Creepy!  The A.I. love-fest gets serious when the Transformer like Titan chases down Carter who is saved by Fargo’s plea of “come with me if you want to live.”  I love referential humor.  In a subplot, Henry finally tells his alternate universe wife the truth about their dimensional intrusion, a confession which is sure to have interesting implications in the weeks to come.  I’ll be watching!

SCREAM QUEENS – This week’s theme on Scream Queens, playing the villain.  More than the first episode, we really got to see the girls sometimes quality, but mostly atrocious acting choices.  Remember, they’re working towards a role in Saw 3D, so acting quality isn’t really that important.  As with every reality show, we are presented with the few contestants we can route for, the group of unmemorable, and the all important drama queens (no pun intended) we are meant to love to hate.  For me, the only two decent contestants are Christine and Ty.  Both girls made some unique choices in the first challenge, creating their own versions of a witch I actually found to be refreshing compared to the cliché performances put on by the other girls.  When it came to terrible performances, the Hanna Montana compared Rosanna, unfocussed Sarah, and excruciatingly annoying Sierra were all at their worst, or maybe that was their best.  Sierra is so whiny and exhausting, and every performance comes off as porn.  Poor Sarah is handicapped by her strong Chicago accent; Da Horror, Da Horror.  In the end thou, it was Rosanna who was cut, for a horrendously flat performance.  Sierra should have been, but we all know the producers want to keep the contestants around that deliver the most “Good TV.”

HAVEN – Where do I even begin with this show?  Haven is supposed to be inspired by Stephen King’s Hard Case Crime novel The Colorado Kid.  In reality, the series uses King’s book as a loose back-story, or moreover, a cheap reason to throw King’s name into the title to attract fan legitimacy.  This show is anything but legit.  Haven is a mysterious Maine town where each week a new supernatural event happens with a different Haven resident.  The town is supposed to be a haven for the supernaturally cursed, and FBI agent Audrey Parker comes to town to investigate these strange occurrences, dubbed “the troubles.”  This week, stuffed taxidermy animals come back to life to hunt the hunters who killed them.  In a series of terrible effects deliberately masked behind shaky editing, the desired level of horror is marred by unintentional campiness.  Where other Syfy shows like Eureka layer their action with playfulness, Haven tries to sell its camp as serious drama.  It fails!  In the end of this weeks episode, it turns out the animals are brought to life by a woman who herself is stuffed, and had stuffed her son as well when he died a few years prior.  What?  How or why is never really explained, and like every other episode in the series, the conclusion is so rushed that in the end nothing makes sense.  What’s worse is the blasé acting and writing which make the show virtually unwatchable.

TRUE BLOOD – What an opening!  The V-feds, a group of muscled agents in heavy black, silver lined armor raid Fangtasia.  This is the beginning of what’s sure to be an awesome route in the True Blood story.  The AVL (American Vampire League) or Vampire Authority is a Big Brother like organization that governs the vampires of the States with a silver fist.  The League is behind the Great Revelation, the vampire equivalent to the civil rights movement.  This season has thus far mixed a variety of storylines that all seem so separate and off track of a focused storyline like last years Maryann saga.  At first this bugged me, but with tonight’s episode, I’m really feeling the big picture that the writers are ready to unveil.  Sure, the cluttered subplots of Tara, Lafayette, Sam, Jason, Jessica, and the really tired Arlene story are still being played out, but a much larger story is really taking precedent.  The big questions of the season are, what is Sookie and why are the vamps so interested?  I know the answer, but won’t spoil it.  Bill and Eric’s interest in Sookie is a fun love triangle, but the big development is Eric’s new campaign of revenge and its implications on the vampire world.  King Russell Edgington has taken his anger public, as he interrupted a live newscast by punching a hole through the chest of the newscaster.  While holding the dead man’s bloodied spine in his hand, Russell delivers a warning to the AVL and humans…”Why would we want equal rights to you? We will eat you…after we eat your children! Now it’s time for the weather, Tiffany?”  Chilling!

Until Next Week!