Pop Vultures

There has been a sad lack of Friday 5s lately. Since I’m moving in a week, I’ve been forced to spend less time writing and more time wrapping up my life in England and packing up the small mountain of stuff that clearly mates and multiplies every time I leave the house. It’s not right to just leave you hanging, though, so today I give you 5 Things to Tide You Over Till There’s a Proper Friday 5. How very meta of me.

5. In the interest of staying informed, it is my duty to inform you that the odds of an actor’s strike are getting better by the day. Yes, AMPTP has apparently decided that they don’t mind killing television for another season. Don’t cry. Please, don’t cry.

4. Here’s something to cheer you up: the most unabashedly fun show of the summer, Burn Notice, is returning on July 10. If you’re in the US, you can watch the entire first season on Hulu. Non-US people, well, you’re sort of screwed, as the box set is only available as a Region 1 import. Still, if you like your spy dramas stylish, clever and featuring Bruce Campbell in a key role, you should definitely check it out.

3. How well do you know your UK cult TV characters? Play the cult trumps game and find out. Okay, the game is ridiculously easy, but it’s a fun journey down memory lane for some. For everyone not raised in the UK, it’s a long-overdue introduction to Bagpuss.

2. TV Squad compiled a list of their five favorite George Carlin routines. Damn, but that man was really, really good.

1. Prepare to squeal like the Whedon-loving fool you are: we have the first teaser for Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog, Whedon’s musical Internet mini-series starring Neil Patrick Harris and Nathan Fillion, and it looks EXCELLENT.

Teaser from Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog on Vimeo.

Sometimes, there is a fine line between surprising the audience with a completely unexpected plot development and jumping the shark, but when a show does it right, the viewers will be discussing it for weeks, and sometimes years, after the fact. I’m not talking about some “Bobby in the shower” kind of plot twist, either. The best twists manage to utterly surprise the audience while still being necessary to the plot. Often, looking back, it’s clear the writers have been preparing us for multiple episodes — even seasons — and we just never knew which clues to look for. Here, then, are 5 great plot twists that spring to mind.

Warning: Spoilers ahoy. Read at your own peril and use the scroll bar liberally if necessary.

5. Lost, Season 3 Finale
Why the twist was great: The show was treading water, returning to flashbacks we’d seen before and revealing precious little new information — and the viewing figures reflected this. Then, Crazy Drunken Beardo Jack yelled that they had to go back to the island, and everything changed. Since most people thought the show’s focus was simply on whether or not they ever got off the island, no one really thought to ask what happened afterwards. It opened up a whole new element of the story, expanding the show’s possibilities and suggesting a very different endgame than the first three seasons had. Plus, it meant we never had to suffer through another “Kate-on-the-run” flashback again.

4. Dexter, Season 1
Why the twist was great: After Dexter spent a large part of the first season complaining that no one could ever really understand him, we should have seen this coming: Dexter has a brother, and his brother has the same questionable hobby of hacking people up into little pieces. This is a perfect example of a twist that made absolute sense and only furthered the plots and themes the show had been developing. When Dexter was forced to choose between the brother that wanted him to remain a cold-blooded killer and the sister of whom he was rather “fond,” his choice gave us hope that, perhaps, Dexter was a much nicer serial killer than we’d originally thought.

3. Melrose Place, Season 2
Why the twist was great: You can find out how old someone is by asking if they remember Kimberly ripping off her wig, because that scene was one of the defining moments of early 90s TV and is permanently ingrained in the minds of everyone who watched. Looking back, it’s hard to pinpoint exactly why. The scene relied on the cheesy synthesized tunes of which the show was so fond, which really should have taken us entirely out of the moment. However, up till this point the show had been an over-the-top relationship drama, more about swapping partners than rediscovering that the girlfriend with whom you’d cheated on your wife had returned from the dead with a horrible scalp scar from brain surgery. When that wig got ripped off, we knew the show was about to rewrite all its own rules, and that was fabulous.

2. 24, Season 1
Why it was great: Once, many years ago, 24 was a really good series. Now, it’s become something of a parody of itself, with a new! shocking! plot twist thrown into every episode, usually leading to some sort of gaping plot hole through which you could fly a DC-10. There was a time, however, when it seemed like the writers actually planned the season arc in advance and there wasn’t yet an entry in the 24 drinking game for “a mole is found at CTU.” When Nina, Jack Bauer’s co-worker and close friend, was revealed as the mole before shooting Bauer’s wife, the audience was stunned. It was the first betrayal, and the first death of a major character. These days, you may get that every other episode, but there’s no time like the first time.

1. Battlestar Galactica, Season 3
Why it was great: You knew this would be here, didn’t you? Of course it would be. Although I toyed with the ending of the pilot episode, when cloned Boomer suddenly appeared out of nowhere, it just didn’t have the same emotional impact as the end of the third season. We all knew, or at least suspected, that the remaining Cylons were aboard the Galactica, but perhaps we were hoping that it wouldn’t be characters we actually liked. Also, the viewers expected one, or maybe two Cylons to be revealed at a time, and the show went and dropped four of them on us, all of them with some connection to the remainder of the cast. If that’s not enough, we also have to question the significance of the very Earthly Jimi Hendrix tune. They didn’t actually rewrite the rules mid-show, but it sure felt like they were playing a whole new game.

Embedding is disabled on the YouTube clip, but you can watch it here.

What about you? What plot twists do you remember? And let’s try to keep the comments somewhat spoiler-safe by putting any show titles in bold for skimming ease. Thanks!

Again, it’s Friday night, and there’s only one show I care about. Yep, it’s Battlestar Galactica night. This week, the crew finally finds Earth. No, not really. (Sci-Fi, 10:00)

US viewers can also watch Doctor Who land in Pompeii at a most unfortunate time. (Sci-Fi, 9:00)

In the UK, worlds collide when the fabulous Dame Helen Mirren meets up with the boys from Top Gear. (BBC3, 8:05)

Also in the UK, Pushing Daisies has its rather unseasonal Halloween episode, featuring a murderous horseman and the usual lovelorn drama. (ITV1, 9:10)

Television does love their guest stars. Ratings sinking? Show on the bubble? Bring in someone more famous than the regular stars and hope for the best. Sure, sometimes it ends up being little more than a ratings-grabbing stunt, and on a weaker show it is more likely to reveal the show’s flaws than to produce a quality episode. On occasion, however, the Extra Special Guest Star can actually shine their Extra Special Star Quality on a damn good show and make the whole thing glow a little brighter. And I promise to never, ever use that metaphor again.

5. The guest star: Quentin Tarantino
The show: Alias
Why it was great: The first season of Alias was many things, but it was rarely a comedy. After all, nearly every other episode ended with Sydney Bristow in tears. Enter Quentin Tarantino, a man whose acting credits up to this point could easily read “Annoying Guy in Coffee Shop” and “Really Annoying Guy in Bar.” However, his smooth patter worked perfectly in the role of McKenas Cole, the former SD-6 agent who takes over their headquarters. Tarentino’s inability to express an emotion other than smug superiority worked perfectly for the role of an unflappable spy, and his absolute joy in being so bad was a perfect contrast to the stoic evil of Arvin Sloane. Ironically, Sloane’s response to Cole’s many threats (”I can’t be the first person to have difficulty taking you seriously, can I?”) came during the one Tarentino role that I was able to seriously enjoy.

Continue reading ‘5 Best TV Guest Stars’

Last week, Scooter asked fellow TV bloggers to compile a list of their current favorite television characters. What better way to celebrate the slow return of scripted television than by honoring those characters that keep us tuning in each week? This Friday 5 names my personal favorites, though I’ve got to say, it was nearly impossible to narrow it down to five, and the list changed at least six times. Ask me again tomorrow, and I may have different answers, but this is my absolute most up-to-date list of my five favorite characters.

5. Peggy Olson (Elizabeth Moss)
The Show: Mad Men
Why the Character is Awesome: Though I started watching Mad Men when it first aired, I wandered away and forgot to return. I thought it might be a bit like The Sopranos was for me: an excellent show peopled with characters that I didn’t actually care about. And yet, after about a month away from the show, I started wondering what Peggy Olson was up to. Somehow or other, that simultaneously timid and ballsy “new girl” in the steno pool had got under my skin. I had to know if she was ever given copywriting jobs, or moved out of the boroughs, or if she ever got around to punching Pete in the face (answers: yes, no and, sadly, no). Peggy is a bundle of contradictions. She calls building security during an out-of-control office party because it’s the right thing to do, but doesn’t hesitate to sleep with a married man. She aspires to the high-class Manhattan lifestyle, but refuses to apologize when she gains too much weight to look the part. She manages to be both the scared ingenue and the ambitious future ad exec and is equally believable in both aspects of the role. It is that split that will keep me tuning in next season. I want to know which side of Peggy will eventually triumph.

Continue reading ‘5 Best TV Characters (At the Moment)’