3 posts tagged “television”
By way of an update to my previous post: Friday Night Lights is coming back. Here's hoping that Season Three remembers to not be terrible. Season Two forgot.
Oh man, I'm funny.
I was watching an episode of Friday Night Lights with my wife. The Dillon Panthers were engaged in another clear-eyed, full-hearted battle against a particularly formidable opponent. I noticed something odd and asked the question, "Why is the quarterback on the sidelines?"
"Because they're on defense, hon."
"Wait... what?"
She proceeded to explain some football basics to me. This was halfway through the first season. Later on in the season, after the Panthers' quarterback was "blitzed" (or "sacked", I can't remember), I asked, "Why don't they just do that every time?"
"They try. There are people who stop them."
"Oh."
I don't know football, and judging from the behavior of the locals after last weekend's Giants win, that's fine with me.
That said, I like Friday Night Lights. I like the cast, I like the way it looks, I think Kyle Chandler is the most endearingly grumpy TV dad since Cliff Huxtable sweatered up. All in all, a fine TV program.
Last night's episode (which I haven't yet seen) might be the last Friday Night Lights ever, though. And now a campaign has begun to save it from cancellation, which it confronts due to a combination of low ratings and the cost of coming back from the writer's strike. The snark-merchants over at Best Week Ever have gotten an online petition going, and are encouraging people to send light bulbs to NBC as a means of protest and solidarity.
Look, I like the show, but this is idiotic. Let it die, people.
- The second season has been markedly shittier than the first, with so many implausible storylines (most notably, mild-mannered Landry killing a guy and covering it up with no consequence) and the distinct feeling of treading water. I mean, how many times can Tim Riggins realize that he's in love with Lyla Garrity? And isn't one of the show's main foci supposed to be the relationship between the football team and their paralyzed quarterback? He's been all but absent from the second half of this season, except for the ridiculous episode in which he (surprise surprise!) finds that selling used cars isn't all it's cracked up to be.
- What are these people trying to accomplish with their petition? It's a question I don't think they're asking themselves. How long do they want their beloved show to continue? Do they want Friday Night Lights to run until it's merely a parody of itself, or until every character enrolls in the never-before-mentioned Dillon University? The ungrateful fans who campaigned for Arrested Development (another ratings-challenged critical darling), for example, got three solid seasons out of their favorite program. That's not only more than the ratings warranted, but it's enough for any show to run its course. Ricky Gervais knows that television is a game of diminishing returns, and he's used that fact to create two really beautiful series (each totaling only seven hours) that never jumped the proverbial shark.
- Believe me, if Friday Night Lights goes away, you'll find something else to watch. You always do.
- The ratings sucked last year, too, but NBC brought it back anyway. That's a crazy amount of charity coming from a network, and Friday Night Lights failed to deliver with the viewers. Sorry, you're gone.
- Half of the pleasure of FNL (and of most things that people who think of themselves as "cultured" enjoy) is the fact that it's not Lost or Heroes or American Idol or Grey's Anatomy, or some other garbage that everyone watches. No, it's something you share with a few people, and let's be honest with ourselves about how important that is to our opinion of something. I'm thinking of my inability to enjoy Juno, here.
As I said, I like the show, and if it comes back I'll watch it. If it doesn't, I'll move on. Let's not forget, it's just TV.
Spoilers for (is a spoiler of or for?) the Sopranos finale follow. I'm not going to waste time recapping, as you can find much more satisfying and complete descriptions of the show's final scene elsewhere. You are warned.
"Well, that's what I get for illegally downloading it. I miss the last three minutes!"
I have been officially married for just over 14 hours. My thoughts are naught but a frenetic pinball bouncing between:
1) The elation I feel at being wed to a most beautiful woman...
2) The amount of SHIT THAT NEEDS TO GET DONE before our celebration on Saturday...
3) The maddening, hilarious, and ultimately terrifying ten seconds of black that followed Tony's expectant look doorward (now a word) on Sunday's final episode of The Sopranos...
For now, the most I can do is eliminate one of these ricochet points by publishing my initial thoughts on the latter.
Jim Emerson caught the foreshadowing of dissatisfaction that was telegraphed by Tony's frustration with the ketchup bottle. Slate's Timothy Noah compares the void left by the conclusion to the didactic denouement of Frank Stockton's "The Lady or the Tiger?", a short story that English teachers apparently employ to introduce their students to the concept of the ambiguous ending. "I think Chase didn't know how to end this wonderful series," says Noah, declaring it all very unsatisfactory.
I disagree.
"You probably don't even hear it when it happens, right?"
In the penultimate episode, Chase and Co. uncharacteristically reminded the audience of Bobby Baccallieri's ominous line from the first of this last batch of nine episodes by cutting it right the fuck in there. At the time of the reminder, with Tony holding the assault rifle that "Bacala" gave him for his birthday, it seemed that Tony was reflecting on Bobby's pathetic passing. And he was. But the audience was also reminded of the line that, unbeknowst to us, would be key to digesting the final scene.
(In fact, another recent instance of cutting-right-the-fuck-in-there came when Paulie feared for his neck in this season's "Remember When". Recalling Big Pussy's nautical demise, is the audience handed the concrete parallels between one betrayer and another? But Paulie was genuinely surprised to find Carlo absent for their meet, unless he was never a rat and turned down the chance at the Aprile crew because of... DAMN YOU AMBIGUITY!)
There is a solid POV marker as Tony enters the restaurant. He seems to appear in his own point of view, and while some have posited that this provides enough evidence for an "It's all a dream" scenario, I think it's just meant to underscore our identification with Tony in the scene. He is our proxy; we've entered the feedback loop of his head, in which he is the main player. We are treated to his POV as his family joins him, his expectant glances met only by their bored sauntering.
And Chase, who directed the episode, cross-cuts Meadow's parking misadventures with the minatory entrances and exits of the diners with all the subtlety of an SUV to the skull (sorry Phil). D.W. Griffith would be proud of the suspense created by our shifts from Meadow to Tony, Meadow to Tony. Something is happening. We are prepared. The most threatening of the patrons heads for the john in a move that is clearly meant to invoke Michael's fateful bathroom trip in The Godfather, the show's holy book from episode one (and, as picked up on by many but not by me, referenced earlier in the episode when Tony eats an orange before Phil's death).
This is a scene of horrendous violence and startling mundanity. It is domestic heaven and Hitchcock hell.
And then there's the blackness.
Yes, the ending is ambiguous. This is its beauty. Clearly, we are not meant to know what becomes of Tony. He is, when we last see him, enjoying onion rings, listening to Journey, and anticipating the arrival of his daughter to complete the Rockwell/Scorsese family portrait. All is well.
And then blackness. The damn blackness. The unsatisfying and unending blackness that, in a world of mundane betrayal, overtakes you before you've had a chance to anticipate it.
Yes, Tony is dead.
What I love most of all about that final moment is that it is so unusual to the show (a strong, imposing stylistic choice) but so fitting. In discussion of The Sopranos, I've noticed that a lot of its fans discuss not the show that it is, but the show that its characters think that it is (if that makes any sense). In a world where everyone has seen The Godfather trilogy and Goodfellas, here are men who live the boring nuts and bolts of a world that is exclusive, distinctly American, and familiar to everyone. But Tony and his crew make it through the day with a strong blend of denial, posturing, and tenuous comradery. Fans would often do the show a disservice by speculating each week on who would be "whacked". Because the answer would invariably be, "Probably no one." Very little happened in eight years, and the moments that seemed melodramatic on paper (Tony suffocating Christopher, for example) are rendered with enough ambiguity so as to be completely unsatisfying. Nothing about this show was ever easy, and in that respect the ending is exactly as it should be.
The true elegence of the ending is this: Even if you need to believe that Tony Soprano and his family survive this final scene (which a lot of people do, it seems, as is evidenced by the echo chamber speculation of a forthcoming Sopranos movie), this is the world that they live in. A world in which terrifying tension reigns supreme, even over the most pleasant of family dinners.
This is the end; there is nothing left. And that is so deeply satisfying, even without the ketchup.
OK I'm going to go be married now.
