Thursday, January 08, 2015

Missing Once and Again. Again

In reaction to this post by Linda Holmes at the Monkey See blog, I had some thoughts:


1.
That I missed out on that Twitter conversation? Kills me. I ADORED Once and Again, and often point to an early season one episode where Rick explains to Jesse that, no, they will never be a family again, along with a confessional scene where he describes telling the kids that he and his wife were going to divorce as akin to just taking a hammer and smashing them in the head, as one of the most emotionally devastating things I have ever seen on television. I also wish Once and Again got more credit for the "talk to the camera" trope. They did those cutaways in black and white and they seemed to be internal monologues almost, so no, it wasn't mockumentary style, but the basic idea is all over TV these days (Hi, Modern Family!).

2.
This will sound (and likely is) ridiculous, but can Deadwood lay claim to being more of a family show than an action show? Unlike The Wire, which brilliant as it is, is still about cops trying to catch crooks, Deadwood was never about lawmen stopping bad guys but about a community developing out of chaos. Deadwood seemed to find its finest moments in small instances of human connection in a way that reminds me of a Friday Night Lights or a Parenthood.

3.
Finally, this piece makes me want to get back to Showtime's The Affair, which I got about five episodes into before dropping. It's not the "Manipulative. Touchy-feely. Soft. Direct. Unironic. Often sweet. Wants to make you have feelings." Holmes is looking for, but it is closer than Breaking Bad!

4.
I have always been fascinated by how Parenthood has taken off from the film that inspired it. Particularly, I find it very interesting how the movie--which I think today has a reputation for being something of a goofy Steve Martin comedy--actually is more willing than the ostensibly more serious network drama to let its characters be, at their core, just not good people. The Jason Robards and Tum Hulce characters in particular never get redeemed, but finish the movie as basically selfish, unlikeable people. Whereas their TV analogues (Craig T. Nelson and Dax Shepard) carry over some of the same personality traits (gruffness and aimlessness), and yet as the show progresses are pretty clearly painted as very good people (flawed, maybe, but good). As much as I like Parenthood, this has always bugged me some--all of the characters are Very Good People in the end. I'm not even suggesting that the film is better than the TV show, really. I just find the contract intriguing.

Until Whenever

1 comment:

Roger Owen Green said...

I'll miss Parenthood.