"Everbody Dies": House M.D. Comes to a Close

Eight years ago, when I was in the middle of high school and generally too busy proto-texting through AIM to watch much television, my father suggested that I join the family to watch a new show that was debuting on the Fox network.  Even then I was generally in the habit of taking my father’s advice, but I wasn’t especially impressed by his description of a medical procedural with an unlikeable protagonist based on the literary detective Sherlock Holmes (this was 2004, before I had read any Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Robert Downey Jr. was still recovering from his stint on “Ally McBeal”).  However, after watching House, M.D.’s pilot, “Everybody Lies,” little doubt remained for me, and eight years later, I sat down with my parents to watch the show’s conclusion, “Everybody Dies.”

Screenfix: Assemble!

. . . And there came a movie, a movie unlike any other, a movie that was so over hyped that no single reviewer could critique it alone.  After four years, in the waiting The Avengers (aka Avengers Assemble internationally) has hit theaters to critical praise and record setting financial success.  Of course the ScreenFix crew was there opening weekend to see the film and give our impressions.  ScreenFix Assemble!

Deciphering Eve 6's Return

Though it’s admittedly a stretch of our clever moniker, we here at ScreenFix do keep our eyes—or more appropriately our ears—on the world of music as well as film, television, and interactive entertainment.  This week, we’d like to bring your attention to the resurgence of an alternative rock band that is releasing their new album, “Speak in Code,” next Tuesday, April 24^th: Eve 6.

The Art of Thrilling Conclusions: Bioware's Mass Effect 3

In 2007, the first Mass Effect game was released.  It was published by the relatively unknown Microsoft Game Studios, and was exclusive to the Xbox 360 console.  Fast forward to 2012: amidst a massive amount of hype across social networks and YouTube, Mass Effect 3 was released (on PC, Xbox 360, and PS3) and concluded the trilogy that can very fairly be called “epic.”  As promised, Bioware has included an official female Shepard protoganist, and ultimately decided on a redhead (see my post from last summer, Mass Effect: Hair Salon).  As the only member of the ScreenFix staff who shared Bioware’s trailers on his Facebook with comments like “AHHHHHH!”, the responsibility falls to me to review the conclusion of the trilogy.  If you’re only here to find out if you should play Mass Effect 3, or if it’s worth the money, let me save you reading the rest of this admittedly lengthy review.  The answer is yes.  Go buy it and play it.  You will not regret the purchase.  For everyone else, here’s a breakdown of the game’s qualities.

Star Wars: The Old Republic: The Group Review

If you deserve your nerd card, or have been awake at all for the past few months, you’ve probably heard of the latest cooperation between RPG giant Bioware and the Star Wars license holder, LucasArts. Star Wars: The Old Republic is far from the first Star Wars game, and isn’t the first (or even the second) Star Wars massively-multiplayer game, but it does break new ground as the first MMO title to divorce itself from the lore of the films, set firmly in the “Old Republic” era of Star Wars history (home of the Knights of the Old Republic games). Players choose to side either with the Galactic Republic or the Sith Empire, roughly (though not neatly) analogous to the Rebellion and Empire from the films, and then select one of four classes. In theory, adventure ensues.

The Voice, or American Idol for Cool People

The popular slang database urbandictionary.com aptly defines “guilty pleasure” as “something that you shouldn’t like, but like anyway,” which is elegant in its simplicity. It is also suitable to describe my relationship with the popular singing competition show American Idol, which is currently a few weeks into its eleventh season. I have experimented with a few other similar shows, including NBC’s America’s Got Talent and the relatively new Sing-Off, which limits itself to a cappella performances, but was unimpressed. I never really thought I would find another singing show, but then NBC hit me one more time, premiering The Voice back in April of 2011 (not accidentally riding the coattails of the Idol finale).

Those acquainted with the show can skip this paragraph, but for the uninitiated, The Voice is a singing competition that distinguishes itself from more traditional programs like Idol or Talent in two important ways. The first is its use of blind auditions, in which the judges hear auditions with their backs turned, and must commit to voting for a particular singer before they are permitted to turn their chairs around and see them. The second distinction lies in the talent base, which for other shows is drawn from massive open auditions, but for The Voice is actually recruited from individuals who already have successful small-time, low-exposure music careers (singing teachers, wedding singers, etc). This makes for a higher-caliber competition from day one, which is a positive for everyone who thinks the painfully awful auditions in the early phases of American Idol are precisely that - painful.

Alcatraz: The Latest Fiction from The Rock

Earlier this week, Fox premiered its new winter series, Alcatraz, adding another entry to the canon of lore surrounding the decommissioned San Francisco prison. Despite a lukewarm score of 63 on media critic amalgam site metacritic.com, I felt that Alcatraz's two hour premiere, consisting of two distinct episodes, made a decent showing of itself.

If you missed the half-hearted publicity campaign and/or are too busy for Wikipedia or IMDB, Alcatraz explores a supernatural cause of the island prison's shutdown, complete with mysterious disappearances and government coverup. The show's premise is that 302 prisoners (and, presumably, guards) vanished from the island one evening in 1960 (or possibly 1963- the characters and subtitles seem to disagree on this point), leaving two patrolmen from the mainland to discover the facility entirely vacant. Fast-forward to the present day, when the missing prisoners have begun to resurface, committing their crimes in the modern world.

A Very ScreenFix Christmas

It’s that time of year again folks, the magical day that children spend all year waiting for: the day the winter Doctor Who special airs. To celebrate, each member of our writing staff is contributing their favorite movie featuring the other important event of Doctor Who Day- a minor holiday called Christmas. Enjoy.

A Muppet Christmas Carol (Ryan)
What happens when you mix the beloved Dickens classic about the true meaning of Christmas with a bunch of singing felt puppets? It may sound like your 11th grade English Teacher’s “progressive teaching style,” but it is in fact one of, if not the, best Muppet movie of the 90’s. The 90’s were a magical time when the Muppets started redoing classic pieces of literature with their own Muppet-y twist, starting with A Christmas Carol. There are so many reasons to love this movie. Gonzo as Charles Dickens, the omniscient story-teller, Kermit as Bob Crachet, and of course Michael Caine playing the original Scrooge. The movie is filled to bursting with memorable songs, hilarious jokes, and a surprisingly faithful adaptation of Dickens’s most well known work. With the Muppets well on their way back to the top, why not grab the entire family and force them to sit down and watch the Muppets for the second holiday in a row. Trust me, they’ll thank you when it’s over.


How the Grinch Stole Christmas (Brian)
When you want wisdom dispensed with equal parts zany premise, made-up words, and sometimes-strained end-rhyme, there is no better source than the esteemed Dr. Seuss. To champion the cause of environmental conservation, you have the Lorax (he speaks for the trees). For graduation gifts, a copy of “Oh the Places You’ll Go” is expected, generally with a three-copy minimum. And at Christmas time, you complain about the interruption of regular television, and find yourself watching the animated classic from the 60s, How the Grinch Stole Christmas, sometimes in various states of inebriation. Seuss manages to convey the meaning of Christmas without any specific religious message or inherent Santa Claus mythology, and we somehow get a happy ending out of lies, thievery, cruelty, bitterness, and jealousy. Maybe the reason I enjoy How the Grinch Stole Christmas so much is that the Grinch actually spends the vast majority of the feature ruining Christmas, delighting my inner-Scrooge. Roast beast is, after all, a feast I can’t stand in the least, either. And let’s not forget my favorite Christmas carol, “You’re a Mean One, Mr. Grinch,” which is also excellent for teaching simile and metaphor, and also does nicely for particularly unpleasant breakups. With several airings on most major networks and a few cable channels, such as ABC Family, during the holiday season, it’s not hard to find and definitely worth catching to assuage your Christmas stress.


Home Alone (Amanda)
What says Christmas more than the story of a busy family forgetting to pack their 8 year old son for the holiday vacation in France? Thus begins the story of Home Alone. Macaulay Culkin stars as Kevin, who thinks being forgotten is the perfect Christmas gift. Shortly after the beginning of his personal party, he discovers that his “empty” home has become the target for two of the most inept thieves ever seen who call themselves the “Wet Bandits.” Unfortunately for the thieves, Kevin is, perhaps, the most industrious and creative child ever left alone to defend his home. What isn’t to love about the series of tricks and traps Kevin plots for the unsuspecting criminals? (except for the mess he left for his parents to clean up but it serves them right for forgetting him.) Home Alone is packed with comedy the whole family can enjoy and for other children of the 90’s it’s a trip down memory lane!

And if you enjoyed the first one, try the second movie Home Alone 2: Lost in New York. This time, Kevin’s family forgets him at Christmas for a second year, except this time he’s on his own in New York City.


Elf (Zoe)
I will probably watch this one at least three more times before Sunday while I consolidate and wrap my presents. It just puts a smile on my face every time I watch it; hell, I’m smiling right now just thinking about it. Elf is about Buddy, a baby human who stows away in Santa’s toy bag and ends up back at the North Pole. Raised by elves, he grows up to be Will Ferrell and the single most cheerful person I have ever seen on my TV. After discovering that he was adopted, Buddy goes on a quest to find his biological father in New York City, who happens to be on the naughty list. It sounds really silly when you type it out like that. However, the plot really isn’t the important part here. The reason this movie works is almost exclusively Will Ferrell. It’s as if he took that feeling you got when you were a kid setting out the milk and cookies for Santa (and carrots for the Reindeer of course) on Christmas Eve with the lights dimmed and the tree glowing softly, when everything is just about family and the Christmas spirit, not all the stuff you’re going to get when you wake up in five hours, and made a character out of that.

Relentlessly optimistic, excited and faithful in his own way, Buddy is pure Christmas spirit with none of the cynicism about Christmas that we gather as we age. Elf is hilarious to boot, with a terrific score and featuring a blond Zooey Deschanel (whose last name I spelled correctly on the first try, hoo-rah). Honorable mention- Hogfather (It’s on Netflix, look it up).


A Charlie Brown Christmas Special (Scotty)
There comes a time in one’s life where Christmas isn’t the same. The things that used to excite you as a child now seem dull. The presents, the decorations, and the pageantry all seem vapid and material. And it sucks big time.

Charlie Brown is going through this midlife crisis while still in primary school. All the aspects of Christmas from which his friends seem to be deriving joy don’t really interest him anymore. His attempt to recapture the wonder of Christmas fails miserably. Plus, there was almost a case of tree homicide. Chuck almost gives up on Christmas entirely until Linus schools him and pretty much everyone in earshot.

This is why A Charlie Brown Christmas Special is so great. It shows that the way to get over the adult melancholy of Christmas is not to revert to a childlike state where commercialism still amuses you, but to look beyond the superficial and find the deeper spiritual meaning behind the holiday. Christmas is not about Santa, elves, gifts or having a pretty Christmas tree. It’s about something small and almost insignificant having the promise of bringing great joy.

That and the soundtrack is awesome.

(Cue Linus and Lucy)


Die Hard (James)
‘Twas the night before Christmas and all through the Nakatomi skyscraper
Not a creature was stirring, except the guard with his newspaper.
John McClane stalked terrorists in air-ducts with care
In hopes to save his wife with her huge 80’s hair.

The children were home, all snuggled in bed
With an illegal immigrant watching over their heads.
Without any socks or even a shoe
And no outside help, what will McClane do?

When down on the plaza there arose such a clatter,
Al sprang from his post to see what was the matter.
A body from a window falls down on his car
He wondered where all of the other police are.


“Come Karl, and Tony, and Fritz, and Theo!
And you Uli and Heinrich, and Kristoff, and Franco!
To the top of the roof, I’ll fight you all!”
And defeated every one in a mighty brawl.


Down to the garage goes the evil man
Hanz thinks he’s finished his dastardly plan
When from out of the night comes Argyle quickly
and rams the terrorist with his limo.


Up sprang McClane, with a plan for attack
He pulled out a gun from the tape on his back
And I heard him exclaim as he shot down poor Hanz,
“Yippie-ki-yay, motherfucker!”


What do you think? Did we miss your favorite Christmas film? Let us know what you think in the comments, and from everyone here at ScreenFix, have a Merry Christmas!

Every Day They're Shuffling: The Walking Dead Hits Season 2 Midpoint

On November 27^th, AMC’s survival horror series The Walking Dead aired its midseason finale, “Pretty Much Dead Already,” before going on hiatus until February 2012. According to the show’s Facebook page, The Walking Dead is the most-watched show on cable television (a post that received over 30,000 likes), and 12,000+ people liked the finale episode’s feedback post and left over 10,000 comments. It’s fair to say that the show has generated some buzz, on the Internet at least. But does it deserve it?

Though hardly new to the science fiction or horror genres, zombies have become increasingly popular in the last five years or so with the advent of video game and movie franchises such as Resident Evil, 28 Days Later, Left 4 Dead, and Zombieland, among numerous others. The challenge for AMC’s graphic novel-based series, which first debuted on Halloween in 2010, was to distinguish itself from those franchises in order to become successful on cable. To do that, The Walking Dead inverts the focus of modern zombie fiction (murdering as many zombies in as many creative and disgusting ways as possible), blending the horror/suspense element innate to classic zombie films (such as Romero's Night of the Living Dead, released in 1978) with something comparatively innovative: daily life in a post-apocalyptic world. The Walking Dead asks the question: what do the survivors of the zombie apocalypse do when they aren’t murdering their former-fellow men?

The second season of The Walking Dead has been an exercise in patience for many of its viewers. I'll try to keep the spoilers to a minimum, but if you truly want to enjoy the suspense of the series and aren't up to date, you may want to bookmark this review and get caught up. In the second season, the protagonists find themselves quite stationary, tied down to Hershel's farm by Carl's need for medical attention, the search for Sophia, and the appeal of relative safety from the walkers. This also pits them against Hershel and the rest of the farm survivors with their own unique set of values and, of course, secrets. The deficiency of motion and action in general had some viewers concerned that the show was stalling out and losing its narrative momentum, but in light of the excellent midseason finale episode, I think we can cast the previous six episodes in a different light, starting with the show's own title.

When The Walking Dead’s introduction sequence concludes, the title is revealed on screen word by word, displaying first “The,” followed by “Dead” and “Walking” in that order. Perhaps it’s excessive analysis, but that simple graphic fade always makes me ponder one of zombie lore’s essential questions: are the real zombies the infected, or the survivors who have had the misfortune to withstand the early days of the apocalypse? The Walking Dead's second season has forced survivors to confront their conflicting definitions of civility, what is justified and when, and whether honesty or secrets have a place in this new world.

I would be remiss if I did not go more specifically into what made the finale episode so enjoyable. It served as a proper culmination (as anything called “finale” ought to) of numerous minor and major plots, including Shane's increasing craziness (murdering Otis and advocating violent solutions), Andrea's decreasing craziness (the disapperance of her suicidal tendencies, her marksmanship training, and accidentally wounding Darryl), Carl's injury, Sophia's disappearance, Lori's pregnancy, and Glenn's girl-next-door troubles, to name only a few. Because the series has been so quiet and stationary, the writers were able to plant plenty of dramatic plot mines all around their audience, and the moment we stepped outside the boundaries, they started to go off. Every major and minor character converges on one location, one source of tension, and in a series of gasp-inducing moments, the plot, the characters, and the antagonism are all brought to their proverbial (and sometimes literal) knees. Whether you saw the last zombie coming or not, you cannot say to me that you had no reaction when it emerged, and that you didn't spend those thirty seconds of tension running through the various ways it could play out, even though you knew how it would end. It was masterfully done, and I was entirely absorbed into the world of The Walking Dead for the last twenty minutes of the episode; possibly even to the point that I would not have noticed if the actual zombie apocalypse began to occur. To the skeptics: yes, it was that good. To everyone else: I KNOW, RIGHT?!

There still remains an entire second half of this season, and the midseason finale has left viewers with numerous questions. Will new relationships continue or be destroyed? Will we remain geographically rooted, or is that now impossible? When the dust settles on the group's power struggle, will its leader be different? Will Rick's role as leader be more stringently defined hereafter? And all of that without any mention of certain medical concerns.

I for one am looking forward to The Walking Dead's return in February. Any restlessness I felt during the first half of the season I now recognize as the false sense of security that the characters were also feeling. With all of that turned on its head, it's anyone's guess what's next for the genre's latest hit series.

Do you feel that The Walking Dead has stalled out so far this season? Do you disagree that the midseason finale contained some of the series' best moments to date? Do you have other comments about AMC's zombie show? Share your thoughts!

Harry's Law: It's... Back?

In a season that has seen lots of excellent new television get the axe (okay, I'm referring pretty much exclusively to Fox's Chicago Code which was murdered in its infancy like so many other promising Fox programs), an NBC show that no one really took seriously has returned this fall for a second season of twelve announced episodes (season one ended after a dozen airings, usually a symptom of an early demise). It's not that I didn't enjoy Harry's Law last season-- I did. And it's not that I'm not watching it this season-- I am. But how did it survive its lukewarm IMDB score (7.2) and anemic Metacritic (48) rating, not to mention all the real critics and its own viewing numbers? It's a secret probably only known to the NBC brass and whatever they're smoking. But I have a few theories.

My first theory, and perhaps the only valid one, is simple: Kathy Bates. If you don't know her but think she sounds or looks familiar, you can spend the half an hour it takes to scroll through her portfolio on IMDB. She is perfect for the role of Harriet “Harry” Korn, a copyright lawyer who has her mid-life crisis a little past middle age and quits her cushy job to open a criminal defense practice in the ghetto of Cincinnati. Bates handles the role with masterful subtly, blending curmudgeonly mannerisms with empathetic grandmothering to bring out the character's own struggles, despite her character's rare service as the central point of any given episode. Harry is a deceptively complex character, searching for purpose, for justice, and possibly even for love, but Bates and the show's writers prevent the show from being about that exclusively, which might be why it's still afloat.

Harry's Law takes place in the relatively unexplored-by-primetime setting of Cincinnati, Ohio. The city is less important for being Cincinnati and more important for not being New York or Los Angeles. The setting does not have a life or significance of its own, which could be considered a weakness of the series, but really adds to the feeling that Harry is “lost” in her own life, searching for her own importance.

One of the primary facets of the show is the art of the closing argument. Law & Order has been here before, as well as countless other television shows and movies before it. But much like the epiphanies in House, the viewer can safely expect that right around 48:00, Harry's Law will deliver a lengthy block of closing arguments. These speeches are finely crafted rhetoric, highly stylized to fit the lawyer delivering them, and clearly heavily rehearsed. Generally, the prosecution presents his or her argument first, and it is often so solid that the viewer finds her or himself agreeing, and wondering what Harry could possibly say to overturn it. And then she does, to everyone's delight. Is this feeling enough to keep people coming back? Maybe.

What could have been a very gritty show about the pressures of late/post-middle age and practicing criminal law in urban centers instead takes a turn for the silly, which is probably another key to its survival. In the first episode of the first season, Harry sets up her practice in an abandoned shoe store, and one of her assistants takes up shoe sales on the side, calling the office “Harriet's Law & Fine Shoes.” This mechanism is blessedly removed in the second season, but still stands as evidence that the show does not take itself too seriously. This is not Law & Order; it isn't even CSI. This is a show about an old lady who happens to have a law degree, and makes forays into criminal law surrounded by characters whose sometimes silly exterior belies a complex inner nature. It has its own vice, separate and distinct from other procedural legal shows without any attempt at emulation.

Clearly, I don't have the answers. Harry's Law is not a bad show, but it's not on the same level as much of its competition, and in the cutthroat world of primetime television, its renewal was surprising. It feels like a show that would be more at home on the USA network, and I wouldn't be surprised to see it picked up there in syndication. Without turning this into a second season review, I will add that the new season has taken some steps to establishing the show a little more seriously, adding some new characters and upgrading Harry's digs. I don't know how much hope there is for the show going forward, but there is one thing I learned from the esteemed Chekhov; if Harry doesn't use the enormous revolver she is seen wielding in most of the promotional material, the show is as good as dead.

Brian's Summer Picks: Four Hours Worth Watching

Since I have no papers to grade when the children aren't in school, I instead must grade television. This post consists of four mini-reviews, three ongoing seasons and one new premiere, on the USA and TNT networks. These four shows have primarily composed my TV docket for the summer, and I had a fair amount of loyalty going into each one. It’s worth noting that while I will attempt to control myself, it is almost impossible to discuss shows in their third, fourth, and fifth seasons without a few spoilers, so if you aren’t up to speed with Burn Notice, In Plain Sight, or Leverage and intend to get caught up, you may want to skip the appropriate sections. However you choose to read this text, enjoy and then share your thoughts in the comments.


Falling Skies
Network: TNT
Airs: Sundays, 9:00PM (Premiere Season)
Stars: Noah Wyle, Moon Bloodgood, Drew Roy, Will Patton, Colin Cunningham
In what I had hoped was going to be the highlight of my summer TV viewing, TNT premiered its sci-fi action/drama series Falling Skies in a ten episode summer season, amounting to eight weeks of viewing with double features for the pilot and finale. As I write this review, the season has been concluded but I have not yet watched the finale, which is probably just as well.

Unfortunately, I must begin by giving Falling Skies a resounding “meh” on the one-word reaction scale. It was and is a series that had significant potential, with audiences becoming increasingly more accepting of science fiction as a background, but through a variety of missteps and poor decision-making by people I’m sure I could never identify, the show felt like it went off half-cocked and hit the ground stumbling.

The plot of Falling Skies is only just over the border of originality; you can still look over your shoulder and see cliché, standing there in his drab suit. It departs somewhat from traditional alien invasion stories by bypassing the days leading up to and immediately following the invasion, saving us from the exciting scenes in the White House situation room, the failed attempts to assault the aliens with nuclear weapons, and the frantically constructed theories about vulnerability to disease. Falling Skies tells the story of the human resistance, or rather a small part of it, weeks and months into Earth’s occupation by extraterrestrial forces. We do a little bit of running from aliens, a little bit of fighting aliens, but in keeping with most science fiction, mostly we bicker amongst ourselves.

I don’t have a problem with using a science fiction background to explore the human condition—that is one of sci fi’s primary purposes (Star Trek comes to mind)—but Falling Skies fails to deliver any engaging characters to make those explorations interesting. We are handed a protagonist who could be interesting with his academic vs. battlefield conceptions of war and fanatical devotion to his three sons, but Tom Mason (Wyle) fails to stir sympathy even with the tried-and-true “concerned parent” model. He is bland and unlikable, framed obviously as “the good guy,” and doesn’t behave with the intelligence he supposedly possesses. He doesn’t demonstrate particularly successful parenting, and doesn’t even fail in an interesting way: his wife was killed in the early days of the invasion, and that conflict clearly causes tension between Mason and his sons. But the tension doesn’t really get explored, and we are left with a vague sense of awkwardness where there could be interesting drama.

De facto civilian representatives Dr. Glass and “Uncle” Scott are similarly two-dimensional, despite half-hearted attempts to create depth by exploring their pasts. Glass (Bloodgood), a pediatrician and the group’s medic / scientist, was clearly not designed as a love interest for Mason, but was forced into the role in an effort to show a more interesting side of him (it didn’t work). Mason’s sons are also fairly robotic, with the notable and ironic exception of middle child Ben (Connor Jessup), who is a “harnessed” slave of the invaders when the series begins and one of the only characters under the age of twenty who feels believable. I would be remiss if I did not mention the brilliant John Pope (Colin Cunningham), a complex and esoteric character whose motivations are simultaneously blatant and veiled. He also has a relatively high “awesome quotient,” which we always consider to be a bonus.

Falling Skies was not the trainwreck it could have been. It does not suffer from comically poor acting, as much science fiction is known to, and its plot is passable, if somewhat unsure of itself and slow to develop. TNT has renewed the series for a second season in the summer of 2012, in which hopefully the creative team will sit down and correct some of the narrative and characteristic mishaps that kept the first season from reaching its potential. Falling Skies is worth the watch for science fiction and post-apocalypse fans, but there’s nothing special here. Yet.

Grade: C+


Burn Notice
Network: USA
Airs: Thursdays, 9:00PM (Season 5)
Stars: Jeffery Donovan, Gabrielle Anwar, Bruce Campbell, Sharon Gless
I still remember when I saw the first promos for Burn Notice, advertising a new action-drama about a spy who gets “fired” and forced into early retirement in Miami. A few months later, I had already purchased the first season on DVD and was showing it to all my friends, advertising it as a cross between Grand Theft Auto and… well, every spy movie ever made. I always felt that the show’s creators shot themselves in the foot a little bit by making the title a prominent plot feature in the first season: protagonist Michael Weston (Donovan) is determined to get rehired as a spy, and it feels to me like if he’s ever to achieve his goal, which is something audiences like to see, the show would then end (or need to be renamed), which is something that audiences don’t want to see.

Burn Notice is still very much alive and kicking, and its individual micro-plots remain strong and engaging, but it feels as though the overarching story has stalled somewhat. We are trapped, along with the main characters, in a sort of limbo place where we aren’t sure if Michael is “unburned” or not, whether his enemies are still out there or not, and whether the show is going to risk leaving Miami to continue following its protagonist. For now, I believe season five has done a passable job of making that dilemma the plot focus for the season. But with season six already bought and paid for, where can we go from here?

Grade: A-


Leverage
Network: TNT
Airs: Sundays, 10:00PM (Season 4)
Stars: Timothy Hutton, Gina Bellman, Christian Kane, Aldis Hodge, Beth Riesgraf
Leverage is a show that I follow vigilantly and passionately, and then completely forget about when the season ends. Like my other summer stock entries, I followed Leverage from the beginning, lured in by the network’s advertisements, which advertised a team of quirky criminals who unite to become “good guys.” The show has always had a somewhat goofy, pseudo-realistic charm (particularly with regard to its treatment of computers and hacking) that makes it feel more like a piece of USA programming than the traditionally more staid TNT network.

Leverage had lots of places to go coming out of its third season. The show, which debuted and thrived with an emphasis on its ensemble, finally clearly identified its protagonist as former insurance claims investigator Nathan Ford (Hutton), who has developed significantly more depth than his comrades. This is not to say that there are not complexities associated with Parker (Riesgraf), Hardison (Hodge), and Elliot (Kane), but what was once a show about five thieves has essentially become a show about one man who works with four other thieves (as you may have noticed, I’m undecided on whether Sophie (Bellman) counts as a main protagonist). My only real concern about this show is that the depths of Nate’s psyche have perhaps been plumbed. Other than his alcoholism and dubious relationship with Sophie, I’m just not sure how much more there is to keep the character development relevant, which has always been what lifts Leverage above other action dramas.

Grade: B


In Plain Sight
Network: USA
Airs: Sundays, 10:00PM (Season 4)
Stars: Mary McCormack, Frederick Weller, Paul Ben-Victor
A handful of new television upstarts have promised to show me the “Dr. House of the _______ world,” but none have delivered quite like In Plain Sight’s Marshal Mary Shannon (McCormack), U.S. Marshal of the Witness Protection Program (or Witsec, as the cool kids apparently call it). Few characters on television today, even within USA’s “Characters Welcome” programming, have enthralled me like Mary Shannon. She’s a chick with a gun, which is always an excellent starting point, but she also combines bone-dry humor, a conflicted attitude towards authority, and the occasional softer moment to create a dynamic, interesting, and entertaining character.

In its fourth season, In Plain Sight finally embraces the inevitable plot device for a female protagonist- pregnancy. While Mary has never demonstrated any rampant promiscuity, neither has she been particularly monogamous (since the departure of boyfriend/fiancé Raphael), so it is not entirely unfeasible for her to experience an unplanned pregnancy. In that sense, this turn of events was very much in character for the show: In Plain Sight’s characters have always faced very real consequences for the events in their lives (for example, Mary’s mental breakdown in season two following her capture and near-rape).

While I was leery about such a cliché turn of events (just because she’s a woman we have to do a pregnancy season?), I’ve been pleased with the way the characters handle the issue. Without giving anything away, Mary is still Mary, and the unborn child, like everything else in her life, is a source both of comedy and reflection. The pregnancy plot also invigorates a latent question that has been asked since season one, which is “what makes a good parent?” The show is rife with examples of parenthood that lie across the spectrum, from witnesses who sacrifice everything for the safety and wellbeing of their children, to Mary’s sometimes-alcoholic mother Jinx and absent, romanticized, but probably criminal father. Would Mary be a good mother because she is fiercely protective, streetwise, and well-connected, or would she be a bad mother because of her borderline-obsessive dedication to her work (which is dangerous, I might add), responsibility for the protection of others, and general cynicism and caustic personality?

As always, In Plain Sight does not fail to entertain with wittiness, action, and intrigue, while keeping our minds abuzz with more poignant questions of life and philosophy.

Grade: A

Mass Effect: Hair Salon Edition

If you’re at all in touch with the videogame world and haven’t been living under a rock, you’ve heard of RPG developer Bioware’s flagship Mass Effect franchise. If you don’t meet those criteria, I shall summarize (skip to the third paragraph if you know what’s going on): in the future (~22^nd century), humanity discovers an ancient relic of alien technology buried on Mars. It turns out to be the key to faster-than-light travel, resulting in humanity’s entrance onto the stage of galactic politics, where it is immediately disregarded as a younger sibling by the elder alien races. So when humanity discovers evidence that even older aliens are coming back to essentially eat everyone and everything, the rest of the galaxy shrugs them off as paranoid conspiracy theorists. The Mass Effect series stars Commander Shepard, a covert operations officer from Earth’s elite “N7” branch of space military, and his friends as the fly around the galaxy in their super-secret spaceship and shoot bad guys. It’s a significantly more complex than that, but you get the gist.

Both Mass Effect games released so far have allowed the player to customize Commander Shepard pretty freely; the player chooses gender (and accompanying voice acting), appearance, and tactical specialty, and then as the game progresses, can lean towards Paragon (basically “good”) alignment or Renegade (basically “evil” or, perhaps more precisely, “jerk”) alignment. Shepard’s alignment affects the way he or she talks, solves problems, and interacts with other squad members and NPCs in the game world. However, despite all that, Bioware has maintained a “canon” Shepard who is the default character (for players who chose not to customize) and appears on most box art and promotional material. It would seem, however, that Bioware has finally realized an important truth about their game: no one plays as buzz-cut John Shepard.

There are probably a lot of reasons for this, not the least of which is the abundance of “face codes” available online that allow you to create Keanu Reeves-Shepard, Jason Statham-Shepard, and Obama-Shepard, just to name a few. Many folks also cite the vastly superior voice acting of veteran videogame actress Jennifer Hale, who speaks the lines of female Shepard, compared to the deadpan, uninteresting delivery of Mark Meer (disclaimer: I’m sure Mr. Meer is a fine actor, but it takes a certain kind of talent to translate your acting without your facial expressions and gestures. There’s just a higher bar when a series employs talent like Martin Sheen, Jennifer Hale, Carrie-Anne Moss, Tricia Helfer, and Seth Green, just to name a few).

Whatever the reason, Bioware has finally conceded to developing a canon version of a female Commander Shepard, and recently held a vote on their Facebook page allowing fans to choose between possible versions by “liking” whichever picture they wanted.

Before I broach my ultimately cosmetic topic of hair color, I would like to take a moment to point out what an important step this is for Mass Effect, Bioware, videogames, and popular art and fiction in general. When we talk about action heroes, we increasingly mean both men and women, with such iconic female badasses as Lara Croft, The Bride from Kill Bill, and countless television detectives (SVU’s Olivia Benson and Castle’s Kate Beckett come to mind), coming to prominence in the last decade or two. However, most women in action roles are heavily sexualized in order to appeal to the genre’s target audience, which I admit I cannot quote but I would define as males between the ages of 14 and 40. Much of Bioware’s recent work has hinted at a willingness to challenge the primary “gamer” demographic, which is more or less the same. In its Dragon Age series, we’ve been seeing a similar open-mindedness about protagonist gender as well as significant diversions from heterosexuality in the protagonist as well as supporting characters. By creating an “official” female protagonist who walks around in powered body armor instead of a skintight catsuit and gets her way with leadership, courage, and guns (the bullet-shooting kind) instead of seduction, manipulation, and guns (the non-bullet-shooting kind), Bioware has taken an important step towards equalizing gender in this genre.

Now, back to the very serious business of Commander Shepard’s hairdo. Unsurprisingly, the only blonde candidate (evidently based on Uma Thurman in her Kill Bill days) won by a landslide (though I hasten to add that Bioware has not announced any official results at this time). Also unsurprisingly, this generated an uproar among Mass Effect fanatics. Some highlights from the comments on Bioware’s album (censored, since we purport to be a family-friendly, or at least safe-for-work, blog):

“Thirty thousand people are ****ing retarded. Shepard should have a proper practical god damn military haircut, anything else is... **** you people are dumb.” --Blaine Marcus Adamson

“Great now were going to have this dumb blond **** who doesnt know how to do anything anymore.” --Drew Olando

Also, to segue into my next point:

“If I recall correctly, from one of the novels they mentioned that natural blond hair had become extremely unusual at this point in the timeline. Speaking demographically, a dark-haired Shepard is the best representation of what humanity would be at that point.” --Eli Kaplan

I don’t know anything about the novels, but it seems reasonable to me that blonde hair is a minority trait that will be eventually selected out, though certainly not entirely in only another 200 years or so. And, in space / the future, I’m sure you can have whatever color hair you want. Still, Shepard is supposed to represent the best of humanity, and while hair color (and, for that matter, race, which was also a hot point in the debate) is ultimately irrelevant, one would like to see aesthetic as well as ideological representations of the human race in our champion.

Some have called for the model female Shepard to be based on the voice actress, Jennifer Hale. I don’t know what Jennifer Hale looks like, and even if I did, I don’t believe that videogame characters need to look like their actors; indeed, that is one of the strengths of the medium, allowing casting directors to select solely for voice quality, acting ability, and finesse of inflection. Of course, Mass Effect 2’s Miranda Lawson was based on actress Yvonne Strahovski and the recurring David Anderson character is a passable representation of the excellent Keith David, but in both cases I knew the actor after the character, and both deliver their lines excellently and within the bounds of their character.

To conclude, I personally am fairly indifferent to the chosen female Shepard, who still may or may not end up on the box. Mass Effect’s rich character import feature will ensure that I will be playing with the Shepards I took through the first two games, and while I will doubtlessly tinker with new ideas, I probably won’t take many of Bioware’s suggestions. I am pleased that the franchise has finally confessed that Commander Shepard is not “just as easily” female as male, but perhaps should have been that way all along. Having the choice is crucial, and I would never advocate the removal of the option, but as far as I’m concerned, Commander Shepard was, is, and will be a woman.

A Brief Treatise on the Pitfalls of Pirates

Pirates of the Caribbean 4: On Stranger Tides is a movie that had more impostors than At World’s End had betrayal. Everyone wants to be Jack Sparrow. No one wants to be Will or Elizabeth, including Will and Elizabeth. This simple fact was the kick in the right direction that places On Stranger Tides alongside the stronger of the Pirates franchise films.

We realize that we’re closing in on two months since the movie came out but trust us, this review was lovingly crafted and is well worth the read. Also our local cineplex still has On Stranger Tides showing so quit your complaining. Join Brian and James on their critical review of Pirates of The Caribbean 4: On Stranger Tides. We may be a little off in our timing but the time taken is reflected in quality. Y’all know this to be true. Enjoy

James: On Stranger Tides starts us on familiar tides. The city of London. With a hanging of pirates. Or so we can all hope for.

Brian: As usual, Pirates does a lovely job with its crowds and bloodthirsty mobs. Even though the London streets teem with “respectable” citizens and finely-dressed children, the similarities between their behavior and that of a ship full of scallywags is humorously similar.

I’d like to get started right away by saying that I’m very interested in the Blackbeard character. Though the series constructs its pirates using bits and pieces from history (Barbossa is loosely based on Henry Morgan, Jack takes some elements from Calico Jack Rackham, and so on), this is the first time it directly lifted a (mortal) pirate personality from history (not without embellishment, of course).

J: In my mind there are two main questions about Blackbeard. There is the initial question of whether or not he was a good addition to the Pirates cast of characters. There is also the secondary question of whether or not he was wasted by being killed off after only one film.

B: I would answer yes to both of those questions. If you are going to have a franchise titled “Pirates of the Caribbean,” you’re tacitly promising your viewers (is this the correct term for movie-goers?) that someday, they will have a beard-burning, fire-ship driving, treasure-fleet-plundering pirate of the truly mythical proportions to which Blackbeard has risen. Before Johnny Depp started trying on dreadlocks and even before a little underground boat ride was built in Orlando, Blackbeard was a legend. But it is my opinion that On Stranger Tides failed to treat him thus.

I agree. To the second question though, I disagree slightly. I feel like Blackbeard was wasted as a character not because he was killed off so quickly, but because he was developed as a highly magical character. In a franchise so loose from reality in terms of magic and the like, I saw a character like Blackbeard, who was so mythological even in the real world, I thought that making him actually magic rather cheated him a little. I really would have liked to see a Blackbeard who was a straight pirate, fighting for his position of top pirate in a world filled with shamans, undead, and deathly octopus men.

Exactly. Blackbeard was impressive because of his behavior when he first appeared- all he has to do is walk through a doorway to cow his crew, no magic involved whatsoever (“I find myself... in a bewilderment.”). The voodoo I have no real problem with (insofar as pirates have a religion, it is generally identified as Voodooism or Vodoun ), but the character is less meaningful for the pervasive magic in which Disney wrapped him. He’s at least as magical as Tia Dalma, who, you might recall, turned into crabs and became the weather in At World’s End, after resurrecting a twice-dead Barbossa in Dead Man’s Chest and chaperoning an adventure to the afterlife.

I think looking back on the series that perhaps we can hope that this is not the last we will see of Blackbeard. Hopefully he’ll be back, without his magic, and pirating again.

Perhaps. There’s plenty of precedent in the franchise for temporary death. What there is very little, if any, precedent for is actual piracy. Aside from Barbossa’s sack of Port Royale in Curse of Black Pearl, Disney fastidiously avoids any actual piratical acts (probably because they’re all pretty filthy, immoral, violent, graphic, and completely inappropriate for their audience and canon).

Which only stressed more why I was looking forward to a Blackbeard, who might have been out doing some real pirating, while all of the others were out and about not doing the nitty gritty pirating.

Maybe the monkey will reinvigorate that aspect of the world.

We can’t possibly fully explore the addition to the series that Blackbeard represents without addressing the other new addition: his daughter.

Don’t you mean his “daughter?” I adored Angelica the first time I saw the film, and not just because she’s Penelope Cruz. The character hearkens back to the Jack Sparrow of Curse of the Black Pearl, when no one knew whose side he was on, whether he was a “good guy,” and whether anything he said was true or false. For me, On Stranger Tides didn’t point us to one particular “truth” for Angelica, except that she is a master con artist. Even when she attempts to sacrifice her life for Blackbeard, she could easily have anticipated Jack’s maneuver with the chalices, or even, as Jack suspects midway through the film, “fallen for her own con.”

I liked the character as well. While Elizabeth, the former token female character, certainly made a play to become a powerful, non-objectified, female character she really fell short since she was so motivated by her love interests with almost all of the main characters. Angelica on the other hand is motivated by a lot of things, the least of which is her feelings for Jack. Her feelings do tend to sway more to hatred for him then love never-the-less.

If Blackbeard’s future with the franchise is dubious at best, I think it’s safe to say that we haven’t seen the last of Angelica.

This is especially true due to her Spanish heritage. On the open seas where the pirates rule something like nationality isn’t too much of an issue. But now that we’ve seen the Spanish solidly enter the game alongside the English we will have to start thinking about nationality of the characters. She adds a character, on the pirate side of the playing field, who is not English like all of the others. I don’t think the couple Asian pirates that we’ve seen really count, since I’ve tried to forget as much of the third movie that I can.

And the multicultural crew of Blackbeard’s Queen Anne’s Revenge was so blatantly globally representative, it hardly counts.

So much of the tension between nations that allowed piracy to exist so extensively in the historical Caribbean was a result of the national hatred. It is nice to see the series finally getting into that.

Before this turns into a brilliant, reflective, but ultimately off-topic rumination on the Golden Age of Piracy, allow me to divert us to a character who can be loosely discussed in the same paragraph, or at least on the same page, as Angelica: the priest whose name everyone always forgets (Philip). If Penelope Cruz replaces Kiera Knightley as our token power-chick, then Sam Claflin replaces Orlando Bloom as our token moral compass.

I was unclear, was he really a priest, or simply a highly religious character? Furthermore was he Catholic or Church of England?

The characters, especially Blackbeard, often referred to him as ‘priest’ or ‘cleric,’ and I think at one point (during the exposition of his capture) it’s indicated that he’s a missionary. As for his denomination, I believe it’s Church of England, but I suppose in a world of Jesus and Not-Jesus, it’s a technicality.

I think the Spanish Inquisition might disagree with you.

No one expects it. He’s about as useful as Orlando Bloom, if perhaps slightly less annoying. Also, as far as I’m concerned, Sam Claflin is a no-name actor, which allows us to more easily accept him as a fairly attractive piece of eye candy (for those of the persuasion), and a relatively easily ignored piece of narrative furniture (for everyone else).

I think his first appearance in the film really stresses this. He’s just part of Blackbeard’s mast.

Speaking of Blackbeard’s mast, I simultaneously love and hate the role played by the infamous vessel Queen Anne’s Revenge. I love it because it, like Blackbeard, is one of the great pirate ships in history and myth, and the film absolutely treats it thus. QAR gets a much more reverent treatment than Blackbeard, who is paranoid and mentally fragmented from the prophecies of his zombies from the get-go (“THE ONE LEGGED MAAAAAN!”). The ship is huge, it’s dark; it’s barely controlled chaos. It represents Blackbeard’s reputation better than Blackbeard. It (literally) dwarfs the Black Pearl, which was previously held up as the most fearsome mortal ship on the sea. And, perhaps most interestingly, it is left in the hands of my favorite pirate, Hector Barbossa.

All said I did really enjoy PoTC 4. It marked a series return to a lot of what made the first movie great. It certainly had its pitfalls. If this makes any sense, it had good issues. They were the issues of a series being rejuvenated and not the issues of a series dying. I don’t know if they plan to make any further PoTC movies but they have certainly separated the wheat from the chaff. Stranger Tides is a movie that fans of the franchise will not be embarrassed to place on their shelves alongside the previous films. I know I might even push it up next to the first movie while accidentally knocking at least one of the other two completely off the shelf.

Given my immense bias towards the Pirates films, there was never a question of whether my review would be favorable. The question was: Will I be enthusiastically trumpeting its successes, or will I be savagely defending its wounded honor? For the most part, it has been the former. By my own admission, the movie has its faults, both in and out of the context of the other three, but as James said, those issues are simply indicative of the g-forces generated by turning the franchise in a new, brighter direction. It may not be the strongest entry in the series (which most people agree is Curse of the Black Pearl), but neither will it be the last we hear from the Pirates of the Caribbean.

Bioware's Dragon Age 2, a.k.a. Dragon Age: Kirkwall Edition

When I say I recently finished Bioware’s “Dragon Age II” (henceforth “DA2”), I don’t mean that I’ve thoroughly explored all of the game’s content. Harking back to the company’s origins as Black Isle Studios, their games have always been so massive that it would take an addict of even greater caliber than I to do every sidequest, create every playable character, and experiment with every combination of allies. But I did complete a game, for better or worse, and reached this installment’s narrative conclusion; again, for better or worse. And while I am not done with DA2 (and given their recent DLC fetish, I doubt Bioware is either), what I have to offer is a resounding “meh.” Is the dialogue system improved? Yes. Is the interfaced streamlined? More or less. Did combat get less clunky? Hell yes. Does it have dragons? Of course, and they’re aged appropriately. Is it a better game than its predecessor, “Dragon Age: Origins” (henceforth “DA:O”) or its expansion, “Awakening”? Meh.

Without framing this entire review as a comparison to DA:O, it’s worth saying that DA2 is a different game in the same series, but might not deserve the title of successor. As I read in another review (I wish I could remember which), the game would have been better framed as a full-sized expansion pack entitled “Dragon Age: Kirkwall” rather than “Dragon Age II.” It feels more like something that goes on in parallel to the first game rather than decisively afterwards. Granted, much more story time passes in DA2; somewhere in the neighborhood of six years compared to DA:O’s handful of months, but the Blight (primary plot device of the first game) has such little effect on Kirkwall (primary location of the second game) that there is very little sense of continuity. It’s not a problem, but anyone expecting a consecutive story akin to Bioware’s “Mass Effect” series will be disappointed. DA2 delivers its own narrative, and well, but it doesn’t maintain strong ties to its predecessor.

Setting DA:O aside (a difficult proposition for some of us), DA:2 stands nicely on its own. Combat is streamlined and fairly idiot-proof at the lowest difficulty setting, although to get the most out of your party you still need to micromanage a fair amount. The tactics configuration has been improved with more useful conditions, especially as it pertains to “cross-class combos,” a new game mechanic that allows a certain class (say, a mage) to induce a certain effect (say, freezing, or ‘brittle’), which can then be exploited by one of the other classes (say, a warrior) to obscene effect (say, damage bonuses north of 600%). However, the tactics sheets still do not have enough ‘slots’ to allow for every circumstance, nor for the obsessive “if-then” needs of anyone who has ever taken a programming class. That said, the constant pausing necessary for safely negotiating most encounters gives you plenty of time to admire your party in action, and the game impresses visually (provided you have the hardware, of which it demands something in the neighborhood of current market average). Encounters can get repetitive, but there’s enough variety in enemy types that you probably won’t notice you’re fighting the same class combinations over and over.

Bioware’s strength across its games has always been the construction of rich worlds, the diverse characters who populate them, and the use of that setting to tell an engaging story. DA2 does not disappoint, delving even more deeply into the universe’s allegory-fraught lore of religion, deviance, and government. The conflict between magic users and the templar knights who would police them for consort with demons is central to the setting and, eventually, the plot, although what was probably meant to be ominous foreshadowing just came across as “gosh, those darned blood mages are at it again.” The game provides diverse and interesting characters with a nice plethora of tactical capabilities, personalities, religious views, and criminal histories. Unlike many of Bioware’s games, however, the companion characters do not necessarily become utterly devoted minions of the player’s character, Hawke. Because of the game’s stationary geography, these characters are instead able to live their lives and pursue their own goals in Kirkwall, which can lead to their temporary or permanent absence from your team, depending on how events play out. My only disappointment here was the reduction in racial diversity among companions. Aside from two elves (a Dalish mage and Tevinter warrior) and a dwarf (the wise-cracking, crossbow-naming Varric), the rest of your friends are regular old humans. I know I said I wouldn’t compare anymore, but it’s worth remembering that though DA:O only had one elf and one dwarf, you could also recruit a qunari, golem, and mabari war dog. Despite a well-written and engrossing sidequest involving an escaped qunari mage, DA2 does not permit the recruitment of the newly-behorned, Qun-quoting warrior-philosophers, though a summonable mabari minion does become available in optional DLC.

Similarly, the fully-voiced Hawke can only be human. Though you can choose to play a male or female of any class, DA2 offers only one real “origin” story, as its predecessor phrased it. Hawke’s family is on the run from their home in Lothering as it is overrun by Darkspawn. You can’t be an elf, because then your family would have to all be elves. Also, think of all those extra voicelines they would have to record, even if they used the same actors for the alternate races, which would be a little absurd. To complement the player character’s voice, “Dragon Age II” exchanges the old-fashioned ‘list o’ sentences’ for the radial conversation wheel from the “Mass Effect” series, adding symbols to help indicate the tone of a particular response (usually choosing between Nice, Funny, and Mean). Traditionalists will feel restricted, but at the end of the day it’s an important improvement for the series.

Briefly, because it’s already been plastered all over Bioware’s boards, and beaten to death from all perceivable sides (you can read more about it on the Dragon Age boards, Rock, Paper, Shotgun and Kotaku, among other sites): it’s worth noting that among the game’s companions, four (excluding the downloadable Sebastian) are susceptible to romantic advances from Hawke. Of these four, all four are available to a Hawke of either gender. I have always supported Bioware’s decision to embrace diverse sexuality among its characters, but this feels like they’ve dug a trench right along the lines of compromise from which they may never emerge. As I mentioned, this is a highly charged issue and not something I’d like to address in depth, but it’s worth knowing about the game and video game culture at large.

The game compartmentalizes its story nicely into acts of a sort, separated by hearty dividers of one to three years. Once you begin the quest that takes you out of a particular act, any unaddressed quest or business in that act becomes unavailable to you (even, as I learned the hard way, if that quest leads to a recruitable companion. Ah, Fenris, I never knew ye). The game is usually pretty good about warning you when this is going to happen, but frequent saving is recommended, as always, in case you accidentally fall down a slippery slope. There’s no appreciable adjustment in difficulty between acts, each of which has its own mini-climax, but the actions of Hawke and his/her companions gradually rise in political profile until you’re splattering blood all over the viscount’s shiny throne room. And then it gets worse. Disappointingly, it would appear that regardless of the “side” you chose in the game’s final conflict, there’s no significant difference in the trials you will face. There are two bosses, and you will face both of them, regardless of whose side you’re on. It’s one of the rare but noticeable parts of the game that smells ever-so-slightly of deleted content, cut in order to finish the game by a deadline.

In all, “Dragon Age II” is definitely worth playing, especially if you’re into the RPG genre but would rather maintain the illusion that you don’t, and never have, played Dungeons & Dragons or any variant thereof. When most games that sell for $60 offer six to twelve hours of single player content, DA2 will keep you antisocial for upwards of forty hours. And that’s if you only play a single character through the game once, which is virtually impossible. We won’t talk about the number of characters I’ve already created, nor how many I have yet to imagine.

Who's Gonna Hear You Cry? A Preliminary Review of Fox's "The Chicago Code"

It presents like every other cop drama: commercials with drab colors, grizzled cops in a notoriously crime-ridden city, a vaguely badass title, and a splash screen with the main characters in confident poses with shiny badges and matte black sidearms at their hips. Except for the occasional Law & Order marathon, I generally don’t watch shows like “Detroit 187,” “Blue Bloods,” “The Shield,” or even the recent reboot of “Hawaii 5-0.” But something about “The Chicago Code” piqued my interest.

I can’t say it was the powerful female character: that’s nothing new for contemporary television or even this genre, with the likes of SVU’s Olivia Benson, CSI’s Katherine Willows, and NCIS’s Ziva with whom to compete. That being said, Jennifer Beals has outdone herself in “The Chicago Code,” making clear that her guest appearances on “Lie to Me” were far below her skill.

It may have been the geography: Chicago is not among the glamorous cities for criminals like New York (Law & Order) or the various locations of CSI (Vegas, Miami). It isn’t a center of federal government, like Washington D.C., home of “Bones” and “Lie to Me.” If Chicago fits any stereotype, it’s one of corruption, from which The Chicago Code seems to be drawing its primary content and purpose.

If not the setting or the characters, the allure of “The Chicago Code” must come from its plot. Six months ago, if someone with a nice suit and a stack of research told me that all the stories we can tell about modern, fictional policework have been told, I would have believed that person. But “The Chicago Code” brings something different to the cop narrative party. It uses something akin to the parallel narrative plot structure that can be found in any hour-long drama on the air today: characters have a specific conflict in each episode, but also devote between ten and fifteen minutes each night to advancing a plot that spans the entire season, or sometimes multiple seasons. In this, “The Chicago Code” is no exception to the norm. Its stock protagonists, the newly-promoted Idealistic Superintendent of Police and the Grizzled Veteran Detective With Authority Problems, are pitted against the slightly-more-original Corrupt Politician Moonlighting as a Crime Boss. What’s interesting about how “The Chicago Code” handles the story arc is the frequent intersection of its episodic stories and seasonal goals. Frequently, Superintendent Colvin (Jennifer Beals) is forced to enlist the aid of the devious Alderman Gibbons (Delroy Lindo) to solve daily crimes and injustices in Chicago, despite her ultimate intentions to bring him down, and his dubious awareness of her intentions.

Now that I have done my due diligence in highlighting clichés, it’s only fair to point out some more original things “The Chicago Code” does. Teresa Colvin, the Idealistic Superintendent, for example, is more than a James Gordon or Captain Cragen. She is a primary character with significant depth, who appears in roughly equal frequency in her full-dress uniform, bulletproof vest, business casual detective clothes, and (admittedly less often) casual civilian garb. The show admits she is a woman in a male-dominated world without it becoming a fetish: the occasional subordinate or villain will push her, she’ll push back, and the plot moves on. By the same token, her archenemy, Alderman Gibbons, is not an African American male by accident, but the show doesn’t constantly harp on his race or gender. Even Grizzled Detective Jarek Wysocki (Jason Clarke) is of overtly Scandinavian descent, though he otherwise remains in the uninteresting “middle aged white male” category. “The Chicago Code” is more interested in the problems of morality, loyalty, and integrity that are common to all of us, regardless of race, gender, or age.

I would be remiss if I neglected to mention the show’s significant cast of supporting characters. Junior detectives Vonda Wysocki (Devin Kelley), the younger sibling of the protagonist Jarek Wysocki, and Isaac Joiner (Todd Williams), to whom any “In Plain Sight” fan will be unable to refer as anything other than Bobby D, have thus far been marginal at best as far as the show’s plot, but are certainly fertile ground for development. Deep-cover cop Liam Hennessey (Billy Lush) is lucky to see five minutes of screen time each episode, but faces a plethora of his own moral dilemmas as he sinks deeper into the corruption Colvin’s team is determined to root out. Wysocki the Elder’s sidekick / apprentice, Caleb Evers (Matt Lauria), is barely worth mentioning as more than eye candy, although this early in the season, it would be premature to disregard him entirely. All that being said, the show’s characters (both primary and supporting) have a well-directed, polished feel to them. From their imperfect wardrobes that speak of hurriedness, dishevelment, and urgency to their subtle but noticeable accent work, they fit in their setting and never distract from the themes of the narrative.

“The Chicago Code” is young, having aired only six episodes since its premiere in early February, and is expected to run for at least seven more. However, let’s not forget this is on the Fox network, which is infamous for executing fledgling shows with significant promise (a generalization based almost entirely on its widely criticized destruction of Firefly before the completion of even a partial season [though I personally enjoyed the short-lived “Canterbury’s Law” as well]).

Did I mention Tim Minear (“Firefly,” “Drive,” “Dollhouse”) is one of the executive producers?

I’m not ready to give The Chicago Code a permanent spot on my television docket. There is still too much that can go wrong, even if it survives its first dozen episodes under Fox’s Damoclean cancellation sword. But I am cautiously optimistic, and would encourage the curious and open-minded to take a look at The Chicago Code. It’s fast, but it’s fun.

Welcome to ScreenFix

Welcome, pop culture aficionados, to a blog by nerds for nerds. Our goal here is to take the latest in pop culture and try to build a community around it, whether that is spreading the word on the latest cool shows, discussing the biggest blockbusters, or pontificating on the meaning of blowing people away in the latest FPS. Music, movies, books, games, TV; anything is fair game here. This blog was started by a group of people who met in college and found that they all spent more time talking about movies and last night’s episode of “How I Met Your Mother” than was really healthy. So, I guess now it is appropriate for us to introduce ourselves:

Ryan – My major vice is TV and I follow close to two dozen shows. I came up with the idea for this blog mostly out of boredom and a desire to find other people that want to talk about TV as much as I do. I really like sitcoms and police procedurals though I still don’t know why. I have a B.A. in English so I tend to over analyze things.

Zoe - While I definitely on average watch more TV than movies, I have been trying recently to better keep up with both although I may or may not have ten saved episodes of Chuck on my DVR. I have a thing for off beat plots and historical dramas but good luck getting me to watch anything scary, Ghost Hunters is my limit.

Brian - I like to pick and choose my pop culture according to my whims, which flit unpredictably between movies, television, video games, and music. Fantasy and science fiction are my comfort zone when it comes to fiction, though like most 18-24 year olds, I’ve wasted countless hours on the Law & Order franchise, CSI, and NCIS as well.

James – Film and Television are my specialty. I actually work in the industry, which means that unlike the rest of the poor sops who write for this blog, I can write off my DVD purchases on my taxes as research material. I'm an aspiring cinematographer and I'm currently working mostly as a PA or grip. I also dabble in video games and literature. I've got a degree in Film and Cinematography Studies as well as Philosophy so that means that I have a private collegiate institution that says I know what I'm talking about.

Manda - The hours I spend reading and watching television and movies have significantly increased since my college graduation. I enjoy things from a very broad spectrum of genres. While I have a soft spot for science fiction and stories with historical settings, I have been known to get drawn in to the occasional medical drama marathon.

drmamaje (Jess) - I too have a degree in film, with some hope to break into the industry. My tastes range from the popular to the obscure, from Die Hard to Dil Se. I can probably tell you more about Hou Hsaio Hsien then you would ever want to know.

Scotty - It's a rather long story on how ended up contributing to this blog. I am the only contributor, so far, with a (mostly) quantitative background. Mostly, I do reviews with Zoe in a dialog format. This usually entails us sitting at the same table with Zoe typing something profound while I play Farmville. Sometimes I interject with witty phrases such as "I liked it" and "bleh." One day I might write review of my own, but that would require me to write something longer than a paragraph.

That’s us. I assume the cast of characters might change slightly from time to time but these are the brave souls that were somehow convinced to put their names to this blog. Have something to say? If you are interested in contributing to ScreenFix send an email to Info.ScreenFix@gmail.com and let me know what you want to talk about.