Category Archives: TV
In which Liz tells Frank about TV episodes or entire shows he’s missed.
Farscape: The Complete Skip It/Watch It Guide
[I've wanted to do a SI/WI for this show for ages, but it's been a while since I really dug into the Henson Company's insane combination of puppets, sci-fi and attractive people in leather pants. Fortunately, I happen to know a bonafide "Farscape" expert, and she was willing to step in and perform this valuable public service! Andreanna Ditton, take it away... --Liz]
Farscape is, as one character says, “Disneyland on Acid.” It’s a roller-coaster of sci-fi and bad decisions when the human is always wrong, but that doesn’t stop him from having a plan. Our protagonists are all escaped criminals, from the big blue priest (Zhaan), who orgasms in the light, to the tentacled warrior masquerading as a Klingon rip-off (D’Argo), who turns out to be funny, young, romantic and ragey. There’s a soldier (Aeryn Sun), raised by a fascist military race that look human, who accidentally goes against her training and gets exiled for it. And then there’s the deposed dictator with the worst case of swamp gas in history (Rygel). Couple all that with a living ship (Moya), her snarktastic Pilot (Pilot), and John Crichton, All-American boy wonder who got shot through a wormhole into the ass-end of a universe that considers him expendable, problematic, and eventually marked for death — and you have a television show.
This is science fiction for people who like their comedy in turns black and snot-filled, their love stories fraught and full of sex, their action-sequences big, the consequences bigger, and the actual science…best left unexplored. It’s space opera on an epic scale.
Farscape tackles all the traditional tropes, then turns them on their collective heads. Continuity matters. Story matters. This is the Odyssey — a man lost in the universe, trying to get home. In the meantime, home changes. Decisions don’t get undone in Farscape, for any of the characters — heroes or villains. It helps that the cast is uniformly stellar, that crazy is not pretty but terrifying, that space is vast, and villains cruel but multi-faceted, and that everyone is capable of doing bad all by themselves.
And yes, there are puppets. If those puppets don’t make you cry at some point, you have no heart. Read the rest of this entry
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Liz Tells Frank What Happened In (Parts of) Touch
Dear Frank,
So things have been kinda busy lately, but I am taking a break from the chaos for a short update because FRANK, IT IS SUPER-IMPORTANT THAT YOU KNOW ABOUT SOMETHING STUPID THAT HAPPENED ON TELEVISION.
In case you’re not aware, Kiefer Sutherland is back on Fox as the star of Touch, which was created by Heroes creator Tim Kring and BOY HOWDY can you tell that that is the case. Because BOY HOWDY is this show terrible in all the ways that Heroes was terrible, but sans superpowers and with the added bonus of having a terrible pilot, so you don’t suffer under any illusions that the show might actually be functional down the line.
I don’t really want to go into detail about the whole Kiefer-and-his-autistic-son-who-Kiefer-is-raising-alone-because-of-9/11-wife thing, or the whole autism-gives-you-magic-powers thing because, c’mon, heavy sigh. Really, Frank, I just want to tell you about this thing with the cell phone. Read the rest of this entry
Liz Tells Frank What Happened In Terra Nova
Dear Frank,
All last fall, as I watched Terra Nova, YET ANOTHER family-from-the-not-too-distant-future-travels-to-the-past-and-gets-to-hang-out-with-dinosaurs drama, I knew it would be something I should tell you about at some point.
Frank, I thought we’d have more time. Alas, last night the word went out that Terra Nova was no more — at least for Fox, though the show’s going to be shopped around to other networks HAHAHAHAHAHAHA GOOD LUCK WITH THAT GUYS. I mean, I sure did watch it. But that doesn’t mean I think the odds of it returning are anything less than EXTINCT (HAHAHAHAHAH I AM FUNNY TODAY’S LIZ TELLS FRANK IS BROUGHT TO YOU BY COFFEEEEEEE).
With odds of pick-up low, let us memorialize the show the best way I know how — by snarking about it! It’s been a while since the show’s season finale last December, Frank, so I’m just going to tell you the stuff I remember, but that’ll probably all you ever need to know, anyway.
Liz Tells Frank Stuff She Forgot About Mulder and Scully and The X-Files
Dear Frank,
As you know because we are friends, there was nothing more formative for me as a lass than The X-Files. It indulged and deepened my love of science fiction, taught me the difference between procedural and serialized storytelling, and (most importantly) created a teenage ideal for future relationships that still lingers, ever so slightly (I have a thing for trenchcoats).
But I had forgotten until recently, Frank, how COMPLETELY EFFED UP The X-Files was as a comprehensive narrative. Especially (SO VERY ESPECIALLY) when it came to the core relationship between Special Agents Fox Mulder and Dana Scully.
No one would deny that the partnership, friendship and eventual romance between Mulder and Scully was the closest thing The X-Files had to an emotional center, especially myself. But when you look at the sequence of events that occurred over the show’s later seasons, it made NO SENSE, on a storytelling level or a human level.
Here is why I mention it. A few weeks ago, a friend of mine IMed me with a simple question that she had a valid professional reason for needing an answer to: “When do Mulder and Scully first kiss?” (Frank, it should not surprise you that I was the person she thought to ask that question.) Because Aimee signed off before I could respond, I was forced to send her the following email:
Jeff Tells Liz What Happened In Modelland
Boy oh boy, Liz,
You may recall that when I was recapping Top Model for you, there was a challenge based on Tyra’s new young adult novel Modelland. At the time, I expressed semi-interest in reading Modelland and telling you about it. You took me up on that offer, and purchased me a copy for my brand new Kindle. “No sweat!” I thought. “This’ll be fun!”
Liz, when I wrote the recaps for the Top Model episodes, you and your readers no doubt guessed that I knocked back a few drinks and just wrote the recap as I watched, which saved me time and effort and allowed me to uphold my absolute standards of unprofessionalism. Sadly, I could not take this approach in reviewing Modelland, since rather than being a breezy 45 minutes of stupid reality show, Modelland is an aimless novel for teens that clocks in at a staggering 563 PAGES. THAT IS SO LONG. IT IS TOO LONG. To compare, the Pulitzer-Prize-winning novel A Visit from the Goon Squad is only 340 pages, and that book spanned a time period from the 70′s to the actual FUTURE. So Modelland… pretty long. Too long. Just like these opening paragraphs! Here’s what happened in it! Read the rest of this entry
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Liz Tells Frank What Happened In Dance Moms
Dear Frank,
Today, by reader request, I shall tell you about something that I bet you wish you had never even heard of. There is this show on Lifetime, a show I’d always thought of as The Moms Who Scream At Each Other Right After “Project Runway”. But this show is actually called Dance Moms. And Frank, WHAT THE FUCK.
Going into this, I assumed that Dance Moms is like Millionaire Matchmaker but even more awful, because there are human children involved. FRANK, I AM A FUCKING PSYCHIC. I watched the first two episodes of this current season, which is about all I could manage without going on a murder spree. At least with Matchmaker, you know that everyone involved is a legal adult, which is not the case with Dance Moms. And as a result YIKES.
Dance Moms “documents” a dance team of young girls, taught and led by this crazy lady named Abby Lee, who spends a lot of time screaming at the girls and their mothers and, I don’t know, God? God is suspiciously quiet in response, but the moms occasionally shout back. And then there’s a road trip to some competition, and then the girls dance, and then there’s some more shouting. If you’re saying to yourself “This sounds like Sparkle Motion without any of the dark comedy or Mary McDonnell,” you would be completely correct! (Who knew Donnie Darko was a documentary?) Read the rest of this entry
