Cable Television Rundown: Angry Dudes and Honest Blood

I love me some Sunday night TV, but having two ridiculously addictive shows on on the same night is almost too much to handle. True Blood has gone from being a not-very-good show to a pretty-good-but-not-great show to a truly good show. And with last night's premiere of Mad Men, now there are two hour long shows that I need to watch every week. What ever am I to do? My thoughts on last night's episodes are below.

Mad Men, Season Three, Episode One: "Out of Town"
I was a little skeptical about the promise of season three by the way things shook out at the end of season two. But, the whiz-bang pacing of the new season premiere dashed those concerns right from the get-go. The Lynch-like opening scene, with Draper/Whitman boiling milk and recalling how his mother came to give him up for adoption (Mad Men Origins: Dick Whitman anybody?) was disorienting, to say the least, and totally riveting.

Meanwhile, Pete and Ken both being named head of accounts was a little Frasier-esque. (Couldn't you just see Frasier and Niles Crane being named head of accounts and having an initial misunderstanding about it, then a silly competition about who would be a better head of accounts?) But my concern about the office politics angle being ruined was totally ludicrous. My opinions should not be trusted when it comes to advanced expectations. The sequence where the fire alarm went off in the hotel after Don and Sal picked up some flight attendants was also spectacular, especially Don looking into Sal's window and seeing another dude. Soooooo awesome. So awesome.

No doubt, Mad Men has ironed out its occasionally wobbly storytelling, at least for one episode, by offering an episode that was paced a little bit more quickly but still had the slow-burn scenes that show does so well. Like The Sopranos, it has a magnetic, flawed central character, and has interwoven that with a great supporting cast. And, like The Sopranos, the mystery and lore surrounding the shows has been built up enough that the effect of a scene like Don seeing Sal is a smack in the face in a way that very few other shows can smack like. Mad Men, I'm sorry I ever doubted you.

True Blood, Season Two, Episode Nine: "I Will Rise Up"
This show got good when it stopped taking itself too seriously, and it's gotten better when it started taking itself a little bit more seriously, but in a different way. Let me explain.

The last few weeks, starting with Sookie infiltrating the Fellowship of the Sun church, ramped up the stakes of the central characters. Then, Godric the 2,000 year old vampire came around and brought the "hey, actually vampires are scary" angle that Brigitte and I have been talking about since, like, the day the series started. Guest stars have historically added a lot to the show, but now the main characters are starting to come into their own by (finally) pondering the low-hanging-fruit-like questions regarding their existences.

Which brings us to last night's episode, in which Godric sacrificed himself to the light* (and burned up after a kinda Lord of the Rings-like conversation with Sookie) for the good of vampires. The scene set up a situation where the viewer is probably going to have to buy into a little bit of slightly wonky but mostly touching drama, but I think the show is better off for it. By ramping down a little on the "vampire as metaphor" angle and bringing in more existential crises, the show is less obvious and more seriously good.

*I was pretty disappointed that Godric was whacked after only three episodes. Hopefully this isn't really the last we've seen of him.

And when Maryann comes into Merlotte's and makes everyone's eyes turn black AND Sam Merlotte turns into a fly (and FINALLY shapeshifts into something in a situation when he really needs to do it), as well as other totally sweet stuff, the yummy combination of rockin' awesome action/craziness in the vein of earlier seasons of 24 and the sort of agonizing personal drama of Six Feet Under makes for a tasty concoction.

This entry was posted by Unknown, on Monday, August 17, 2009. You can leave your response.