Saturday, February 18, 2012

W - The Unusuals


I really like having a Netflix account. I especially like finding oddball TV series and watching them in a pretty consolidated chunk. You get a better feel for the flow of a show when you watch two or three episodes a week than when you only see one each week.

There is, however, a bit of a downside to this. That downside is that there are a lot of shows that I find that are very good, in my opinion, but which never made it past their first season or even to the end of their first season. The Unusuals is one of those shows.

First of all, it is in many ways a typical police show. Each episode has one major crime and a couple smaller ones that have to be solved. In several episodes they all tie together, showing some pretty good writing along the way. The thing that made me really like The Unusuals, however, is that the emphasis is on the character and struggles of the cops themselves. The approach is one that is quirky, but not quite comedy. The ways that they all cope with their hidden secrets and personal fears can be humorous, but the acting is excellent and you can feel the truth behind the oddity.

One season was not enough, although in the one season they got almost all of the major characters secrets exposed, if not dealt with. I found myself not wanting to watch the last episode because, while I really wanted to see how it played out, I didn't want to reach the end.

I guess in the corporate world it is hard to sell quirky. If it doesn't fit into a clear genre the powers-that-be just can't handle it. I wish there were more episodes because there are still some secrets that haven't been dealt with. If you've got the time, I heartily recommend that you watch it.

Tuesday, February 7, 2012

I - It Wasn't Missing In Action


Ah, the Super Bowl Halftime Show! That all-American tradition where over-the-hill entertainers try to regain some small sense of relevance. As has become somewhat to be expected, this year's show was punctuated by a small touch of "inappropriateness". It seems that some strangely named singer(?) decided to enhance her(?) performance by, well..., by flipping the bird. Now the exact rationale behind this move is a bit unclear, and I have to admit that I am pretty much absolutely, totally uninterested in why it happened. What seems much more entertaining is all the howling that goes on about it afterwards.

Now I'm not a big fan of semi-obscene gestures on TV, but within the context of a highly sexualized song and dance number involving pretty explicit body language and gestures I'm not sure that one errant digit really deserves so much attention.

One other thing. What's with the weird name? Why call yourself M.I.A.? It doesn't make any sense to me why someone would name themselves Mindless Infant A**h**e. Oh well, I guess I'll never understand the world of today.