2014 Was a Flat Circle

If 2014 was anything, it had to have spawned from the savage, swampy, pseudo-Satanic loins of True Detective. In this Golden Age of TV Geek-Outs, I’m not sure we’ve ever geeked-out this hard over a TV show (LOST included). But besides being the TV Event Of The Year, True Detective was also a grim omen of how the rest of 2014 would unfurl: Just when we thought we were making progress, the Flat Circle of Time turned, history repeated itself, the perverted power of the privileged once again pressed its boot to the face of the oppressed and dared us not to lose our minds, Rust Cohle-style, into the abyss of cosmic Lovecraftian horror. At its worst, this year hurtled over us like an uninterrupted tracking shot of chaos, corruption, and police brutality.

As the year ends, it seems like the dark still has more territory, but let’s not forget Rust’s parting words: The light is winning.

2013 Was The Climb, Time After Time

2012 Was Louis C.K.’s Foolish Flailing

2011 Was Walter White’s Mad Cackle

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We Just Started A Freakin’ Coup

At first, it was brilliant: Toward the end of its 5th season premiere, Archer reboots, as its now-unemployed spies decide to work together trafficking literally, not figuratively a ton of cocaine. And for much of the episode’s third act, we see what appears to be Archer’s fantasy of what kind of wild adventures would ensue from said cocaine trafficking, in the form of a kick-ass trailer.

But it turns out, if the last paragraph of this AV Club interview with Adam Reed is true and not just a prankish misdirection, that this trailer is an actual trailer of the kind of wild adventures that will ensue from said said cocaine trafficking in season 5. Which disappoints me at least a little. Spoilers, for one. And oh, how I would’ve loved for one of the coolest seasons in TV history to have been merely a three-minute montage. And also, I feel slightly cheated, because the camera totally zooms into Archer’s eye right before the trailer, and we all know you should only zoom into a character’s eye if you’re gonna show one of that character’s memories or fantasies. If they zoom into Archer’s eye and show flashforwards, he either has to be in some kind of LOST-like purgatory (which would be lame, even though it was cool on LOST), or he has to be psychic (which would be lamer), or it would have to be revealed at the end of this season that this all was in fact Archer’s dream, and the next season will go back to how things were at the end of the fourth season, just like they did for season 9 of Dallas (which would be Family Guy levels of lame).

Ultimately though, the biggest disappointment here is that Archer did something extremely unexpected, and then did something even more unexpected on top of that, but apparently the second unexpected thing was, in truth, simply telling us what to expect.

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But I Did Come Here To Make Friends, Prometheus

(not too spoilery)

I’d love to see a Director’s Cut of Prometheus with 33 minutes of previously-deleted scenes- ideally scenes where we just get to hang with everyone, get to know them better, maybe peer into their professional-looking dream sequences a bit more.  Because for Heaven’s sake, if you’re going to drop dream-reading software into reel one, why not make a whole device out of it?  See what kind of elegantly-staged memories are floating around our supporting characters’ consciousnesses?  (Damon Lindelof wouldn’t just be re-hashing LOST, see, ’cause this time there’s an actual character with the actual technology to see other people’s flashbacks.  So it’s totally germane now.)

I forgave the often-inane logic- after all, it’s called Prometheus, it obviously wants to be mythic, and most myths are erupting at the gut with inane logic.  And yet, I yearned for a larger degree of humanity.  I was eager to befriend the crew of Prometheus, but Prometheus was just like that punk geologist who thought he was on a reality show contest: “I’m not here to make friends!”  (Elizabeth Shaw tried to make friends, yes, but our friendship was weakened by her superficially-explored faith.)  OK fine, Prometheus, be that way.  I was just really hoping I could own it on DVD one day, I’d watch it every couple-three years, and it would remind me how awesome it is to be agnostic- full of wonder, gratitude, and horror for what the universe has to offer.  (Or, as Stanley Kubrick so eloquently said in 2001: A Space Odyssey: “God…how the fuck are we supposed to know?”)

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21st Century TV Shows Are 1970s Filmmakers

gif courtesy of iwdrm.tumblr.com

The Sopranos is Francis Ford Coppola, duh.  Martin Scorsese‘s a little too flashy for The Sopranos so he gets to be Breaking Bad, with all the shovel-POV shots and such.

Steven Spielberg has to be LOST: heaps of gee-whiz! with a dollop of schmaltz.

I’ve never seen Battlestar Galactica, but I want to say that one’s George Lucas.  Of the shows I have seen, the closest George Lucas might be Heroes– though in fairness to Lucas, Heroes started sucking in way less time.

Friday Night Lights is Robert Altman, particularly Nashville, where country music is high school football and the acting is unbelievably natural.

Louie is obviously Woody Allen, only I think I could actually hang out with Louie’s alter ego without wanting to slap the neuroses out of him.

Mad Men is Stanley Kubrick, I think.  Clinically sterile on the surface, but still very human at its core.  Also because they both feel like Americans who love America but wish they were British so they could see America from a British perspective.

If all those Discovery & History Channel reality shows about dangerous, nature-battling jobs (Deadliest Catch, Ice Road Truckers) procreated with all those A&E and TLC reality shows about mentally-disturbed weirdos (Hoarders, My Strange Addiction), the offspring would be Werner Herzog.

If all those tacky, tasteless MTV & VH1 reality shows (Jersey Shore, Flavor Of Love) fucked each other, the offspring would be John Waters.  (This is meant as a compliment to John Waters, and as an insult to the reality shows.  I’m not sure how that works, but that’s how it is.)

If Wes Craven and John Carpenter and Tobe Hooper and Brian DePalma and Dario Argento had an orgy and the offspring got mostly recessive genes, that offspring would be American Horror Story. 

Carnivale is David Lynch, because of the genuinely eerie Americana and all the unanswered questions.

The Walking Dead is George Romero if he took his sweet, sweet time a la Terrence Malick.  Though of course Terrence Malick is more Planet Earth. 

30 Rock might have to be Mike Nichols, though of course it has plenty of Mel Brooks too.  But with all the genre-spoofing, Mel Brooks should probably be Community.  And I guess that would mean Arrested Development is John Landis.  The Office (US Version) is Hal Ashby (unless Parks And Recreation is Hal Ashby).  The Office (UK Version) is more realistic and uncomfortable to watch, so that’s John Cassavetes.  How I Met Your Mother is meta-Arthur Hiller (the guy who directed Love Story as well as a couple of Neil Simon scripts).  I can’t think of who It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia would be.  Who’s the most mean-spirited and irredeemably obnoxious 1970s filmmaker?

I have yet to see Homeland or Rubicon, but they’re Alan Pakula, right?  Because conspiracies and shit?

The Wire would have to be Sidney Lumet, with the criminals and the scathing social commentary of modern urban…OK, I’m just guessing on this one too, since I’ve only seen like 4 episodes of The Wire, and I’m ashamed to admit this.

Deadwood is either Walter Hill or Sam Peckinpah, since it takes the brutality inherent in early-20th Century Westerns and reconfigures it through modern…

…all right, I’ve seen zero episodes of Deadwood.

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