TV Hangover

10 months ago

Molly Lambert’s recaps of True Blood are better than actually watching True Blood.

1 year ago

Why is it so gratifying to see these characters sucked up in a cyclone of misery? Maybe because for the first time in a long time it doesn’t seem so improbable. It hints at newly recognizable anxieties, not just the stranger knocking on the door after dark but the stranger knocking on the door and demanding a thousand dollars that don’t exist (whether for head shots or the cable company); Vivien and Ben are as frightened, as desperate in the meeting with a realtor about putting their house on the market, as they are when a recently-bludgeoned corpse shows up in the bathtub. People are almost as afraid of foreclosure as they are of death. Maybe it’s because sometimes it’s the house that haunts you, but more often it’s you who haunts the house. »

The Recessionary Charms of American Horror Story by Tess Lynch

There’s magic in Tess Lynch’s writing. You should read this whole article and then take the rest of the weekend to read everything else she’s written.

(Source: grantland.com)

1 year ago

Breaking Bad is not a situation in which the characters’ morality is static or contradictory or colored by the time frame; instead, it suggests that morality is continually a personal choice. When the show began, that didn’t seem to be the case: It seemed like this was going to be the story of a man (Walter White, portrayed by Bryan Cranston) forced to become a criminal because he was dying of cancer. That’s the elevator pitch. But that’s completely unrelated to what the show has become. The central question on Breaking Bad is this: What makes a man “bad” — his actions, his motives, or his conscious decision to be a bad person? Judging from the trajectory of its first three seasons, Breaking Bad creator Vince Gilligan believes the answer is option No. 3. So what we see in Breaking Bad is a person who started as one type of human and decides to become something different. And because this is television — because we were introduced to this man in a way that made him impossible to dislike, and because we experience TV through whichever character we understand the most — the audience is placed in the curious position of continuing to root for an individual who’s no longer good. »Chuck Klosterman on Breaking Bad

(Source: grantland.com)

1 year ago

Tonight’s episode of Louie (according to the druid who writes the capsules for the Time Warner on-screen programming guide) is as follows: ‘Louie explores a lifelong habit.’ I have no idea what this means, and perhaps the episode will suck. Maybe that scene with Dane Cook was the apex, and — even though the rest of season will be totally watchable — nothing on Louie will blow my mind again. But I don’t think so. I really don’t. I’ve never had this much confidence in a TV show, ever. This is really happening. »Chuck Klosterman, Louie’s Brilliant Second Season

1 year ago

An Oral History of Friday Night Lights «

“People weren’t reacting to the football. It was expensive, but people weren’t reacting to it. How many 40-yard bombs can you throw? It was probably the least interesting part of the show. Watching Buddy Garrity try to stay sober and get a JumboTron named after him was much more interesting to me. I don’t get a lot of kids coming up to me to say, “Oh, the football rocks.” The show will be remembered more as one about a marriage than one about football.” -Peter Berg, Creator/Executive Producer

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An Oral History of Friday Night Lights «