The Shield: Urban Jungle "Dawg Days" to "Cupid & Psycho"

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"Dawg Days", "Blowback", "Cherrypoppers", "Pay in Pain" & "Cupid & Psycho"

The middle stretch of The Shield's first season is an interesting selection of stories. They establish just about everything you need to know about all of the core characters and their motivations. Dawg Days is a rather fun episode that demonstrates how difficult it can be for a police officer to work as the "landlord" to drug dealers, things get out of hand when one of Vic's "informants" Rondell Robinson opens fire at a party where Lem and Danny are both moonlighting security. Lem knows to keep his mouth shut about Rondell's involvement but Danny - as a good, straight cop - implicates him. This results in Vic having to call in some favours with Danny, playing on the intimate relationship between them to get Rondell out of trouble. Dawg Days is also notable as the first appearance of the character Kern Little (played by " Sticky Fingaz") Kern will make multiple appearances in many seasons and remain important to Vic for a long time. His introduction here is particulary memorable, mostly due to his exit from the storage container near the end of the episode.

Blowback can seem less important on the first viewing, but it's actually one of the major start points for the show - the introduction of the Armenian gangster/foot fetishist Margos Dezerian (played by Katey Sagal's husband Kurt Sutter creator of The Shield's sister show Sons of Anarchy), "The Dezerian" and his Armenian cohorts eventually grow to be major parts of the show, especially in seasons 2, 3 and 7. Dezerian himself would go on to make just three appearances, but he remains one of the most memorable criminals of the show and the Armenians themselves eventually became one of the greatest potential threats to Vic and his boys.

It also helps that Margos is one heck of a creepy character. Blowback is also one of the episodes where the Strike Team come close to exposing themselves after they steal two bricks of heroin from the Armenian bust but are seen doing so by Julien. The interplay between Julien, Acevada and Vic continues throughout the entire run of these episodes, ending in Cupid and Psycho when Vic blackmails Julien into changing his story.

Cherrypoppers is a journey into one of the sickest stories The Shield ever touches on, dealing with a ring of people involved in 'Cherrypopper' movies - films that involve young girls and lets just leave it at that. The Shield often attempts to move Vic towards the role of protagonist by having the people he's set against seeming far worse than he is. Cherrypoppers is one of those episodes (like the pilot) dealing with sexual predators hunting after and abusing young girls. It's a primal form of manipulation but it does work well, you have to understand that many people eventually 'forgot' just how dark, twisted and criminal Vic actually was. In the end some of them even began to mistakenly think of Vic as a 'hero' rather than the cop killing, brutal drug lord with a badge that he was.

Shane's racism, which was touched upon back in The Spread, flares up in a more prominent fashion during Pay in Pain, as mentioned earlier Shane's racist attitudes would often become a major problem for the Strike Team, especially for Vic. Vic doesn't care what skin colour someone is, he only cares if they're an asset or a threat to him, so Shane's "un-business-like" (and frankly backward) attitudes towards non-Caucasians is a problem. The general Strike Team attitude is 'doesn't matter where you're from if your money is green and plentiful', so Shane is a problem. Of course, Shane being a problem is something of a reoccurring issue in The Shield and Pay in Pain is not the last time it will surface.

Julien continues to struggle with his homosexuality, something that stands at odds with both his spiritual life and his work one. He's drawn to Thomas, but he's also repulsed by who he is and he's deathly afraid of being discovered by his colleagues. The police force is (as we're reminded by Danny) a brotherhood, and there's quite a few things that can get you ostracised from it, being a rat or being gay are two of them. Julien has managed to be both of these and it's Cupid & Psycho where these two issues come together - in the hands of Vic Mackey.

But Vic continues with the information in the way he always does, it's a tool to be used. He actually doesn't care that Julien is gay, not one bit - but it is a lever he can use to get Julien to drop his testimony against the Strike Team on the drugs, he plays a fantastic game and pushes Julien all the way to recanting - no matter the consequences. Afterwards Vic turns it on it's head by suggesting that Julien 'did Vic a favour' and now Vic has his back. It's a classic case of manipulation and Vic won't go telling people that Julien is gay as long as Julien isn't a threat to him. Vic even goes as far as to consider Julien a 'buddy' now that he has control of him.

It's a just another example in the way that Vic manipulates people and uses them as resources, if you're in someway of use to Vic he'll keep you sweet, if you're of potential use he'll manipulate the situation until you're in his control, if you're a threat he will eliminate you one way or the other. Ultimately everything Vic does is about control and protection for himself.

These episodes also establish a further driving motivation for Vic apart from his sociopathic consequentialism. His son Matthew is diagnosed with autism, a serious issue for a young child and an expensive one for any family to deal with, Matt's autism fast becomes one of the major driving forces behind Vic's all consuming need to get money and as much as possible. It also legitimises his actions both in his mind and in the minds of many viewers. He might do bad things, but he's doing them to ensure his son gets the life he deserves.

Of course, things are not perfect at this point, the lack of early character development due to that "missing season 0" (The season pre-Crowley's shooting) means that some of the relationships between the characters feel a little forced. Vic and Gillroy is a great example of this, it feels like Vic is nothing but a problem for Gillroy so you're left wondering why on Earth the man protected Vic at any time, his announcement that he's removing any assistance he might give Vic during the end of Cupid & Psycho seems almost redundant, why he helped Vic and the Strike Team up till now seems almost impossible to understand.

David Acevada is given some exceptional character development during this period, he goes from being 'the man after Vic for some reason' to a politically ambitious man who desires advancement in politics, exposing Vic is one of the fastest ways he can secure the popular vote - something Terry Crowley alluded to in the pilot episode. Now his hard on for Vic becomes something more understandable and his anger over Julien's retraction all the more vivid.

Dutch is also given some extra focus and direction, his obsession with catching the 'face down' serial killer continues and escalates when he asks for the assistance of the FBI. His frustration at an inability to succeed here, something that is compounded by two lads using the police force to play a practical joke on each other, pushes him towards using a psychic for help. It won't be the last time his obsession with serial killers will take him to unusual places.

Dutch also gains some personal growth from an unusual source during the Claudette/Vic, Shane/Dutch pairing, Shane's advice on how to land some 'hot widow' action is very offensive and immature, but Dutch is desperate enough to give it a go and in Cupid & Psycho it pays off, giving Dutch his first relationship of the show. You'd be right if you thought that anyone listening to Shane is desperate, but the world is full of desperate people just looking to make a connection with someone, anyone, and Dutch is one of those people.

These five middle episodes for the first season give us a taste of what the show is like during 'business at usual' hours, it's energetic, fun and filled with scrapes that almost get the Strike Team into trouble. Almost like a grim and gritty version of The Three Stooges, but it's also capable of going to profound places, surprising you with a revelation about a character or showing you an insight into one member of the force - often through physical means. Some of the looks and shots of the characters show exceptional depth, expressing more than their words or even their actions do, this is a hallmark of Clark Johnson's work and it's his deep influence that is felt right across the show with the long wordless moments that convey an ocean of emotion.

While the plots of The Shield are quite often breakneck and thin (due to the number of stories in a single episode) the characterisation in the show is of exceptional depth. Especially when you're dealing with key characters like Acevada, Shane, Lem, Dutch, Claudette and of course, Vic himself. It's these powerful performances that make re watching the show such a deligh as there are hidden depths to every scene.
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DVDs in Review #109: Wonderfalls: The Complete Viewer Collection

Bryan Fuller, the name is now pretty much synonymous with oddball television shows that have an endearing lead cast, an unusual concept and rapid cancellation. He first worked on Star Trek: Voyager before creating the rather fantastic TV Series Dead Like Me - which was cancelled after two short seasons. Most recently he's been involved in Heroes (now cancelled) and Pushing Daisies (cancelled); so it should be no surprise to anyone that Bryan's first project after Dead Like Me was cancelled by Fox just four episodes into its run. Fortunately for those of us who enjoy quirky comedy/drama with strong and well realised female leads the shows first season was filmed in it's entirety and is available on DVD.

Caroline Dhavernas stars as Jaye Tyler; a moody, withdrawn 'Generation Y' underachiever. She lives in Niagara Falls and works in one of the local gift shops with a co-worker she describes as a 'mouthbreather'. Jaye is distant and withdrawn, connecting with few people apart from her best friend Mahandra (Tracie Thoms), even her family (Parents Sharon - Katie Finneran, Darren - William Sadler, Sister - Karen Diana Scarwid and brother Lee Pace, who would star as Ned in Pushing Daisies later on in his career) find her hard to associate with. Jaye lives in a trailer park and has little to do with the world in general if she can help it.

This changes when a series of events cause Jaye to have a "spode" (short for episode) after being hit in the head by a coin that ricocheted from a statue. After this she finds herself being talked to by a malformed wax lion souvenir, it has little to say apart from a single order for Jaye to obey.

Throughout the series Jaye is instructed by otherwise inanimate objects to perform tasks; items like a cow creamer, a fish on the wall and a brass monkey force her to interact with the world and often help people, changing things for the better.

Caroline Dhavernas is the centre of this show and given the performance she provides here it's a complete surprise that she's not in higher demand outside of her native Canada. She's an absolute delight as Jaye, taking a character with a lot of exceptionally unlikable personality traits into a character who is so wonderful that it's hard not to fall in love with her as her story progresses towards its conclusion.

Now often with cancelled shows you're left with a cliff hanger that is irritating and unfortunate to endure. Fortunately with Wonderfalls there's a complete story in these episodes and as such it's possible to enjoy it as a complete entity.

So get out there, grab a barrel and marvel at this hidden gem of magical television.

You'll like this if you like: Dead Like Me, Arrested Development, Pushing Daisies, Spaced, Ten Items or Less.

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Doctor Stew

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Like Family Guy? Like Doctor Who? Always wanted to see the two of them mashed together in something other than another irrelevant Family Guy cut away? Want no longer, the Internet gives you...

Doctor Stew!

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The Shield: Urban Jungle - "Our Gang" & "The Spread"

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The pilot episode is the defining point of The Shield, it's the bang on which the entire series is formed, and while it is one of the most important episodes in the show it's not a great character piece. As I mentioned previously it's a piece that's crammed full of characters and has to rush along at a breakneck pace towards an almost inevitable conclusion. As such it falls into the hands of the following two episodes to give us some extra character depth and development in order to allow us, the viewer, to connect with these characters on a deeper level.

"Our Gang" follows on from the events of the pilot episode with the barest of moments elapsed. Most of the Farmington District Police Force is outside the hospital where Terry Crowley was taken. That's the first real mule kick from this series, Vic's bullet wasn't even a clean kill - Terry dies in hospital in the following episode. Despite shooting for the head Vic couldn't even manage to be certain his problem was dealt with cleanly, Terry does die without waking up and being able to tell people what happened, but the entire situation is a great example of how messy things could have been (and will be).

The reactions outside the hospital during the cold opening are also great; Vic manages to look cold and almost like he is in shock, unable to grasp what's happened - but he's always in complete control of his actions, especially his closing comment "I'm responsible." A comment that serves two purposes, first of all it creates a "Did he just confess?" moment for the viewers (a moment that is extended a little by the opening credits) and secondly in the context of the situation it actually serves as a calculated move. By admitting a form of guilt he's able to make whatever signs of guilt he and Shane might have look natural and also by starting with such a bombshell he's heading off any accusations that might suggest he's responsible for Terry's murder. Even in a situation like this Vic is looking for the higher ground to take the advantage. He's that sociopathic.

Shane on the other hand is obviously afraid of being caught, he looks sick and close to breaking throughout the scene. He's fortunate that he's not questioned at this point in the episode because he would probably have broken (later on, when he's had time to compose himself and fabricate a story with Vic he does manage to keep it together, just). Lem and Ronnie on the other hand wear their innocence on their sleeve, especially Lem who takes the whole incident personally, for Lem the Strike Team will always be his family and the loss of their newest member is like losing a young brother. He lashes out in the only way he can, breaking a van window and cutting his hand up. You notice here that the innocent member of the Strike Team lashes out in anger, whereas his two guilty team mates remain relatively calm and collected. Ronnie on the other hand - the reasons behind the way he reacts become clearer once you've seen the seventh season.

A huge section of the rest of "Our Gang" deals with the mental landscape of Vic Mackey, through a series of flashbacks we're shown Vic's mental process in an abstract manner. Gradually we see him reconcile his dissonance over the act, almost breaking during the weightlifting scene but finally coming back out of it as collected as he's ever been. It's almost an act of birth (or rebirth) for him, (there's certainly a lot of pushing involved in the sequence, that's for sure.)

"Our Gang" also confirms one of the major antagonistic relationships of the show, the one between David Acevada and Vic Mackey. David's pursuit of Vic, which is somewhat hollow and unconvincing in the pilot episode "I just want to get a dirty cop off the street" reaches a new level of purpose. He's convinced that Vic is behind Terry's death and while he cannot even come close to comprehending the truth and instead suggests that Vic set Terry up and sent him into a death trap (which is why he doesn't manage to break Shane - he's just far enough away from the truth that Shane can deny with certainty). It also brings Gilroy fully into the equation, a man who currently has Vic's back but will eventually become the piece that (temporarily) unites Vic and Acevada against him.

While "Our Gang" represents a transition past the abnormal events of the pilot episode, "The Spread" represents business as usual. It's the first real insight into the capering shenanigans of the Strike Team and lets you experience what things must have been like before the show started. It's a lighthearted episode that could almost make you forget what transpired in the two episodes previously, it's certainly at odds with them.

The Strike Team perform a little light corruption by detaining a star basketball player and thus determining the outcome of a match before it happens. It's betting time. This storyline gives the guys a chance to spread their characters, showing Lem to be quite an amiable fellow, and revealing Shanes racist attitudes in a well acted manner. Walton Goggins manages to look very uncomfortable at appropriate moments, showing some deep seated racist attitudes buried inside Shane's persona - something that will pay off in a later season (in one of the moments I kind of wish never happened). Ronnie still remains something of a background extra at this point.

Throughout the first few episodes it's the Dutch/Claudette stories that can provide the tension and the laughs when things look bleakest. "The Spread" is no exception, the main thrust of the story is pretty grim, there's a serial killer/rapist on the loose. But the discovery of a naked man, and the fact that he keeps jars in his fridge full of *Dutch sniffs them* "That's not mayonnaise"... wait for it. Semen. Is a classic moment of black humor, Dutch's reaction is just hilarious as he tries to leap away from the jar, dropping it and getting the man juice on his shoes.

In fact pretty much the whole of "The Spread" is a relatively lighthearted affair, but it remains important because it does set up the start of the serial killer storyline for Dutch and Claudette. A storyline that contains one of the more brilliant moments of the season, the one where I took my opinion of Dutch and turned it 180 (it's in the episode "Dragonchasers" which I consider to be the second huge moment of The Shield). It's also the first episode to really play up Julien's struggle with his homosexuality, the point where Julien begins to become more than just 'the rookie cop who makes mistakes'.

"The Spread" is also a great example of what the show could have been like if they'd run a season prior to Terry Crowley's murder. The hi-jinks of The Strike Team are exactly the kind of thing he could have been involved in, something a little underhanded and dirty but not overtly criminal. It's another one of those episodes that makes me wish there had been a prequel season (so to speak), but it's not worth dwelling on again this season as the rest of the episodes coming up pick up the pace and move forward.

With the completion of "Our Gang" and "The Spread" The Shield has mostly got past its initial crunch point and is looking to move forward with an eye towards developing a long term story line. The show would never manage to escape Terry's shadow, but at this point it had at least performed a cathartic ritual and bought some breathing space so it can expand beyond the 'original sin'.
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DVDs in Review #108: The Inbetweeners: Series 1 & 2

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When The Inbetweeners aired on British television I cunningly managed to miss every single episode, so when I recently received the first two series as a gift from a family member I was finally able to rectify this oversight on my part. When I was given the set both my brother-in-law and my father warned me that "[You] find it a little hard to get into at first. [You] ask, why should I watch something with these horrible people?" But that, "It's worth it, because it's brilliant, revolting but brilliant."

Now I usually take television advice from my father with a pinch of salt; it's not that he has bad taste (he did watch the Survivors remake, but even he admitted how awful that was - and I still recall the incredibly amusing comments he made while we watched the Doctor Who special The Voyage of the Damned - a story redeemed only by "friend of this blog", the awesome Clive Rowe) it's just that he prefers quite a lot of different shows to the kind I like. My main genres are the US Sitcom and the non-procedural police show - his are Science Fiction and gross out British comedy (Mongrels for example). My brother-in-law on the other hand was introduced to The Wire and The Shield by myself and my brother; since then he's embarked on a journey of all that is great in television - I intend to lend him The Sopranos next.

So I wasn't exactly sure what I'd make of The Inbetweeners; but the general consensus seemed to be 'Stick with it, it's really good once you get used to it'. And that's good enough to make the show worthy of a watch, especially when it was a gift.

So what exactly is The Inbetweeners - well if you've been living in a bubble for the past couple of years (a bubble that hasn't been popped by George and Susan of course), it's a half hour situation comedy centered around four friends in their last few years of school. The principle/narrator is Will (Simon Bird) a public school boy transferred to Rudge Park Comprehensive school after his parent's divorce resulted in his mother not having sufficient funds. Will integrates himself with a trio of young lads; Simon (Joe Thomas) a relatively normal, if unpopular, young man; Neil (Blake Harrison) best described as a cross between a boy and large slightly slow puppy and Jay (Joe Thomas) resident pervert and world class overcompensator.

They form a somewhat unpopular, lower rung, clique - not the absolute bottom of the school pecking order (that would be the Freaks and Geeks of coruse), but certainly a long distance away from being near the popular kids. Nowhere to fit in, sort of in between everyone else (oh, I see what they did there - very clever, I guess). And what follows is two series full of hopes being dashed, unpleasant situations, unwelcome advances from a suspect teacher, vomit, pee and teenage fumblings towards the opposite sex. It's simultaneously hilarious and cringe worthy - just like all of the great British comedies.

Performances are solid throughout, but of particular note in the cast is the completely apathetic and child hating Mr Gilbert (Greg Davies) the lovely Belinda Stewart-Wilson as Will's mum Polly and the school bully Mark Donnovan (Henry Lloyd-Hughes). It's also worth saying that Blake Harrison's performance as Neil is consistently outstanding, he brings a naive charm and pleasant attitude to the role that makes him both fun and likable - even when he's admitting to ejaculating all over the interior of Simon's car.

So The Inbetweeners is another great British sitcom; it's charming and unpleasant, fun and painful, nostalgic and fresh. It captures the essence of the teenage wasteland and takes a pretty shrewd look at the British youth. It might be a little easy to shrug off many of the events in the show as being outlandish and unlikely, but a lot of what happens in it reminds me of my latter day school years and the quite frankly outrageous things we did at times - and just like the teenage injuries that have left scars on myself, The Inbetweeners will have lasting impact.
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TV Geek Army

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I'm not sure if you're aware of the site at this stage but I think it's time I posted about one of the (relatively) newer TV sites out there. It's TV Geek Army, a television review site that is growing in popularity, more of a collaborative effort with multiple writers rather than a single individual (much like the excellent Crimespree Cinema) - though the hard working Eric helms the vast majority of the work at the moment.

I'm currently involved in the site with the occasional post (about once a week on average - I can't manage more sadly) and just recently 'totallyTV' has joined the ranks. I'm currently involved in a small round table about TV Show finales (which you can read in it's entirety here) and my series of Doctor Who reviews can also be found on the site.

There's certainly room for more writers if people are interested, it would take some of the load off Eric (or not, he seems to eat, sleep, breathe and sweat television) and as always more content along with different viewpoints is a great thing for any site.

So stop by, say hello and let Eric know I sent you!

Back tomorrow with more Rev/views.
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The Shield: Urban Jungle - Pilot

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"Good cop and bad cop left for the day, I'm a different kinda cop. "

Pilot episodes are probably the most important episode in any television series, they set the tone and pace of the show while also letting the audience (and network) decide if this particular show is for them. As such most pilot episodes attempt to come out swinging with a couple of huge blows that's going to make the people watching go "Wow, I can't believe I just saw that. What's next?"

Without some kind of hook in this day and age it's quite probable that the average viewer will forget about a series and not return to watching it. So many pilot episodes include highly charged and memorable incidents that often attempt to be unique in an effort to crystallise themselves in the memory of the viewers. Some great examples of this include Six Feet Under's brutal car accident involving Nathan Sr; BSG's nuking of civilisation (in a mini-series sure, but still), Rescue Me's ghosts and West Wing's revelation of the identity of Martin Sheen as the president. The objective is to create talking points that will keep people going until the following week's episode.

Pilot is one of the most extreme examples of this concept as right from the gate The Shield sits down and tells you exactly what kind of a show it's going to be. It's a hard hitting show that isn't afraid to deal with unpleasant crimes and police brutality. Pilot sets the style, tone and pacing for the entire series and lets you know exactly what you're going to be seeing from the show in the future. Personally I think this is a great construct, if you don't enjoy the pilot episode then it's clear you won't enjoy the rest of the show - it's a fantastic sampler of the coming storm the show provides.

There are a few fantastic decisions that were made during the creation of Pilot the most significant of which was the casting choices. Looking past the core cast it's the role of Terry Crowley that was the real stroke of genius. Reed Diamond was a relatively well known face linked to procedurals at the time due to his involvement in Homicide: Life on the Street and it's clear that it worked because Reed's role as Terry (despite appearing in just three episodes) is iconic and has become one of his best known roles on television - an impressive feat considering the low episode count, but Terry is that important to the series.

Add to Reed's "stunt casting" the decision to try and frame Terry as a lead role, including putting Reed's name into the opening credits and the way the plot attempts to promote him as one of several leads in an ensemble piece and you end up with a show that does it's absolute best to set up Terry as an important character in order to make his subsequent murder by Vic at the climax of the episode as surprising as possible. Reed was even heavily featured in the adverts for the show before the pilot's airing.

There is one thing that has to be made clear here, the reason we don't see anyone plotting to murder Terry in advance isn't a case of misdirection by the writing, it's because Vic doesn't plan to shoot Terry when he heads into Two Time's apartment - things just fall into his hands and he takes an opportunity to eliminate Terry because he knows Terry's snitching on him and his team. Terry's murder is the 'original sin' of the series (and Vic) but it's not a planned thing and though it doesn't seem like it as time passes, Vic's actions do actually prey on him - it just takes a long time for it to surface.

Pilot isn't perfect, it's an exceptionally dense episode with a lot going on and possibly too many characters to follow; There's Acevada, Vic and the Strike Team (Lem and Ronnie take a back role at this point, which is important because they're also the pair not involved in Terry's murder - but Shane is more active in the episode and he's the only witness to Vic's actions at the end), Claudette & Dutch and Danny & Julien - that's four separate story lines which only interweave at on occasion when the characters meet up.

The best intertwining is between Vic and Claudette/Dutch - where Dutch's interviewing techniques come up short and Acevada makes the call to allow Vic to torture a suspected paedophile. The addition of torture, paedophilia and police brutality make it clear to the viewer that this show is going to go to some dark places, but it can also make it seem like the show is trying to hard to shock. In some ways, Pilot is trying too hard Shawn Ryan and company wanted to really shock and surprise viewers in a similar way to the method Six Feet Under used before (Six Feet was one of the first shows to really bring death into the equation outside of procedurals, and they went for it in a big way). So it is more than possible some people would look at this episode and think "it's just a shock jock video nasty type show" before passing on it, and if they're thinking that then the show probably isn't for them, but for the people who stick with it and move on there's a wealth of subtlety and psychological insight of the darkness in the human condition to be gained over the passing seasons.

There is another point where I do feel that Pilot comes up a little short, and it's only with the hindsight of seven seasons. Pilot attempts to do too much and it's not until you watch the later episode Co-Pilot (an episode I'll certainly write about later on) do you realise where The Shield could have benefited from a slower burn at the start. In short, with hindsight I think the first season of The Shield would have been better served if Terry had been established and followed as one of the principle leads for at least half a season, perhaps ending the first season with the events of the pilot episode. Now I do know this would have shocked many viewers even more than Pilot did, and it could have actually turned away far more people, but in the overview of the entire series it would have worked a lot better. As it is these characters explode onto the scene with Terry's blood on their hands and we have little to go with, as time passes we do come to know (and even love) the characters, but initially there's a real disconnect that doesn't quite go away.

At this point in the show as well very few characters are painted in apart from the broad strokes. We have Acevada as the politically ambitious police captain, Dutch as the shrewd but over confident detective who's the target of the stations bully (Vic), Claudette as Dutch's world weary, jaded and cynical partner and Vic as the corrupt cop straight out of the stone ages of policing. Everyone else has very little depth (and even those four aren't exactly rounded out); Danny and Julien are involved in little more than light relief (their case involving the tyres slashed by Lamar works quite well as a balance to Dutch and Claudette's dark investigation).

Vic does have considerably more characterisation than the other members of the cast during this episode; he's already portrayed as a somewhat complex character, while bringing in Lonnie for questioning over the murder of his partner he shows concern about the children left loose in a drug den and right after fleecing the pimp Dimitri he ends up handing Connie (a hooker) a fair bit of money so she doesn't have to work tonight (and for her son). Vic's concern about Connie is a constant thing in the early part of the show.

There is also some strong symbolism present in the episode; Acevada's speech about cleaning up the town contrasts deeply with the Strike Team's actions on the street. Vic's first act in the show is to beat a perp for running and the rest of the episode does have strong ties with the plotting of the film Serpico (with an alternative outcome for the Serpico-like figure of Terry). The other major symbolic object of note is the men's room toilet - it's blocked and remains blocked for most of the series. I'm not 100% on what this stands for, but the only period where it is unblocked is during the fourth season (when Monica Rawlings is in charge and things look like they're going to get a lot better in Farmington). I'd hazard a guess that it is to do with the arrested development of the male characters in the show and their tendency to remain 'blocked' at a more primal state, but it also could be a reference to The Strike Team and how The Barn is unable to get rid of it's unsightly "waste".

When you take the whole episode into context there are flaws to it, but as an opening to the series it's close to perfect. It's completely faithful to the way the rest of the show would unfold and it sets up the incredible feat of a seven season story line that does pay off in full (in the most spectacular and emotionally draining fashion). There's no other show that manages to have the concepts and constructs of it's pilot episode remain relevant for seven seasons and still echo across the final few episodes. So Pilot is one of the most important episodes in the series, and it's actually more important than most other shows' pilot episodes are. There's no doubt that Pilot is one of the greatest pilot episodes in television history and it's something that any television aficionado should watch - it's a great appetiser for the rest of the series.

Ponyboy Harris (the man selling VCRs) is none other than Max Perlich a Homicide alumni (like the director of this episode Clark Johnson), it's a bit of a blink and you'll miss it cameo role. Sadly he doesn't reprise it.

You can purchase the T-Shirt worn by Vic at the BBQ online, I have a pair of them (one blue, one black) it's a nice design.

It's quite possible that Acevada is responsible for the dog crap in Dutch's desk, not Vic.

Homicide's influence on the show extends quite pervasively, not only is Clark Johnson the director of this episode (and Max's appearance) but Shawn Ryan himself has credited Homicide as one of the key inspirations behind the show.

Claudette is quite accepting of Vic's ways - at least initially, but seeing him act on the interogation room camera with Dr Grady is the start of what becomes a major part of the series.
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Futurama: The Sixth Season - Intitial Thoughts

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So Futurama has managed to pull a 'Family Guy' completely now, it's brought itself back from extinction and onto our screens through the four made for TV DVD movies and is now airing it's sixth season. The movies - Bender's Big Score, The Beast With a Billion Backs, Bender's Game and Into the Wide Green Yonder were a mixed bag overall. Alternatively great and then quite awful with no real consistency. Watching the DVDs with commentary revealed that the cast and writers were quite unaware of the weaker parts of their baby - they found great entertainment and pride in even the most juvenile and unoriginal of their jokes.

On a few rewatches my opinions of the four movies have changed a little - My estimation of 'Bender's Big Score' has gone up further, it's certainly the best of the quadrology; but 'Into the Wide Green Yonder' has plummeted in it's stock and I now only marginally prefer it over 'The Beast with a Billion Backs' - Bender's Game sort of hovers around the middle, some parts of it are brilliant, but others sort of fall flat.

Anyway, what I have been hoping is that the four movies which consist of the fifth "season" of Futurama were not the symptoms of diminishing returns for the series (something that Family Guy has begun to suffer from and that The Simpsons has been accelerating off towards the event horizon of since season ten). But in truth it's only through the watching of the now airing sixth season that we can get an idea if the quality of the original series (especially in the last two seasons) has been maintained.

Well, I'm going to quickly run through the first seven episodes with a short review on each:

A moderately touching story that alternates between being good and being pretty lame. It was a rather lacklustre start to the new series, still when it was good it was rather good indeed and the twists in the plot were fun.

Out and out the worst, yes that's right - worst, episode of Futurama of all time. There was a great premesis here to be played with but instead what we got was a torid venting of sewage that seemed to dump all over both the show and the viewers. I don't think I'll ever watch this episode again - it's even worse than That's Lobstertainment.

Attack of the Killer App:
The first of the great episodes in the season. Attack manages to lampoon current culture trends and as such feels both fresh and funny. The release of the iPad in particular (and the still continuing froth about the iPhone) really gave this episode some teeth. The race between Bender and Fry for followers and the uploading of the embarrasing video of Leela all came together to create something that just worked perfectly.

Proposition Infinity:
While not as bad as In-A-Gadda-Da-Leela, Proposition Infinity dumps all over one of the better established relationships in the show - Amy and Kiff for very little pay off. In fact you get so little pay off that at the end of the episode 'everything returns back to normal'. I've always appreciated that Futurama is one of the few mainstream cartoon sitcom shows that seems to have a progressive plot that builds on previous events. This was a huge step in the wrong direction.

The Duh-Vinci Code:
While the episode was a little late in taking full advantage of the buzz around Dan Brown's book (this wasn't the first time this happened with Futurama, see the Titanic episode), The Duh-Vinci Code was the first genuinely good episode of the season. It was fast paced, fun and filled with a balance of good gags and thoughtful moments - classic Futurama.

Lethal Inspection:
Yes, the ending to the episode was predicatble, but that did not reduce its impact. Lethal Inspection builds on the improvement in writing that The Duh-Vinci Code offered and gives us the first really emotional episode since Bender's Big Game.

The Late Philip J. Fry:
Fry and Leela's relationship has been exceptionally hard to follow in this season, and at this point I'm still hesitant to say that it's settled down into a pattern that can be followed. But The Late Philip J. Fry did feel like an episode that addresses this and moves the pair forward - I don't mind the ultimate destination for the pair, but I don't want to see more of the exceptional nonsense In-A-Gadda-Da-Leela voided at us.

Overall thoughts:
The sixth season has had a few rough episodes and weak moments, but there has been marked signs that the show is returning to its original stride. While I really, really cannot stand In-A-Gadda-Da-Leela in the least bit and will not be watching that particular turd ever again, the rest of the season so far has enough parts to make it an enjoyable proposition. It's just not quite back to the status of "all-time classic" yet.
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The Shield: Urban Jungle

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As I'm sure you're aware I've had a bit of a writing lapse over the past few months. Now I don't know exactly what the cause of this is, but in an effort to push past this I've decided to go back to a few basics, in particular I plan to revisit The Shield (aka my favourite show) in its entirety over the next few months. Now I'm not going to write about every single episode; instead I'm going to pick out key episodes, moments, characters and observations and write about them in this series I've decided to title "Urban Jungle".

For those of you who haven't seen The Shield I can't recommend it enough - it's a dark, brutal, unforgiving walk through a world of corruption, violence and lies. A story that spans eighty eight episodes over seven seasons as it charts the times of a small elite force of policemen and the other officers who surround their lives.

I've cited it as my all time favourite show on many occasions and while I do accept it's not for everyone - the dark nature of the show means some people may find that it's too much, but for those who are willing to step beyond the grim exterior there is a world filled with complicated characters, ambiguous situations and various types of unpleasantness.

My revisit to the series starts on Friday with a look at the Pilot episode, what it tried to achieve, what it brings to the show and why it had such an impact on myself and forced me to re-evaluate all television as a consequence.
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DVDs in Review #107: Frisky Dingo: Season One

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Historically I've always had something of a soft spot for the more off-beat adult/late-teens targeted cartoon comedy shows that Adult Swim have put out. The Venture Brothers, Space Ghost: Coast to Coast and Harvey Birdman: Attorney at Law, but I have been known to enjoy some of the others from time to time. Frisky Dingo has now joined the ranks of these shows after an impulse purchase from myself - the main driving force behind that decision was the name Adam Reed, creator of the rather great cartoon spy spoof show Archer.

Frisky Dingo is a show about an ultra-violent, sociopathic super villain named Killface and his soon to be arch-nemesis Awesome X - billionaire Xander Crews who has just defeated the last known super villain and needs to settle down and run the family business. Killface is a pretty unpredictable individual, and thanks to his incredible strength and psychopathic tendencies (along with his gun) he's a delight to watch on screen. You can't be quite sure how he's going to handle any given sitution. Xander Crews on the other hand is far more predictable, he wants to carry on being a super hero along with his fighting team 'The Xtacles'.

Each episode is little more than ten minutes long and it's filled with frantic action and witty one liners, much like Archer and Harvey Birdman the short length of the episodes is both a boon and at times a hinderance. The short length means that there is no filler moments, everything is set up, bang, pay-off and that makes for a fast watching experience; but also this means that there is little room for depth in the storyline. So don't expect it all to make completely logical sense, just sit back and enjoy the outrageous situations as the plot hurtles from doomsday devices to corporate life, then to home life as a super villain and eventually to killer bunny fights (which are even more awesome than they sound - serious).

Animation wise the show is adequete, but a little crude in places. It certainly holds to the stereotyped idea that Adult Swim shows are not well animated, but it's far from awful to watch. In fact the artistic style is great in it's simplistic direction, it's just the actual movement that's a little awkward at times. It's certainly not a deal breaker, but you shouldn't expect something to the standard of The Lion King (insert a more recent cartoon movie spectacle there if you prefer, I can't think of one).

Be warned though, the show certainly goes to some very dark places with its humor and as such it's really not suitable viewing for the younger audience - but for those people who are old enough and have an appreciation for cartoon violence, low brow humour and very fast paced plotting. Frisky Dingo is something worth checking out, and thanks to it's short run time it it's very easy to digest. As such I, for one, will be picking up the second season as soon as it's released later this month.

You might like Frisky Dingo if you like: Archer, The Venture Brothers, Sealab 2021, Harvey Birdman: Attorney at Law

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DVDs in Review #106: Buffy: Season Three

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During my sabbatical I've caught up with a great deal of television that has been sat on my shelves in the 'must watch' section; this includes shows like Mad Men, Eureka, Frisky Dingo and more besides. But the DVD I finished watching most recently was the third season of Buffy: The Vampire Slayer, a season I haven't seen since it first aired back in what was it? 1998-1999?

I have a lot of fond memories of Buffy's third season, it's the season that took the structure created by the initial two seasons and built on the various concepts within. What resulted was the season with my favourite Buffy big bad - The Mayor of Sunnydale; Richard Wilkins the Third. I adore the fatherly persona the immortal Mayor projects; he's concerned about things like family values and foul language - but also the hypocrisy of the man knows no bounds. He's willing to steal, murder and do just about anything to complete his goal of ascension into demonhood, but then he complains about the decline of good old fashioned family values in America, beautiful.

The season also follows a lot of other characters and has a great selection - from the face/heel turn Slayer Faith (face/heel turns being something Buffy:TVS has a lot of), the return of Angel (in a rather "I was dead, well I got better" moment) and his subsequent departure to spin-off Angeles, all the way to the quite brilliant Wesley Wyndam-Pryce (though in Buffy he's nowhere near as great as he becomes in Angel). It's a season that's just packed with coming of age events and quite literally stuffed to the gills with amazing characters - fortunately at no point does the show feel overcrowded, which is quite an achievement in writing.

The stand out episodes of the season are, for myself: Band Candy (especially the revelation that Giles and Joyce slept together during the episode), The Wish (Mostly because of Anya - but it is a great 'what if'), The Zeppo (it's such a fun concept, having a sidekick character take centre while everyone else deals with some almost implausable situation that is just shown through snapshots - it also gives Xander his first serious character development in a while), Bad Girls (of course - face/heel turn ahoy!), Doppleganger (Vamp Willow is fun, Anya is funner and the foreshadowing of Willow's eventual sexual tastes is brilliant in hindsight), Earshot (for the payoff of the Giles/Joyce Band Candy incident) and of course the two part Graduation Day is a great closer - "Well Gosh!".

The third season of Buffy does not contain any single episode that stands out as 'one of my favourite episodes' (I might write about that on a future date), but it is a consistent and entertaining piece that brings many of my favourite characters into the story and it's a great piece about the trials that occur during the end of "teenager-hood".
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