"I Know You": Life
You did not watch the primetime NBC drama Life.
You should (have) watch(ed) the primetime NBC drama Life. I have only seen the first season; it is on DVD. Soon the second and final season will be on DVD. Like, in two weeks.
Particulars:
I appear to be drawn to shows that build to something strong (and for all I know don't stay there) and as long as there's a spark of something I enjoyed to begin with I'll wait a long time (relatively speaking) to let it get there. Lots of people apparently didn't like the way Life started, and it does bear down very heavily to ladle on the quirkiness flavor, but by the end of the first season, having established who these people are and what this world is, they don't need to lean so heavily on the idea that protagonist Charlie Crews is a Weird Guy, Ignorant of Technology and Prone To Eating Fruit and Speaking in Zen-ish Koans; a show with a better start, or a show on a network that was more willing to let its creators breathe (I don't know, so I'm not pointing fingers) might have eased off much faster on shoving some of the basic premises at us. But I watch these things for emotional resonance and moments of art and scenes that delight me, and I'm quite often willing to let a lot of frustrating material accumulate if I get the sense that it's laying the necessary pipe which will lead me to those things I crave. I liked the early episodes of Life, but I understand why people were annoyed. The last four episodes of the first season, though, are stunners.
Firstly: great protagonist, great performance. Damian Lewis plays Detective Charlie Crews, who was wrongfully imprisoned for 12 years; exonerated thanks to DNA evidence, he sues the City of Los Angeles and gains as settlement an undisclosed sum of money (a lot of it) and reinstatement into the police department as a homicide detective. His ex-partner remarks that he was a normal cop before jail; working towards his twenty and his pension. After jail he is not a normal cop. He maintained sanity by reading Buddhist philosophy and fantasizing about revenge on the people he believes must have framed him, and is driven by these two often conflicting influences. Damian Lewis looks, as someone remarks on the DVD, a lot like Steve McQueen and a lot like Stan Laurel, and at the proper moments he manages to absorb the spirit of both into his performance. I can't say anything about this performance because it's so controlled and contained and cool, and I can't say enough about it because it's so good.
Also fantastic guest actors and supporting players waltzing through; lots of Deadwood alums building up to Titus Welliver fucking owning in the last episode, a surprising brief turn from Jessy Schram (Veronica Mars) that's just strong as anything, nice moments for the First Lady of San Francisco, a sprinkling of Adam Arkin, some sweet scenes with Christina Hendricks (and Adam Arkin), and just lots of actorly goodness. Plus, maybe my favorite recurring actor moment on the series is Sarah Shahi looking at unusual things before we get to see them. Some reviews knock her performance as weak; she's not the best actress at the world (but then who is?) but she's quite good, I think, and she's got her own energy which is the kind of thing you have to respect, and while let's be honest it helps that she's beautiful there's something very particular about the way she gawks at something unusual. I could watch a loop of every moment where Sara Shahi approaches a crime scene, curious and a little surprised. She does a lot of eyebrow acting without it seeming, well, like heavy eyebrow acting. Different energy, but not wholly unlike Mary-Louise Parker in the way a lot gets expressed with posture and by moving the head.
And that leads us to the images; by the end of the season each episode gets at least one memorable, unique, startling and beautiful tableau. Those aestheticized crime scenes feed into the rest of the tone of the show; the CSI's have done their take on beautiful crime scenes for almost a decade now but they're always dark and often prurient. Life shoots for the unusual but not the grotesque, and that's part of the way the show is shot - it could just as well be called Light. This is a relentlessly sunny detective show, not by way of cheerful tone but by way of literal and manufactured sunlight. Charlie Crews spent too long in a dark cell, and now he loves the sun, is drawn to it, and the show follows him into brilliant color. He's always standing by windows, looking up at the sky, positioning himself so he can feel the sun's warmth and bathe in it.
...
"If she shot him through the door, why is there blood on her hands?"
"That's not blood, it's meat sauce."
"Why is there meat sauce on her hands?"
" ... I really don't know."
You should (have) watch(ed) the primetime NBC drama Life. I have only seen the first season; it is on DVD. Soon the second and final season will be on DVD. Like, in two weeks.
Particulars:
I appear to be drawn to shows that build to something strong (and for all I know don't stay there) and as long as there's a spark of something I enjoyed to begin with I'll wait a long time (relatively speaking) to let it get there. Lots of people apparently didn't like the way Life started, and it does bear down very heavily to ladle on the quirkiness flavor, but by the end of the first season, having established who these people are and what this world is, they don't need to lean so heavily on the idea that protagonist Charlie Crews is a Weird Guy, Ignorant of Technology and Prone To Eating Fruit and Speaking in Zen-ish Koans; a show with a better start, or a show on a network that was more willing to let its creators breathe (I don't know, so I'm not pointing fingers) might have eased off much faster on shoving some of the basic premises at us. But I watch these things for emotional resonance and moments of art and scenes that delight me, and I'm quite often willing to let a lot of frustrating material accumulate if I get the sense that it's laying the necessary pipe which will lead me to those things I crave. I liked the early episodes of Life, but I understand why people were annoyed. The last four episodes of the first season, though, are stunners.
Firstly: great protagonist, great performance. Damian Lewis plays Detective Charlie Crews, who was wrongfully imprisoned for 12 years; exonerated thanks to DNA evidence, he sues the City of Los Angeles and gains as settlement an undisclosed sum of money (a lot of it) and reinstatement into the police department as a homicide detective. His ex-partner remarks that he was a normal cop before jail; working towards his twenty and his pension. After jail he is not a normal cop. He maintained sanity by reading Buddhist philosophy and fantasizing about revenge on the people he believes must have framed him, and is driven by these two often conflicting influences. Damian Lewis looks, as someone remarks on the DVD, a lot like Steve McQueen and a lot like Stan Laurel, and at the proper moments he manages to absorb the spirit of both into his performance. I can't say anything about this performance because it's so controlled and contained and cool, and I can't say enough about it because it's so good.
Also fantastic guest actors and supporting players waltzing through; lots of Deadwood alums building up to Titus Welliver fucking owning in the last episode, a surprising brief turn from Jessy Schram (Veronica Mars) that's just strong as anything, nice moments for the First Lady of San Francisco, a sprinkling of Adam Arkin, some sweet scenes with Christina Hendricks (and Adam Arkin), and just lots of actorly goodness. Plus, maybe my favorite recurring actor moment on the series is Sarah Shahi looking at unusual things before we get to see them. Some reviews knock her performance as weak; she's not the best actress at the world (but then who is?) but she's quite good, I think, and she's got her own energy which is the kind of thing you have to respect, and while let's be honest it helps that she's beautiful there's something very particular about the way she gawks at something unusual. I could watch a loop of every moment where Sara Shahi approaches a crime scene, curious and a little surprised. She does a lot of eyebrow acting without it seeming, well, like heavy eyebrow acting. Different energy, but not wholly unlike Mary-Louise Parker in the way a lot gets expressed with posture and by moving the head.
And that leads us to the images; by the end of the season each episode gets at least one memorable, unique, startling and beautiful tableau. Those aestheticized crime scenes feed into the rest of the tone of the show; the CSI's have done their take on beautiful crime scenes for almost a decade now but they're always dark and often prurient. Life shoots for the unusual but not the grotesque, and that's part of the way the show is shot - it could just as well be called Light. This is a relentlessly sunny detective show, not by way of cheerful tone but by way of literal and manufactured sunlight. Charlie Crews spent too long in a dark cell, and now he loves the sun, is drawn to it, and the show follows him into brilliant color. He's always standing by windows, looking up at the sky, positioning himself so he can feel the sun's warmth and bathe in it.
...
"If she shot him through the door, why is there blood on her hands?"
"That's not blood, it's meat sauce."
"Why is there meat sauce on her hands?"
" ... I really don't know."
Labels: TV
posted by medrawt at
17:42
