A Potential Reduction in Output

Technically my official job is to be a student, and not as this blog might have you assume a film and television critic. I love watching, thinking, and writing about movies and television shows. And my biggest regrets is that I'm not able to put up more reviews and content than I already do. I know I've been slowing down in my output recently and that's a trend that's likely to continue until at least mid-May when my finals are over.

Reviews, and hopefully a few thinkpieces, might be posted before then, but I make less of a guarantee. There are a number of shows I hope to keep up with but I can't say with certainty that I will review something or that it will be put up on this site immediately. Trust me, I intend to make up for it during the summer when I hope to watch God-awful amounts of shows and movies.

Until then I'll keep up with the shows I have been reviewing as best I can, including Game of Thrones, How I Met Your Mother, New Girl, The Office, and The Vampire Diaries. I also plan to review Mad Men. But we'll see how that turns out. I apologize in advance. I do reviews because they matter to me and I enjoy doing them. And I hope that you keep tuned in and please comment when a review inspires a response from you.

The Office - "Promos" - Review

The Office doesn’t exactly have a premise that was built to last. There’s no good, logical reason why the camera crew would have stuck around for nearly a decade. The reveals of the people behind the camera and their desire to stick around haven’t been entirely fruitful. The introduction of Brian the boom-mic guy was handled uneasily and reminding us that this is a documentary is problematic for how it undermines much of what we’re seeing (the show has increasingly taken liberties of what the camera crew was privy to see).

When the show uses its documentary-style right though, it really does work in a very impactful way that other styles of formatting have a more difficult time pulling off. Earlier this season when Pam broke down crying after calling Jim, I was teary eyed because, no matter my mixed feelings towards the series at this point, I still like Pam, and this moment played into the series earlier sense that what we were witnessing, even when bizarre, had some level of truth to it. 

So although this episode was mixed and had too much going on, a fair amount worked surprisingly effectively. Much of this stemmed from the show having the characters learn that the film company is releasing the documentary about their work place. More importantly the camera crew caught practically every intimate moment, largely without the characters knowledge or consent.

Angela and Oscar are arguably played too maddeningly goofy for a crisis this serious, but it grows from a believable, well-established place. These are stories that, though handled with less than satisfying results, we’ve been following for some time now. I haven’t been a fan of their shared relationship with the senator (it feels like it’s trying to do something that’s in the zeitgeist but making really questionable stretches to achieve it). But, hey, it happened and the show is dealing with what that means now that the documentary is soon to be released.  The scene where they both talk into the speaker phone to Robert is really funny moment. It may not have had the gravity that something like this ought to, but the seriousness is saved for the more important storyline: Pam.

This season has largely been all over the map. It’s had its moments but the show is relying on our affection for these characters more than well-set up jokes and the battles against workplace ennui. However, the one place where the characters have been acting in a manner that doesn’t seem to come completely out of left field is with Jim and Pam. The moments featuring these two characters (in the context of their relationship) have, for the most part, continued to be surprisingly good. They’ve been so good, in fact, that it’s the biggest reason the show hasn’t lost all my interest. 

Yes, I still chuckle here and there. But the show doesn’t hold my attention like it used to.  There are storylines that so actively disinterest me that I zone out just a bit when they come up and there are too many storylines that are bizarre or implausible or not very funny. 

The moment where the entire cast looks over at the camera after discovering the documentary will show their secrets is very funny and a good use of the self-awareness there’s a film crew surrounding them. 

However, the success of this soon fades out for more gags around the edges that don’t really work. Andy’s character has become so muddled that it hardly matters that his behavior doesn’t make sense (although I really liked the unexpected payoff that Nellie was pranking him in the comment section the whole time). Dwight and Clark have a storyline that’s very uninteresting and pointless and that leads nowhere to the point where it felt unnecessary and like filler. Ryan Howard just feels like a stunt casting even if they do use him in an amusing way (the shameless promotion of Subway was a nice knock on product placement and the autobiographical-superhero mashup film concept about his life is so absurd that it can’t help but be funny). But it’s a storyline that seems like an excuse to have Jim in the episode when there’s really no need for his presence.

And yet, those odd handful of minutes the show dedicates to Pam are as touching and moving as anything the series has done. They’re all the more pleasing for how everything else is a mess. Though I wish I didn’t have to sit through all this haphazard series of jokes to get to these moments, when Pam asks Brian, “Has Jim changed?”; I had chills. Pam looking back on those perfectly captured moments between Jim and Pam back in the early days of the show made me just as nostalgic for those times as her.  

This one aspect shouldn’t be keeping me around, but if the show were just these moments, it would still be as good in quality as it was when it first aired, that’s how strong these dramatic moments have been. The episodes that have failed to be as strong, in recent memory, and have been noticeably more problematic have been those that don’t have at least one of these moments.

Grade: B-

"Girls Against Boys" - Film Review

Rape is something I’m not totally comfortable discussing. I once wrote an essay of nearing 2,000 words on rapes depiction in pop culture. I never published it here or in any other place because I knew I was balancing something really tricky; that I was delving into a topic that if I accidentally broached some line in how I treated it, it would make me look like an ass whether I meant to or not, and, well, I didn’t want to take that chance. Now, I wasn’t be a douchebag about the topic. I was attacking all the many vicissitudes about what makes rape culture just an awful, awful thing. I wanted to write about it because I’d seen rape depicted in some shows I had been watching and the experience of watching it made me so uncomfortable and I wanted to think about why I had such a strong reaction. Depicting rape is something you have to be really sensitive about because it’s so frequently loaded when it’s part of the discourse and because you could end up being unintentionally offensive or it could off as if you’re being too slight about the subject matter.  And that’s a lengthy way of saying that the first strike against Girls Against Boys is that it treats rape as an afterthought.

Our protagonist Shae (Danielle Panabaker) is raped at one point, and the film doesn’t blame her for it, but the only reason it has the character get raped is to justify her killing spree against the men in her life who have wronged her. Did it have to be rape that led to some women getting vengeance on the men who’ve harmed them? No. I’m all for empowering women and I’m all for strong female characters who take charge and even kill a few people to serve up some revenge. But it just feels like it's purposely manipulating our sentiments so we won’t be upset at the excessive violence later, and that’s totally the wrong way to be handling rape as a subject matter. The whole rape scene preys on our emotions. Shae is sexually assaulted but briefly manages to gets away. We start rooting for her escape, and then the film exploits this so we’re that much more upset when she doesn’t and the rape does take place. 

Having done the necessary legwork, the film decides that Shae and her new chic friend Lu (Nicole LaLiberte) are going to kill people violently. What follows comes off as someone writing a film who only had a vague understanding of feminist theories. Slumber Party Massacre similarly attempted to be a feminist work (written by a feminist author and activist, Rita Mae Brown, no less) and it failed miserably because it ended up objectifying the very women it was empowering and therefore glamorized the violence towards them. The violence of Girls Against Boys is tedious, tawdry, and pointless. It’s the violence level, at times, of a Saw film with the feigned pretension that it’s high minded; at least, the Saw franchise knew it was schlock and schlocked it up like it was nobody’s business. 

Let’s say Girls Against Boys had just been a poor attempt at feminist empowerment used to ground the needless violence. That would be bad enough. It wouldn’t be the worst thing; at least it wouldn’t be straight up misogynistic which is a slight step up from a lot of junk out there. But it doesn’t just stick to this narrative. It has the relationship between Shae and Lu breakdown, and Lu suddenly has an inexplicable lesbian crush on Shae that turns her psychopathic intentions from men to Shae. Not only does this come out of nowhere, but it undermines the message of the film. 

As critic Noel Murray so perfectly described it, “Girls Against Boys is undone by [Director Austin] Chick’s apparent supposition that he’s the first filmmaker to notice how men sometimes take advantage of women, or how putting a gun in an actress’ hands can be a complicated symbol of empowerment”. It’s a movie that thinks it’s being really clever, bold, and smart, but rather is being unsubtle, boring, and occasionally borderline offensive. The film has us watching one-dimensional characters with poorly explained motivations killing people and it presumes that it’s the most original thing you ever did see. 

Grade: D-

"And God Created Women" - Film Review

“And from the rib, which the Lord God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man” –Genesis 2:22

It might seem odd that a film as breezy, light, and with the subject matter of And God Created Women would take its title from a Bible passage. The film isn’t a Bible thumping sermon condemning nontraditional gender practices; in fact, the title is laced with an arsenic irony. Though I don't know if it necessarily earns the right to quote from the Bible, there's certainly a logic to it. The film has a number of supporting characters admonishing Bridget Bardot’s Juliette for her promiscuous, flirtatious behavior, but it’s never judgmental about this behavior. The film isn’t trying to criticize her behavior but rather criticize those people that look down upon it.

Director Roger Vadim is really sensitive towards the character. There’s a clear affection for Juliet that comes across throughout the film. This makes it particularly painful to watch Juliette while she gets berated for outdated standards that were becoming increasingly out of touch. 

So much of the film is about people making Juliette do things with her life that she clearly doesn’t want to do but is forced to because of social norms or expectations. Juliette is someone who was never meant to be tied down though; she’s a free spirit. And yet everyone wants to tell her who to be and how to act. But that just leads her to be deeply unhappy.

It’s hard not to think of Jessica Rabbit’s great line “I’m not bad. I’m just drawn this way”. Juliette is a stunningly beautiful individual and she’s very open about her sexuality. “She’s brave enough to do what she wants when she wants,” the land developer Eric Carradine (Curd Jürgens) says early on. It perfectly sums up the character. There’s nothing wrong with her, but because she knows what she wants and she goes out and gets it she gets unjustifiably and cruelly called a “slut”. 

It’s a shame Carradine is twice her age because he’s the spot-on match for her. He understands her and respects her like no one else does, but he’s too concerned with her happiness to let things go anywhere.

Her other suitors aren’t much better matches. She loved Antoine (Christian Marquand) but when she learns he sees her as just a fling; she breaks off engagements with him. Later Antoine wants her back, but only out of jealousy for marrying his brother Michel (Jean-Louis Trintignant). 

Juliette is only eighteen; she’s an orphan and her foster parents no longer desire to keep her around once the rumor mill starts piling on the mutterings about her sexual dalliances. She’s about to be sent back to the orphanage, but Carradine contrives a plan to keep her around: someone needs to marry her so she can stay. Michel takes up the suggestion. Michel is too naïve to realize what he’s getting into. Juliette loves him, but it’s a marriage of convenience and even his best attempts to keep her from getting bored just aren’t doing the trick. 

“What are you afraid of?” Carradine asks. “Myself,” she replies. Juliette wants to make the marriage work, but she is too self-destructive.

A lot of how the film is plotted is lightweight and contrived, and it’s easy to see it building towards a point where Julliete is torn between her wild ways and a quieter everyday existence.  Plus that ending seems to play against its more feministic earlier tones as Michel finally “tames” her.  

 

Yet much of the film works in spite of this. It’s sometimes funny, occasionally sad, playful, incredibly sultry and in love with the very fact that it’s being uncommonly upfront about sexuality and sexual mores (the film was something of a scandal back in 1956). Bardott remains to be a sight to behold. The film put her on the map and defined her as the sex symbol she's remembered as. Vadim once said, “That was one of the most amazing things about Brigitte’s presence on film. People often thought she was naked when she wasn’t.” It's not even that the film chooses to shoot Bardot in a way that you're meant to ogle her, but just be in awe that someone can possibly carry themselves so naturally and sensually. Despite my problems with the ending, the level of sympathy it has towards Juliette still make the messages of its film still surprisingly relevant and powerful, and the film is still very, very sexy.  

Grade: B 

Doctor Who - "The Bells of St. John" - Review

Steven Moffat sure does love intricate mysteries. Even with a more adventurous nature to “The Bells of St. John” and the Christmas special, the episodes (and this one in particular) couldn’t help but feel like Moffat was re-treading territory he’s mined for far too long.

Much of the Moffat era of Doctor Who has been good, but increasingly after the fifth season (my personal favorite) things seemed to get a little jumbled. The serialized plotting for the big mysteries revolving around River and Amy were a bit of a letdown as well as a mixed bag in how they were handled. 

Moffat is frequently better at beginnings, at making something seem like it will be really exciting and cool than actually paying it off down the line. This seems to be the case with Sherlock as well, which declined in quality in its second season when its ambitions couldn’t align with its execution. Moffat has a ton of wonderful ideas floating around that pretty head of his, but he doesn’t always know quite how to use them or when he’s put far too many into a given episode.  

I’m fond of Jenna-Louise Coleman’s performance as Clara. She has the right level of fun, cheeky enthusiasm to fit this series well. I also enjoy her chemistry with Matt Smith and how Clara matches the Doctor tit for tat in a way that it doesn't feel like a companion has in a long time. But I wish she were just another companion; someone who the Doctor saw something in, took along for the ride, and eventually demonstrated their full potential to. Not some mystery that will simmer and unravel for the remainder of this season. 

I don’t mind a long arc hinted at throughout a season, and I’ve liked a number of them in seasons past. But this doesn’t feel like territory the series wants to head down again. 

Otherwise this was a typical Doctor Who adventure. I was amused by the commentary on the Internet and technology’s hold over us (A CCTV critique in a series that’s technically a family show? Didn’t see that one coming), even if this wasn’t the best baddie of the week the show has produced. Of course there were a number of charming, cool little moments that this show nails like few shows do: The Twitter jokes, the bike going up the side of the building, Clara calling for tech support and unwittingly telephoning the TARDIS, the misdirect where we think the Doctor has directly confronted Miss Kizlet and it turns out it's actually one of the spoonhead robots. 

The episode also felt much less overstuffed than the Christmas special, which was a very good episode but one that had too much going on at any given moment. Though the business with the Doctor being a monk in exile is likely one plot strand too many, it’s nice to simply return to the universe of this show. 

Doctor Who, when it comes down to it, is for the most part merely a procedural. But it’s never a series that’s obsessed with just the investigation to discover the answer to the week’s problem. It’s a show that unlike CSI and Law and Order isn’t forced to use its procedural to one particular design. It can use its procedural to pay homage to a genre or take us to a historical event or whatever weird thing it has in mind for us any given week.  

Doctor Who is also a very "television-y" show that’s often indebted to a lot of tropes but it usually has plenty of fun using the fact it’s a television show to its advantage. We know that odds are the Doctor will save the day and it will be with the help of his companion. Though on occasion it goes very dark, there’s always this sense that they’ll fight another day! Which is a very clichéd notion, but one the show consistently earns. It earns this through very good characterization, a strong mythology that is a more often a boon then a crutch, and an unabashed love for humanity and the worlds it explores. 

Though I might have hoped for more from the return of the show, I can’t help but simply be happy it’s returned. There may be better shows than Doctor Who, but there are few that come as close to being as inexplicably addicting. 

Grade: B

The Walking Dead - "Welcome to the Tombs" - Review

Well, that was a letdown.

I should probably get into the meat of the episode and really dig into the specifics, the intricacies (or rather lack thereof) that brought down this episode, an episode that isn’t just a bad finale but just an altogether middling episode. But the real big sticking point is that there was simply very little action, and what action that did exist was some of the least interesting, exciting and most poorly executed action the series has attempted to date. 

Now I’m not some crazy action junkie who needs constant action to enjoy something.  But the one thing that might actually be meritable about The Walking Dead (a series that has so very many flaws) is how surprisingly good its action frequently is, even at times in the midst of episodes that are incredibly inconsistent or just flat out bad elsewhere. 

When a show doesn’t have great thematic aims or shoddy characterizations or premises that essentially lead them to have no real purpose or no foreseeable end, said show has to be managing something worthwhile of some kind to make up for it. A show that I turn to time and again for this point is It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia. The characters of It’s Always Sunny never act like real people and they’re written in such a way that they only exist to be put into crazy scenarios and do terrible things. But what allows It’s Always Sunny to get away with this is that it’s in many instances very funny. It’s often making you laugh so much that it can sometimes make you forget and forgive the questionableness of certain things you’re watching. 

   

The Walking Dead had one element that covered up for many of its flaws and that was its action. Its action is usually well-staged, well-choreographed, inventive and filled with the most zombie kills you’re going to see this side of cable. I keep returning to the first eight episodes of this season because I think they exemplify the things this series does best. They’re not the best episodes of television (or even this season - that honor would be "Clear", the rare example of a truly good episode in this back half of the season), but they have something going for them that lots of other series either don’t have or aren’t particularly good at, and that is above all else action. They’re not completely action-packed. Actually there are at times long stretches of (and I say this knowing it’s awfully uncritical sounding) boring followed by exciting action sequences that make you slightly forgiving of the shortcomings of the show.  

That is to say: [*in my most “bro” voice*] dude, where’s the action?

Oh, sure, there’s action in the episode but it’s not really the action the show does well. There’s no tension to many of these scenes. So the whole season the show has been building towards a conflict. Now, it wasn’t the most interesting or well-crafted conflict, but it was practically the sole purpose of the show during this season. The show had even shown parallels between the two groups at odds; they weren’t strong or fascinating ones, but they were better drawn than much of the conflict the show had done prior. And then it’s as if the writers had this moment of self-actualization where they realized that a direct conflict between our protagonists and the Governor and his redshirts couldn’t logically end in any other way but with a lot of major characters dead. But it comes off as if the writers couldn’t think of an interesting reason to justify most of the characters living to fight another day and so a number of hugely contrived things take place. 

First is a twist that really isn’t a twist. The characters leave the prison and the writers want to convince us that these people have finally wised up and done what I’ve been suggesting all season: get as far away from the prison as possible. Soon after the Governor and those extras who have been hanging around Woodbury show up, grenade launchers at the ready. And wouldn’t you know they’re searching an empty prison. 

PSYCH! 

Turns out those crazy kids set up some traps, sicked some zombies on their enemies, and bottle necked a number of them into a crossfire. 

So that was our long awaited conflict. Man, how explosive… 

The staging of this is just so poorly done. You can understand all the intentionality of it, but it doesn’t work. They want to misdirect us so we truly believe Rick and co. have left, before having this twist triumphant moment. However, we know that the writers are going to feature some form of the battle between these two groups of people. How do we know this? Well, for starters, The Walking Dead isn’t exactly what you’d call a clever or smart series. Secondly, leaving the prison comes out of absolutely nowhere. This isn’t a show consistent with its characters, but it’s not going to drop a major plot change for the entirety of its major players without establishing it a little (at least, I hope not). 

So we’re waiting for the inevitable and it saps all the tension from the experience. May be the conflict doesn't happen right there and then, but we know it's going to happen at some point. And for a time it actually appears the Governor is searching an empty prison and that the show is weirdly lingering on the search. On top of this, the actual execution of the eventual action is really cluttered and even at times hard to follow. And, not only that, it’s the only action sequence. 

Well, there’s that whole business with Andrea but the show stretches what should have happened really quickly over a period of time that it just doesn’t warrant. 

The other action-filled scene barely qualifies as action. The Governor has gone into full-on crazy mode. It’s not the form of villain that creates dynamic conflicts but it does get some absurd, stupid, occasionally memorable twists, and at least the show finally settled upon just how awful and evil and crazy this character is. In awful, evil, weird form the Governor mows down all the survivors from the prison attack, and it’s really upsetting and frustrating. It’s the pointless death of people; yea, granted it’s people we don’t know at all, but where the fuck does this character decision come from. I can understand it a little bit I suppose. I can finagle my way towards some half-assed understanding that the Governor has gone fully over the cuckoo’s nest. But there’s no point A to point B of character transition. And how the hell can this character still be alive? Does the show really want a wildcard like that wandering around on its fringes? Well, I’m guessing they’re going to figure some way to get him back into the picture like they did with Merle. 

In terms of using the medium of television to its advantage that’s an interesting choice that could payoff well down the line (the decision to keep Merle still alive was a good idea in theory at least). In terms of making this season feel like a cohesive whole though, it fails to take this season’s conflict to a logical and interesting conclusion. 

There’s more to unpack in this episode, but what’s the point really? Some people died. We didn’t really care about them so the deaths had no impact. The one that on paper should have been meaningful, Andrea’s, is all well-staged. Everyone shows up too late to save her, and she and Michonne share one final farewell before the camera pulls back to outside the room and we hear the gun go off. And I’m not a heartless bastard, but it just doesn’t have the impact a major death ought to. It’s not even that I don’t like Andrea as a character; I disliked Lori and her death was surprisingly moving. It just feels as if the show thinks that because it’s the finale some major character has to die and so the monkeys in TWD’s writer office threw a dart and it landed on Andrea, and the writers said, “That sounds good to me!”

Besides the poorly handled, obligatory deaths and the poorly handled, obligatory action, what else is there here to unpack? The poorly handled, obligatory exposition? We could discuss Carl’s sudden descent into psychopathy and how it comes out of nowhere and how it isn’t done well. But, hey, do you really care? No? Neither do I. I want to. I really want to. But the more I analyze this show, the more cynical I become about it. It’s a show that’s scared of its own shadow. It’s a show that gets just shy of being something really good, and then runs wildly far away from it the moment it gets even remotely close.  And in spite of its improvements (which I'm underselling, and have been a leap forward from last season), it still remains mostly frustrating to watch.

I mean, if you’re into unintentional anticlimax than may be you’ll love the hell out of this episode. But otherwise this episode fails at all the things the show does remotely well. 

Stray Observations:

-The intro scene: Milton inexplicably is now getting the shit kicked out of him by the Governor. The show doesn’t really understand the idea of shorthand.

-Admittedly Milton’s impossible choice given to him to kill Andrea was legitimately exciting.
-Milton's death succeeded far better than Andrea's. Partly due to how much more interesting the circumstances of his death were and partly due to Dallas Roberts' performance.

-The Governor gives the bizarre, cheesy life lessons no one was asking for: “In this life you die or you kill. Or you die and you kill”

-Michonne thanks Rick for bringing her into the group. A scene that should have worked if it weren’t for the damn fact the show was trying to pull that terrible twist on us.

-Yea, leave them a Bible passage. Make the religious themes more overt!

-And by psychopathy I mean Carl killed a random guy in cold blood. So, yea, that happened.

-Tyrese and a bunch of random survivors from Woodbury join our merry band at the prison. So that also happened.

Grade: C+  

Game of Thrones - "Valar Dohaeris" - Review

Season two of Game of Thrones was based on one of the more unfocused books in George RR Martin’s book series A Song of Fire and Ice. A Clash of Kings in many ways acts as bridge to bigger events that take place in A Storm of Swords, the book that season three is based on. If season two felt more like a hodgepodge of good (sometimes great parts) that didn’t feel like they added to a cohesive whole like the first season did, part of the blame comes down to the book it was translating to the screen. Clash of Kings has some great elements, many of which played out in a beautiful fashion in the show, but it isn’t as streamlined as the first book. The book that follows it, A Storm of Swords, on the other hand is seen as less messy (though just as digressive and expansive), more ambitious, and is widely regarded by fans (and I’m among them) as the best book of the series. However, these reviews intend to review Game of Thrones as a television series and not as an adaptation (though I may in passing mention my feelings about how the show handled particular aspects from the book).

If there is one element that carries over from the book, it’s how much more brooding and operatic this premiere feels. Largely nothing major happens (although I’d argue in one location in particular, beyond the Wall, was the exception that proves the rule) and yet everywhere we go there is a moodiness that pervades everything. Not to spoil anything but A Storm of Swords is a decidedly darker book in a series that is decidedly dark to begin with and so it fits the material being adapted. To move away from these vague references to the book I’ve sworn to not mention, it’s apparent in the production design which appears to be emphasizing darker colors (though things do lighten up a bit when we head over to Dany’s story towards episode's end). Sam and John, in particular, look more weary and battered than ever before, fittingly appropriate for their recent trials and tribulations. 

There’s plenty going on in the episode but the show aptly picks up slightly after the cliffhanger we were left on in season two. That cliffhanger was problematic for me. Its treatment of the white walkers showed a bit too much of the series’ hand; the whites probably ought to have remained a larger enigma for a little longer. But the series handles the response to the cliffhanger in a way that, though likely disappointing to many, I was relieved about. This is a television show and there’s largely no way the show (even on its comparatively large budget) could have pulled off the battle that took place between the whites and the Nights Watch. Instead it maintains much of the awe surrounding the whites (they clearly fucked shit up) and it provides an excellent starting note for the season. 

This isn’t any more members of the Watch then we’ve seen before and yet we immediately are given the sense with a handful of visual cues and lines that the battle was disastrous. There are so few who survived and those who did are drenched in blood and notably exhausted. The way the sequence is shot is great. The episode misdirects us into thinking we’ve picked up right where season two ended, Sam rushes, breathing heavy, through a hazy snow fall on a desolate, endless snowscape.  We’re led to assume he’s running away from the whites; it turns out he is, but the battle's long since over. He’s attacked by a straggling white after witnessing a decapitated watch member; John's dire-wolf leaps out and saves him, and the white is quickly set ablaze. It’s an incredibly exciting sequence and it’s the most action-packed part of the episode, and with very little information it lets us know all we need to know about what's happened and where things are heading. 

Lord Commander Mormont asks if Sam sent out the ravens to which he replies he didn’t. Exacerbated, tired, desperate Mormont tells them what they already know: they need to get back to the Wall. The ragtag crew that is the last defense against imminent doom is underfunded and undermanned, and Mormont is trying to salvage what little sense of duty they still have after the attack. The music rises in the background as he makes a speech and it culminates on that perfect coda: “If you don’t, everyone you know will be dead!” Overblown, sure, but when ice monsters are hot on your tail, it’s a justifiably overblown moment. 

After once again putting everything in perspective (the series constantly likes to remind us how the political maneuvering south of the Wall is petty and pointless), the show proceeds to reintroduce us to most of the characters. There are number of major characters missing (Theon, Arya, Bran, Brienne, Jaimie) and there are number of new players, but, for the most part, the premiere attempts to remind us where every character is at this point in time. One of the great joys and the biggest problems for Game of Thrones is how many characters and locations it is dealing with. Don’t like Jon Snow’s escapades with the wildlings, here’s Tyrion making quips at Cersei or Sansa gazing longingly with Shae at the ships in the harbor. But that means the show often feels crammed to the brim as it attempts to fit everything in. Season two’s “Blackwater” proved it can do something more focused where everything seems to add up to one cohesive whole rather than a lot of good scenes that feel totally disconnected from one another. 

In some respects season three (based on just this first episode) has gotten better at handling this problem, it knows when too much is too much and leaves some characters out (though the fanboy in me is disappointed at the absence of some, though more on that in the “Stray Observations”), and the characters it does stop in on have stories that don’t waste time getting straight to the point. In some instances, that’s a problem for the stories which could have used more breathing time or a scene or two extra (Dany’s feels this way, although, to be fair, her scenes are very good and an improvement upon last season). But the episode is much less cluttered than a number of season two episodes were (notably the season two finale which tried to jam everything into the episode it possibly could with problematic results). 

The show jumps around a lot less. Many of the characters have their story get told and then their plots are sidelined for future episodes. Jon’s storyline is quickly done away with early on. He joins the wildlings, he attempts to win over Mance Rayder (Ciaran Hinds), and he seems to have done the trick (though it's uncertain to what extent). And then we never hear from him again, or anyone else from beyond the Wall for that matter.

Part of this comes from what seems to be the writers trusting us more. There’s less establishment of scenes and more of a desire to dig right in. Sometimes this level of trusting the audience (or more likely a lack of episodic time to tell the story – seriously Storm of Swords is a massive book and the show has mostly made some wise choices on what to synthesize and what to cut down) just isn’t effective though. Take the Robb-Catelynn storyline for example. At Harrenhal, numerous members of the Northmen’s army have been killed or are dying. It’s not explicitly outright stated who did it and through some guesswork you can probably figure out that the Lannister’s hands were involved in this, but it’s so poorly dealt with and the exposition is so brief and passing that it barely reflects the seriousness of the event or the importance of its occurrence. Characters are also very abruptly introduced into this story. Suddenly new individuals, close counselors to the Starks, appear. To those of us familiar with the story we have an inkling it’s Roose Bolton (Michael McElhatton) who will soon play a significant role in the season but for any newbies out there, this poorly handled introduction is probably confusing. There’s also a badly wounded maester known as Qyburn (Anton Lesser), and we figure he’s probably going to play a major role in events to come and so we can overlook the fact that he’s suddenly introduced and then that we never hear about him or any of the other new characters again.

Of course, the show has so, so, so much story that it has to tell and it wants to let every story get a moment to shine and these new characters simply aren’t doing anything relevant currently. Wouldn’t you rather stop in on Tyrion and Davos (the two stories that play over the longest extended period of time in the episode) and their ongoing struggles we know a good deal about rather than dealing with learning about yet another figure in an already very, very expansive cast (one that’s already so large that a number of characters couldn’t even make a brief appearance)? On a critical level it’s handled poorly, but, on a fanboy level, part of me just doesn’t mind much that these characters are left undeveloped.   

However, to be contrarian, the show does establishment of characters fine elsewhere. Margaery Tyrell is given much more storyline than we’ve previously seen from her. Apparently she has a charitable side (at least a politically motivated one for appearance sake) and stops to win over some children in a poorer section of King’s Landing. It’s an action that clearly rankles Cersei, who holds immediate disdain for anyone trying to steal away the attention of her dear Joffrey. 

When Game of Thrones starts up its theme and dashes me from location to location we’ll soon find ourselves at, I find myself excited in a way few shows manage. Did I have problems with this episode? Sure. But Game of Thrones has a world that is always nice to inhabit even for just a little while. Its world runs deep and its characters are richly drawn. This is one of the best casted series on television and continues to cast every new character with an expert eye. Some characters I have trouble imagining anyone else playing them. When Game of Thrones is throwing tons of different things in the air and the plot wheels occasionally get in the way of stuff like thematic unity, or unity of any sort for that matter, there are enough very good things taking place that it’s easy to forget the problems. Sometimes I’d like more from Game of Thrones, but it’s never a series where I say to myself, “That was terrible. Give me less”. This is a high quality production carried by one of television’s best dramatic ensembles. 

Stray Observations:

-NO ARYA! I’m just going to be upfront; Arya is my favorite character and I’m amazed by how good Maisie Williams is as a performer. A little bit of Arya goes a long way and her absence didn’t go unnoticed.

-Sophie Turner’s age is starting to get to a point where it’s going to become increasingly hard to believe the youthful naiveté of Sansa’s character. Littlefinger has Sansa convinced he can get her out of King’s Landing. The best part of this exchange, for what it reveals about the character, was Sansa’s enthusiasm upon hearing about Arya. She’s come a long way since her spoiled season one days.

-Tywin was not pleased to learn about Shae and forbids her presence in King’s Landing. Tyrion’s visit with his father makes Cersei nervous; she fears the true lineage of her children might come to bear upon her poorly. Tyrion has bigger concerns though, such as his claim to Casterly Rock, which his father does not take kindly to even the mere suggestion of. Peter Dinklage and Charlies Dance's acting during this scene was superb. Tyrion has fallen far from his station of season two days.

-Dany and Jorah are now no longer in Qarth (THANK THE LORD!), but their sudden appearance on a ship is somewhat awkwardly explained as is their sudden interest in getting an army of fearless eunuchs called the Unsullied. However, this story is altogether far, far more interesting than anything Qarth produced and so you take what you can get. The Dany story doesn’t crop up until the last twenty or so minutes of episode, at which point I went, “Oh, right, we haven’t even gotten to Dany yet”.

-The Dany plot also brings about the return of Ser Barristan Selmy, who has tracked down Dany after being disgracefully removed from the lifetime duty of Commander of the Kingsguard by Joffrey (back in season one). It’s the ending of the episode. Was there a potentially better ending? Possibly. But for those unfamiliar with the book, I’m assuming this reveal still was surprising enough to justifiably end the episode. Though I don't know if the moment takes place too quickly and therefore lacks the gravitas it should have.

-Jon discovers that the wildlings have giants at their disposal. So that's cool.

-Jon’s explanation for his “desertion” was Mormont’s failure to act upon Craster’s sacrifices of baby sons to the whites. This is a much less compelling reason than the one in the book (being a bastard left him outcasted by the Starks), but it does make much of the somewhat garbled nature of the Craster plot seem more important in hindsight.

-Jon kneels to a man who is not the King-Beyond-the-Wall, which gives him two strikes: wildlings aren’t “kneelers” and he got down on one knee for the wrong dude.

-Bronn is reintroduced in what looks like it’s going to be “sexposition” but is quickly undone by Poderick Payne requesting Bronn at Tyrion’s behest. Bronn is now a knight for his efforts in the Battle of the Blackwater, a fact that puts him at odds with some Kingsgaurd members (part of me wishes it could have come to blows but it makes sense that it didn't).

-The reintroduction of Davos could have been established better but worked due to the bedraggled look of Davos. The makeup department did a wonderful job.

-Davos plans to kill Melisandre who has taken an even greater hold over Stannis who, at her request, is burning nonbelievers. His assassination plot, however, fails and he’s thrown in the dungeons.
-The opening theme has always been excellent, but this episode's was particularly good for featuring a ruined, smoking Winterfell. It's the little things. 

Grade: B+

What did everyone else think?