A Certain Slant of Light

Yesterday I watched the first episode of Party Down. I had high hopes, as it was created by the same guy who made Veronica Mars; but it’s a very different show than Veronica Mars, and I liked it considerably less.

Party Down’s premise is that a bunch of aspiring actors in LA have banded together and formed a business that caters parties. This sounded promising – parties! – but somehow, the scriptwriters and the cinematographers and the actors managed to suck all the fun off out it.

It reminds me very much of The Office. It has the same kind of humor, where the characters say and do awkward, embarrassing things (I understand that other people think this is hilarious but it pushes all the wrong buttons for me), and similar cinematography: very basic camera angles, poor lighting which leaches the color, the magical ability to leach the liveliness out of every frame.

It occurs to me that this is the opposite of the colorful, formalistic camerawork in Pushing Daisies. The shows’ worldviews are opposites, as well; in Pushing Daisies everything and everyone is fascinating (sometimes evil, but fascinating), whereas in Party Down everything is just so dull that the characters just ooze existential ennui: how can life possibly be this boring?

The show did have its funny moments – there is this priceless exchange, when Kyle-the-idiot-jerk is trying to figure out Henry-the-new-guy’s place of the acting totem pole:

Kyle: Who’s your agent?
Henry: State Farm.
Kyle: Awesome. They give you some good auditions and stuff?

—and there were a number of other moments that made me laugh out loud. But I don’t think I’ll be back for another episode.

I love fall; it's the only season in the year when you can watch the wind. The leaves are red and yellow and falling, and they swirl in any breeze at all.

No wonder October is a month for ghosts. Just look at the leaves - they look like they're possessed by spirits.

***

Through no fault of my own, I've been watching NCIS lately. A few thoughts:

1. Gosh, but Ziva is pretty. I love her hair.

2. I'm rooting for an episode that involves Gibbs being hit repeatedly with sticks. I don't think I'm supposed to hate the character this much, anymore than I'm supposed to want an episode of House where Wilson beats House with his own cane. And then laughs at him.

(If it was anyone but Wilson, House would shrug it off as part of the vileness of the human race. But if Wilson is caning him, House will suffer. Especially if Wilson laughs at him, too.)

Gibbs and, to a lesser extent, House, are vile mentor figures who torment their subordinates, pausing occasionally to toss them crumbs of affection so said subordinates don't realize how abusive their mentor is and leave for greener pastures. I would find this less disturbing if these shows pointed out that this is a sick dynamic (which House, give it it's dues, does recognize, in fact rather wallow in), but no, Gibbs is god-like, and his subordinates are suffering because it's GOOD for them, dammit.

3. I feel like the Criminal Minds people spent a not inconsequential amount of time watching this show and singing under their breaths, "Anything you can do, I can do better." In particular, Garcia and Abby Sciuto are so alike it's scary (both are fake-flighty tech girls with interesting fashion sense), and I can see some definite similarities between Emily Prentiss and Ziva, except Emily only speaks Arabic while Ziva's actually Israeli.

I tend to think the Criminal Minds people were right in their humming, if only because I don't want any of its characters to be beaten with anything.

4. I really can't watch this show just because Ziva's pretty. I tried to watch Due South for Benton Fraser's cheekbones and his mountie uniform, but eventually you want something more out of a show than cheekbones.