A Certain Slant of Light

Earlier this year, I decided now would be a good time to wrap up a bunch of old television shows that I left hanging by a few episodes (or in some cases a few seasons), but it’s becoming clear that there was a flaw in this plan: I may have abandoned those shows for good reason.

Case in point: Arrested Development season five, in which there’s a lot of activity but no actual movement: we are in exactly the same place at the end of the season as we were at the start. ( Is it a real spoiler if we're exactly where we were at the start? )

Mind, if there’s a sixth season, I don’t intend to watch to find out. I might read some reviews to see if anything at all gets wrapped up, though.

And second case in point: Graceland season 3, although in this case I think some of the fault may be mine: I watched the first half of the season two years ago and the second half just this month, so the finer points of the plot may have escaped me.

However, the main problem is not the finer details, but the big reveal. The show has always showed Briggs as a master improviser who always remains a hairsbreadth ahead of everyone else, but this season they’re suggesting that he’s been ten steps ahead at all time, which is not consistent with his previous characterization and also, frankly, not very believable. His supposed plan relies on too many variables: it feels like the writers are trying to make up for their own sloppy plotting by insisting, no really, there is a plan! Briggs’ plan!

This is especially sad because the plotting was so excellent in season one and pretty good in season two, also. I’ve noticed this in other shows that rely on season-long arcs - Veronica Mars has the same issue - the first season is great, because that’s the season the writers had all planned, and every character is there because they’ve got an important part to play.

In the later seasons, you end up with a lot of characters leftover from earlier mysteries who no longer have a part to play - but the writers don’t want to jettison them (and often neither do the viewers) so they spend a lot of time spinning their wheels, slowing down the story, taking away screen time that ought to go to developing the participants in the current season’s big arc plot.

It occurs to me that allowing greater ebb and flow in the characters’ relationships might help - you cut a character loose for one season (maybe not entirely; they could get a few cameos) and reel them back in when you’ve got an arc where they fit.

But of course acting contracts might make this difficult. It’s a little frustrating to realize how many of the things that go wrong with television shows, particularly American shows, are not a result of artistic choices but a reflection of the logistics of the way TV is made.

Have been watching Arrested Development’s new season on Netflix. So far I’ve been enjoying it, although inevitably - Arrested Development being Arrested Development - there are moments that make me cringe. I found the whole first episode painful: Michael living in his son George Michael’s dorm room, apparently unable to understand that his son might not like this invasion of his privacy, and George Michael, who is used to shouldering his father’s emotional needs, unable to tell him.

It gets less painful and more funny after that, but it’s a rough first episode.

But I have to say, for me the most exciting thing about Netflix's resurrection of Arrested Development is the hope that they'll pick up other much-loved and maliciously-canceled TV shows. Veronica Mars, season 4, using the movie as a jumping off point for grown-up Veronica!

Not sure about this, on second thought. A reunion is the perfect excuse to get all our favorite characters back together for a movie, but there’s really no easy way to get most of them in town for a whole new TV season. Unless, like, they’re all still in Neptune. And I kind of hope Veronica has escaped Neptune by now. Maybe she, Logan, Mac, and Wallace have an apartment in...San Francisco or something?

(Speaking of the movie! My brother - we went halfsies on the kickstarter, so he gets all the newest VM news - says they’ve definitely signed Mac & Wallace. Yesssss.)

But back to Netflix shows: they could bring back everyone's favorite unjustly canceled show, Firefly! Though it's hard to know where it would go now that the big overarching mystery has been tied up in a bow. Although if we get to see Inara get it through to Mal that no really, you need to respect my boundaries, I have a cattle prod, that would be something.

And finally, in cloud-cuckoo land I would want a Wonderfalls resurrection- it deserves at least a proper ending! But I suspect that's too obscure and also has been off the air too long for its resurrection to be realistic. But maybe Pushing Daisies...that was only canceled a couple years ago, and it ran a respectable two seasons. The further adventures of Ned and Chuck (and Olive and Emerson) - that might be a possibility.