Category Archives: Television

Daily Dose of Feelings #3

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When I think of television moments that make me cry from pure joy, there’s nothing better than Jim and Pam discovering that they’re going to be parents at the end of the “Company Picnic” episode of The Office. What begins as a heartfelt moment of reflection from Michael Scott about his relationship with Holly perfectly transitions into a moment of complete bliss from the couple Michael was obviously thinking of and hoping to emulate.

The Office: Company Picnic.

This scene was the first one that made me fear breaking the rewind button on my DVR—and it’s all because of John Krasinski’s face. The decision to use no sound in the moments when they first found out about Pam’s pregnancy was genius. It forced us to focus on their reactions, and Krasinski is the king of reaction shots. The complete surprise on his face was adorable, but the tears started flowing for me when he hugged Pam. I love how real it still feels after so many re-watches; when he holds her, it’s such a genuinely beautiful moment. It feels like you’re watching a private moment between these two characters, and that only adds to the emotional power of the scene.

And once Jim calls Dwight back, I lose it every time. The little crack in his voice, the tears in his eyes, and the gloriously shocked look on his face when he finally faces the camera say it all. There’s no need to directly say what’s going on in the scene; we can see it, and, more importantly, we can feel it. There’s no better example of the “show, don’t tell” mantra of great storytelling.

Daily Dose of Feelings #2

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Television comedies make me cry just as often as (if not more often than) dramas. There’s something uniquely moving about seeing characters so often associated with silliness and laughter presented in emotionally vulnerable states, both happy and sad. In my opinion, there’s no better example of this than the episode of Friends featuring Chandler’s speech to the woman he and Monica were hoping would choose them as adoptive parents for her baby (or babies, as it turned out).

I remember watching this scene at my grandparents’ house when it first aired and trying not to let anyone see me tearing up. It was one of the first times I remember watching a television moment and thinking I want a husband like that. The sincerity in Matthew Perry’s performance absolutely floors me to this day.

You can keep your big Ross and Rachel kisses; to me, Chandler telling Erica, “My wife…She’s a mother without a baby,” will always be the most romantic moment Friends ever gave us. It’s such an honest, real depiction of a husband supporting his wife through something that affects so many married couples.

To see sarcastic Chandler Bing stripped of all pretenses and telling a relative stranger through tears how much it kills him to not be able to give his wife a baby is such a great example of a character’s journey adding to the emotional power of a scene. We watched Chandler grow up, become a husband, and, finally, in this moment, become a father-to-be. And we watched it happen organically, realistically, and—in this scene especially—emotionally. When Chandler and Monica celebrate his happy news, it feels truly earned.

Like yesterday’s Sawyer and Juliet vending machine reunion, this is a scene with emotional staying power. Years later, it still puts a lump in my throat and makes me hope for a husband who loves me like Chandler loves Monica.

“God bless you, Chandler Bing!”

Daily Dose of Feelings #1

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The idea for this feature (and the idea for yesterday’s discussion of the emotional power of television) came from a recent YouTube excursion to rewatch some scenes from the series finale of Lost. One thing led to another, and I ended up sitting on my couch, crying my eyes out over one scene in particular—a scene that I’ve continued to watch for the last two weeks on a near-constant repetitious loop.

Fifty (or more) viewings later over the course of three years, the reunion between Sawyer and Juliet at the hospital vending machine still hits me the same way it did that May night when I saw it for the first time.

Even if you’ve never watched Lost, even if you have no idea who these characters are or what they mean to each other, I dare you to watch this video and remain unmoved. I’ve watched a lot of television in my almost-25 years on this Earth, and this is by far the most beautiful scene I’ve ever watched.

The background is relatively simple (for Lost at least): Sawyer and Juliet were happy and in love, and he was ready to propose before she was violently torn from his grasp by electromagnetic forces on the island, eventually dying in his arms. In this scene, both of them are wandering around a kind of “spiritual waiting room” in which they have no memory of their past life until they meet their “constant,” the person who wakes them up to the reality of their lives (and deaths). In this case, Sawyer and Juliet are each other’s constant—each other’s soulmate.

There are no words for how much this scene still fills me with a sense of pure relief and happiness. It truly feels like you’re watching two people with so much history of joy and pain finding each other after a lifetime apart. The chemistry between Josh Holloway and Elizabeth Mitchell in this scene is the standard by which I judge all other actors’ chemistry because they make me feel every intense emotion as it sweeps through them—from initial attraction to the pain of horrific memories to the speechless joy of holding one another again.

Holloway and Mitchell were truly breathtaking in this moment. I love how she falters a little when she remembers falling to her death, but what I love most is that this time he’s there to keep her from falling—and he’s not letting the chance to hold her slip through his fingers ever again. When he says “I got you, baby,” as his voice cracks, I feel like someone is stepping on my chest while simultaneously making my heart grow 15 sizes. There’s something so gorgeously intimate about it, so real. And when Juliet cries and laughs at the same time you can feel her relief like it’s your own—a relief mirrored in Sawyer’s smile, a smile so bright and so hopeful it’s like nothing we’ve seen him express before.

And don’t even get me started on the kiss. Her giddy anticipation. His passionate intensity. The most mature, honest, and beautiful love story on Lost got its happy ending—all to the sounds of Michael Giacchino’s perfect score.

In the immortal words of Juliet, “It worked.” The goal of this reunion was to remind us just how epic this love story had become and just how good these two actors were together—while making us cry buckets of tears. I’d say it worked perfectly.

The Best Thing I Saw on TV This Week (7/7 – 7/14)

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This week, some entertaining TV shows hit big turning points, and one hilarious new show made its mark on the summer TV landscape.

On The Bachelorette, Desiree basically admitted that she’s in love with Brooks, which should make the final batch of episodes interesting as her decision seems made already, but we all know there’s at least one more dramatic turn coming up before the last rose is given out. So You Think You Can Dance said goodbye to one contestant due to injury and another due to an elimination featuring a strong (but not quite strong enough) group of female dancers. And everyone’s favorite dysfunctional family on The Real Housewives of New Jersey provided a great cliffhanger for this week in television, as a family retreat turned violent.

None of these TV moments could compare to my favorite from this week: the premiere of Hollywood Game Night on NBC. The premise is simple but fantastic: funny celebrities + alcohol + ridiculous games. The result was something that I will be glued to every Thursday night at 10 for the rest of the summer. Where else can you see Lisa Kudrow and Matthew Perry trying to guess the salty snack in a photograph or Martin Short trying to put photos of Johnny Depp in chronological order? This is the perfect summer entertainment—fun, easy to watch, and thoroughly enjoyable.

Watch this clip and tell me you don’t want to be a part of this kind of game night:

 

What was the best thing you saw on TV this week?

It’s Okay to Cry: The Emotional Power of Television

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“It’s just a TV show.”

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been told that in my life—usually while I’m crying into my sweatshirt sleeve or just letting the tears fall to the point where they end up going all the way down my neck. (I often judge the emotional resonance of something by its ability to produce these “neck tears.”)

TV shows make me cry often and they make me cry hard, but I don’t think that’s a phenomenon reserved for me alone. Even those skeptics who’d roll their eyes at my sobbing over the same episode of Alias I’ve seen 50 times (“The Telling” for anyone wondering) have almost certainly found themselves choked up over one television moment or another.

Ned Stark. Charlie Pace. Dr. Mark Green. Mrs. Landingham. Omar Little. The mere mention of those names is enough to put a lump in the throat of even the most cynical TV viewer. I don’t know a person who hasn’t been moved to tears at least once in their lives over “just a TV show.”

What is it about television that produces such a strong emotional response from its audience? Why is it that no book or film—not even The Fault in Our Stars or Toy Story 3—has been able to move me as strongly as the Boy Meets World series finale continues to move me to this day?

Television is a personal medium, an intimate medium. We let its characters into our lives and our homes for weeks that often turn into years. Books are finished within a few days (or weeks/months if it’s one of the A Song of Ice and Fire books); films end after a few hours. But television shows keep coming back. Because of this, we watch characters develop with a complexity no other medium can replicate. Those characters become a part of our lives, a part of our routines, a part of our families.

When I think of what makes television so emotionally resonant, it always comes back to the characters and the amount of time we get to spend with them. We are able to watch them grow, and we’re able to grow with them. Their journeys often inspire our own. We all have television characters we “met” at just the right time in our lives to feel like their path mirrored our own. Their successes feel like our successes, and their struggles feel painfully relatable.

Sometimes, an entire show mirrors an arc in our lives. When Alias ended, I was about to graduate from high school, and I began watching the show when I was 13. So when the final scene concluded, I cried not because of what had happened to Sydney Bristow but because the show that had been with me through the entirety of my high school years ended—just like those high school years were about to end. The Lost series finale aired the day after I graduated from college. Just as Jack Shephard had to accept that one part of his life was over and another one needed to begin, I also had to accept the end of my life as I knew it and the start of something unknown. In both of those cases, I was so thankful for the kind of catharsis only television can provide—a way to work through my emotions with characters I’d come to love over the course of many years.

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TV Time: Teen Wolf 3.06

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Many thanks to Leah for once again sharing her thoughts on Teen Wolf with all of us!

As a quick heads-up before I start: As you probably know if you watched Teen Wolf this week, this episode dealt with heavy, potentially triggering subject matter. My review will discuss some of this, as I will talk about the suicide attempts that were made by each of the characters in this episode, though I will focus on the new information we learned about them through their hallucinations more than recounting the actions of the direct attempts themselves. Please take care of yourself and judge if discussions of the events in this episode will be triggering and/or emotionally distressing to you before reading.

Title Motel California

What Happened? Jennifer Blake helps a severely wounded Derek back to his apartment, where they form a connection. Scott and the rest of the group are stuck spending the night at a creepy motel, which holds the record for being the motel with the most suicides in California. At the motel, Scott, Boyd, Isaac, and Ethan all begin to have horrifying hallucinations, and Lydia hears the last moments of people who have died at the motel.

Favorite Quotes
“I don’t like this place.”
“I don’t think the people who own this place like this place. It’s just for a night.”
“A lot can happen in one night.” (Lydia and Allison)

“Alright, so I have four.”
“Four? Seriously, you have four suspects?”
“Yeah. Seriously—ten. Well, nine, technically, I guess; I had Derek on there twice.” (Stiles and Scott)

“Scott, just listen to me okay. You’re not no one. You’re someone. Scott, you’re my best friend; I need you. Scott, you’re my brother. Alright, so…if you’re gonna do this, then you’re just gonna have to take me with you.” (Stiles)

My Thoughts First, I want to talk about our B-plot for this episode. We have Jennifer Blake helping Derek back to his apartment, where he heals a bit, they talk, and then they have sex. Personally I like Jennifer Blake—from the very little bit we’ve seen of her so far, she’s funny and at times sort of endearingly awkward, she obviously cares about her students (protecting them from the crows, telling Scott she doesn’t want to see his grades drop this year), and is seemingly sweet, or at least a good enough person to help Derek when he is dying on the ground in front of her.

However, the romance between her and Derek feels off somehow—their connection has felt rushed and has been given the appearance of more emotional depth than I feel the two truly have with each other, and for Derek “I don’t trust anyone” Hale to be trusting someone so much when he knows so very little about her seems quite unusual. All of which leads me to wonder if it is supposed to truly be a romance at all, or whether their scenes this episode were merely two people seeking comfort in each other, seeking an escape from the world around them. They even acknowledge in the scenes at Derek’s loft that they are basically strangers, and the lyrics of the part of the song that is playing over the scene when they first kiss seems to indicate that perhaps that scenario is what is truly occurring: Give me touch / cause I’ve been missing it / I’m dreaming of strangers / kissing me in the night / just so I / can feel something. Either way, I feel like something is going on with Jennifer Blake that we don’t know about yet.

I have a lot of feelings about all of the motel scenes this episode, but I’ll try not to spew them all over you. I’ll start by saying how much I appreciated seeing Stiles, Lydia, and Allison working together as a team to save the werewolves. We saw that these three are clever, brave, and work together very well. I especially am enjoying seeing Stiles and Lydia’s friendship grow to this level, where they work well together—for example, Stiles made the realization about the heat taking the werewolves out of their wolfsbane-induced state, and Lydia remembered the bus’s flares—and where they have enough trust and respect for each other that they can be truly honest, as Stiles was when he told Lydia that he thought she might be involved with the deaths because of the similarities with Peter in Season 2.

Isaac broke my heart (bravo, Daniel Sharman), though we didn’t learn much new information about his character in his scenes. The person we learned the most about from our pack was Boyd. Boyd’s nightmarish hallucinations told us how, when he was little, he was ice-skating with his sister Alicia and somehow she disappeared. It’s not quite clear whether she was kidnapped, killed, or if something else happened to her, but it is clear that Boyd blames himself for losing her, and that guilt is what drives him to his attempt to commit suicide.

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TV Time: SYTYCD Season 10 “Top 17 Perform”

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For a season that started out incredibly strong, last night’s episode of So You Think You Can Dance faltered a little bit. On the positive side: I’m really happy the complaints of many (including myself) were heard, and the results of the elimination were saved until the end of the show. I also can’t really argue with who was sent home. For as much as I loved Jasmine Mason in her opening-week contemporary with Alan, I thought she was less than dynamic in her tango last week, and her solo seemed very generic.

Although I found myself agreeing with the elimination results—and I do like the idea of consulting the choreographers as well—I didn’t like the way Nigel gave both Jasmine and Alexis such public criticism from their choreographers. Those comments felt like they should be said in private to the dancers rather than broadcast to millions. But maybe I’m just being too sensitive…

This week’s judging panel was interesting to say the least. I was beyond thrilled to see Paula Abdul there because if there’s anyone who should be judging these dancers, it’s someone with the résumé Abdul has. Her passion for dance is so contagious, and she’s actually really good at giving constructive criticism as well as praise. However, I have no idea why Erin Andrews was there. Did I mind staring at her beautiful face? No. Do I think she was a good contestant on Dancing with the Stars? Yes. But I don’t think that qualifies her to judge this kind of show in any capacity.

As for the dancing itself, there was no real standout moment this week for me, no routine that I’ve needed to watch 10 times after the show ended. Yes, there were some strong routines. Aaron and Jasmine continue to be my favorite couple; their Broadway routine this week embodied everything I love about their dynamic: It was smooth, mature, and sexy without trying too hard. It was also surprising, especially Aaron’s graceful quality to his movement. Fik-Shun and Amy also surprised me with their Paso Doble, which was much stronger and more intense than I was expecting from those two smiley kids. I loved Mackenzie’s technique and Paul’s gorgeously emotional performance in their contemporary (even if that story has been told on this show before—and told better). And Marko truly brought out the best in Malece, although it was sad to lose Jade to an injury this week.

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The Best Thing I Saw on TV This Week (6/30 – 7/7)

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This week, the world of television gave us another dramatic episode of The Bachelorette (and the promise of more drama to come), an episode of So You Think You Can Dance that saw some couples (namely Aaron/Jasmine H. and Fik-Shun/Amy) start to really separate themselves from the pack, and plenty of great marathons for the holiday weekend (a great Castle marathon on TNT and a marathon of the Pirates of the Caribbean movies on ABC Family just to name a couple). The world of televised sports didn’t disappoint either, with Andy Murray finally taking home the Wimbledon title for his home country after so many years of waiting.

My favorite TV moment of the week also came from a sports network, but it didn’t have much to do with sports, actually. On the Fourth of July, ESPN played a feature on SportsCenter about members of the military returning home to their families, and it was such a beautiful segment. It made me truly stop and think about the sacrifices men, women, and families make every day to keep America safe—and it made me feel so grateful for these brave people who do their best to protect the freedom we as Americans celebrated this week.

If you haven’t seen this video yet, I highly recommend watching it. But make sure you have some tissues on hand—you’re going to need them.

 

What was the best thing you saw on TV this week?

TV Time: Teen Wolf 3.05

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I hope everyone who celebrated the holiday had a great Fourth of July yesterday! Today, it’s Teen Wolf recap time courtesy of the lovely Leah.

Title Frayed

What Happened? Scott, Stiles, Allison, and Lydia discuss recent events on the way to a cross-country meet while trying to keep a fight from breaking out between Ethan, Boyd, and Isaac, and also figuring out how to get Scott’s wound to heal. As they travel, Scott remembers the events of the past day or two, in which Derek, Scott, Isaac, Boyd, and Cora (with some well-timed help from Allison) took on the Alpha Pack in the first true, all-out fight, in which both Derek and Ennis seemingly fell to their deaths. Meanwhile, we discover that Kali, Aiden, and Morrell have taken Ennis to Deaton, hoping that he can save him. We end the episode with Derek surprising Ms. Blake with his dramatic bloody handprint on her car and her kneeling over his still-breathing body in the high school parking lot.

Favorite Quotes
“That depends. Are you planning on following the bus, or are you planning on mounting it at some point?” (Lydia)

“Why is the default plan always murder? Just once, can’t someone try to come up with something that doesn’t involve killing everyone?”
“You never get tired of being so blandly moral do you?” (Scott and Peter)

“Come on, Scott, put those away. I’d have to be blind, deaf, and quadriplegic for you to be an actual threat.” (Deucalion)

My Thoughts In a way, this episode was one major, connected narrative, in that it told us the events of the past day or two surrounding the Alpha Pack in a creative way through the use of out-of-order time jumps (by showing us bits and pieces of Scott’s memories). Our focus this episode was on the first major confrontation with the Alpha Pack.

First, I want to focus on one of Teen Wolf’s awesome ladies, Allison. In this episode, we see Scott talking to Allison about her staying out of the way of the fighting. Scott has a good point in that Allison would undoubtedly lose to the Alphas in any sort of close-quarters fight. However, she does have a good advantage from a distance with her bow and arrow, and I love that she comes back at the end of the episode and basically saves the whole pack from the Alphas with her archery skills. I also very much enjoyed that at the end of the episode Scott acknowledged that he was wrong and that Allison was essential to the fight; there was no ego at work, just pure appreciation for her skills, and it was really wonderful to see (especially from a male character towards a female character). I have a feeling Allison will be an important part of the fight against the Alpha Pack in the future, and I can’t wait to see her continue being awesome!

I also think one of the important moments in this episode was Allison’s talk with her father about whether they should be involved in the struggle in Beacon Hills. Chris talked about their path as being a situation called “threading the needle”—finding a safe path between two opposing forces. This theme of trying to live in harmony with two worlds has been one that Allison and her father have dealt with this season, and is prevalent throughout the show—it has been a common theme for Scott, especially in the first season when he was trying to find a cure, and for Allison when she’s been trying to navigate being from a hunter family and being in a relationship with Scott at the same time. I think this will be something that Chris will struggle with more than Allison. She isn’t the type of person to stand back and watch while her friends die, even if it puts herself in great danger, and I believe she’ll join in and help Scott and the others when she can. Chris, however, has less of an emotional stake involved in the fighting, as he doesn’t know the teenagers very well except for his daughter, and staying out of the conflict will likely have a bigger draw for him than it does for Allison. I believe that in the end, Chris’s love for his daughter and his desire to do what is right (even though he’s definitely a bit shaky on his moral code) will win out in the end, and he’ll become a reluctant but reliable ally for our group.

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TV Time: SYTYCD Season 10 “Top 20 to Top 18”

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The first cut is the deepest…

…Or sometimes the first cut is just the most ridiculous.

I hate the new format for the eliminations on So You Think You Can Dance. I mean, I REALLY HATE it. I understand there’s no perfect way to eliminate contestants on the same night as a performance show, but cutting them from the competition at the beginning of the show and then forcing them to still dance with their partner later on just seems all kinds of wrong to me. It is horrible to the contestants (both the eliminated ones and the others who have to dance after seeing partners/friends be cut), and it simply casts a negative light on everything that comes after it.

It was especially hard this week because the wrong contestants went home. Mariah’s solo was terrible, and Jade is nowhere near the dancer Carlos is. I grimaced every time Nigel said that “America got it wrong” this week because America only put them in the bottom; it was the judges who—with no deliberation—sent Carlos and Brittany home. Why even have them dance solos if you’re going base the elimination on last week’s performances?

I think so much of my frustration with the eliminations comes from how well Brittany and Carlos did with their dances this week. Brittany was a firecracker full of stage presence in her Broadway routine (so much so that it made BluPrint’s obvious discomfort in the routine look even worse). And Carlos…Carlos was breathtaking. His performance in his contemporary routine with Mariah was incredible, and it brought out such a fearlessness in Mariah in terms of her emotional honesty (which I think was also aided by her obvious pain at seeing him go home).

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