AMC has gone from a station I never looked at to the red-hot center of my television viewing pleasure. Its Sunday night has replaced HBO’s as the must-see line-up. Mad Men (MC-86) did not disappointed in its third season, nor did Breaking Bad (MC-85)in its second (with which I caught up in rerun). Both finished their seasons with a bang, and with a promise of more in 2010. If you haven’t made your way into either of these series, I strongly advise you to start at the beginning with the first season on DVD. As is the way with the televised megamovies that have become a preeminent form of popular culture, it doesn’t matter so much what they are about, as the way they have leisure to make characters and settings and communities engaging in a global and ongoing way. Were you really so interested in the business of the street corner crack trade, or of a family funeral home, going in? No, depth of engagement is the road into any of the worlds created by these high-quality series.
Mad Men has a lot going for it in the glamour of its setting and era, but all the design in the world wouldn’t attract a passionate audience without a full cast of rounded characters to live with and get to know. Highbrows can enjoy the pleasures of soap opera without guilt. On the other hand, a guilty complicity is at the heart of Breaking Bad’s appeal. Walter White is a guy just like us, a high school chemistry teacher with a perfectly ordinary middle American home and family -- in the marvelous Bryan Cranston literally a sitcom dad -- whose life is derailed by a diagnosis of cancer into unimagined depths of depravity as he schemes to turn all his technical knowledge into fast money by cooking up the best crystal meth in the world. We feel with him every step of the way, as he descends the ladder of despicability. Sometimes we laugh, sometimes we gasp in horror, sometimes both at the same time. BB’s second season certainly ended with a bang, and has us on the hook for another, but MM’s finale was the best I could imagine, not only rounding off this season but setting up the next in a way that has us panting with anticipation. How good was it? It had me comparing it to one of my top ten films of all time: The Seven Samurai.
Meanwhile, from the BBC I’ve been watching Cranford, a series that was previewed on the Little Dorrit dvds, and while it does not have the scope of the Dickens, this adaptation of several works by Elizabeth Gaskell does have an appealing cast (led by Judy Dench) and a savory Jane-Austen-ish flavor. It follows one year, from 1842 to 1843, in the life of a small village, a spinster gynocracy led by Eileen Atkins, as elder sister of Dame Judy and arbiter of all matters and manners in the neighborhood. Imelda Staunton is a good-hearted but inveterate busybody next door. A handsome young doctor comes to town and sets hearts aflutter; an estate manager crosses the lady of the manor by trying to educate and advance a poor but promising local lad; and the train threatens to reach Cranford and change its hidden-away charm forever. Of these threads and more the five-hour series is woven, increasing in complexity and significance as it goes. I’m happy to see a second series is due to be broadcast on PBS early next year.
Britain’s ITV gets in the game with Lost in Austen, which takes the premise of a modern London girl, obsessed with Pride and Prejudice, who swaps places with Elizabeth Bennett. Some amusing situations are spun out of the premise, but it does go on and on. I didn’t check the length when I popped in the Netflix-recommended DVD, and thought I was watching a film (which apparently is now in pre-production). When I started to ask myself when this thing was going to end, I checked the envelope and saw it was a series totaling almost three hours. I watched to the end with increasing disenchantment, as it strung out to a series of audience-catering, self-canceling conclusions. But the movie might be worth looking at when it comes out, once they’ve trimmed the story to reasonable feature length.
With the next seasons of the AMC duo now breathlessly awaited, the one show I look forward to every week is Friday Night Lights (MC-81), whose fourth season I am lucky to be able to preview as a DirecTV subscriber, months before it will debut on NBC. I won’t gloat by telling you how good it remains, but will simply note that in a neat passing of the baton between favorite shows, one of the corner hoppers from The Wire turns up as the replacement for ace running back Smash Williams in the new season of FNL.
No comments:
Post a Comment