Outside of news (including the fake news of Jon & Stephen, plus documentaries of all sorts), I don’t follow many tv programs, but these days I am among those who find the best quality series to rank in artistry and appeal with the best feature films. While eagerly awaiting the fifth and final season of Friday Night Lights, the fourth of Breaking Bad, and the second of Treme, here’s what I’ve been watching lately.
Of course, the current leader in “appointment television” is the fourth season of Mad Men (MC-92), which started with dark days indeed for our antihero Don Draper. As the arc of the season was inscribed from episode to episode, it was trending downward, but while disaster looms ever greater for Don and the rest of the gang at SCDP, all the plots that have been set spinning, and the black humor that inflects them, are rushing to a conclusion over the next few weeks, confirming the show in its classic status. I won’t presume to comment further, but if you’re into show as much as I am, here’s a place to really chew it over (check weekly recaps).
Gangsters during prohibition do not have the novelty of admen in the Sixties, but after two episodes, with instant renewal for another season, Boardwalk Empire (MC-88) promises to be worth watching at some length. Show creator Terrence Winters relies on other veterans of The Sopranos, with an assist from the master Martin Scorsese, to get the proceedings going with a bang. Led by the extremely reliable Steve Buscemi and Kelly Macdonald, the estimable cast includes “serious man” Michael Stuhlbarg, wild man Michael Shannon (here a tightly-wound G-Man) and other feature film veterans, along with big-budget production values.
With Boardwalk Empire and Treme, HBO is endeavoring to reclaim its mojo from AMC as the place for cable drama series. Sorry, I can’t sink my teeth into True Blood – I’ve had my fill of vampires. Can’t get into their half-hour comedies, either, though I did find the second season of Hung a guilty pleasure, broad and silly, but with engaging characters and acting. Meanwhile, I watched the last season of Entourage only because I’ve been watching all along, mainly for Jeremy Piven’s over-the-top antics as superagent Ari Gold.
Speaking of Ari, it was intriguing to see his nemesis Carla Gugino in a younger incarnation as one of The Buccaneers in the 1995 BBC adaptation of Edith Wharton’s last, unfinished novel, in which she looks back sixty years to the newly-rich American girls who went to England in the 1870s to land themselves titled husbands. Definitely racier than the buttoned-up society of Age of Innocence or House of Mirth, and tarted up with rape and homosexuality to go with infidelity and illegitimacy, this adaptation casts Mira Sorvino with an unlikely Brazilian accent, and two other American actresses who seem out of place in the classic British heritage settings of Masterpiece Theater, but that disconnect suits the story. If you’re into the whole dance of dukes and duchesses, lords and ladies, and their stately dwellings, this (available from Netflix) will definitely meet that appetite, but it does not have the taste of the best BBC adaptations of Austen or Dickens or even Gaskell.
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