The Watercooler for Netflix

Or: The One Where Crichton Blows Up His Phallic Substitute, But D’Argo’s Shoots Lasers

In the first Farscape piece I wrote on here, I described John Chricton as a Star Trek hero forced to exist in a world with very little patience for that breed of non-violent idealism. There’s a narrative arc implied by that idea, a Gene Roddenberry story about one good man uplifting a fallen universe through sheer decency and rationality.

This isn’t that story.

This is a story about growing up. About realizing that there’s a point where idealism has to stop, because now you’re the liability who keeps blowing up your gun and everyone rolls their eyes when you say you have a plan. Because you’re so obsessed with impressing people that it gets you kidnapped and killed. Because you want to save people (and save them YOUR WAY) so badly you’re willing to kill them to do it. Because you keep pushing your brother or your sister away with words like “barbarian” or “coward” so you don’t have to look at how similar you are.

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Or: The One Where We Learn the Farscape Euphemism for Testicles

This is basically Groundhog Day, except that Groundhog Day is fun, and this is boring. The whole POINT of a Groundhog Day scenario is to show a) the fun of consequence-free actions, and b) how a simple situation can turn out differently based on a few simple choices.

Instead, what we get is Shouty D’Argo (have I mentioned my distaste for Shouty D’Argo?), super-simple characterizations, and (ugh)… Matala.

Look, I have no problem with the idea of the femme fatale. And it’s actually pretty clever to have a character who combines D’Argo’s desire for a home with the fact that he hasn’t had sex in 8 years. But the whole subplot where Crichton wants to or does not want to have crazy alien finger sex or whatever with her feels like padding with no point except to get D’Argo jealous, and a red herring to make us think she might have sexy mind control powers or something.

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“Moya is invaded by spawning space bugs, which produce clones of the crew. To complicate matters, a Peacekeeper retrieval squad arrives and Aeryn begins to suffer heat delirium.”

I’m glad to see that Netflix is using the airdate order for Farscape instead of the production order, both because the second produced episode, “I, E.T.” works much better slightly later in the season, and because this one is such a good re-entry to the world of Moya and her crew. It introduces several important plot points, relationships, bits of mythology and themes that we’ll be making extensive use of as time goes on.

For instance, and most prominently, we have Sebacean Heat Death, one of the least believable but most plot-important bits of the show’s often plausibility-challenged approach to biology. While I find it hard to swallow that a race with such a huge, glaring weakness (it seems to reach fatal levels at, what, 100 Fahrenheit?) could be as dominant and widespread as Sebaceans and Peacekeepers are, it does have a certain lyricism to it - the ultra-repressed Peacekeepers being portrayed as literally cold-blooded. More importantly, it puts Aeryn in a position of weakness and vulnerability, something the character probably needs at this point in the series.

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Veronica: We want to weaponize a pumpkin.
Ted: Then so do I. (pause) Because? 

The short version: Do you miss Arrested Development? Watch Better Off Ted. 

The long version:
NBC Thursdays have a creeping nice-ification happening. In it’s first and second seasons, Parks & Rec used to have it’s character meet actual challenges of small town politics, now it’s twee. The Office, fresh from the BBC’s Xerox machine, was much rougher and ruder but has mellowed out over the years, into an equally feel good comedy. And Community and 30 Rock have always centered around the oddball but happy relationships of friends-of-circumstance becoming close. 

So in Better Off Ted, it’s nice to see a sitcom with a bit of bite to it. Reminiscent of how Arrested Development made fun of the rich and backbiting families, Better Off Ted makes fun of evil corporations and the different ways its employees have to kowtow to its desires. 

In the first 7 minutes of the pilot, each of the 5 main characters gets a solid introduction and a minor plot is developed and completed: the invention of an office chair so uncomfortable it prevents daydreaming or boredom (until the user snaps and does who knows what). The other 16 minutes of the episode deal with the personal choices each character must made when the company, Veridian Dynamics, asks of it’s employees ‘to cryogenically freeze or not to cryogenically freeze?’ The pilot is well plotted and enjoyable on both fronts. 

And now for the critiques: 
The pilot pushes the Linda/Veronica love triangle pretty hard for the outset. This could have bubbled up showly over the course of a few episodes, but instead Ted basically beats them both back with a stick. It’s just laid it on a bit thick for a pilot. 

Also, for me the character of Ted, played by Jay Harrington, is too much of an unfunny straight guy. But I have the same gripe about Josh Radnor who plays the “I” in How I Met Your Mother. Is it a rule that the titular character has to be boring? Or just characters named Ted? Michael Bluth/Jason Bateman handles the straight man role well while still being a funny & an interesting character. 

One glaring and, at times, annoying crutch is the show’s reliance on letting Ted talk straight to the camera as a way to push through exposition. It’s telling, not showing, which makes me feel like I’m being shortchanged by the series. It’s forgivable for the pilot but overuse later on will earn tsks. (Though AD & HIMYM have similar crutches so its not that unusual.)

But, bottom line, the series is incisively funny either standing on it’s own, or while watching it through the lens of someone fed up with greedy corporations. 

(The full series of Better Off Ted is now streaming on Netflix.)  

“Space. The final frontier.”  That’s probably what astronaut John Crichton is thinking in the opening scene as he stares up at the NASA space shuttle at dawn. And he doesn’t have to wait long to go boldly where no man has gone before. Five minutes into the pilot, before the credits roll or the first commercial break, our hero is already thrust into a big alien space battle. Five minutes after that and he’s being accosted by weird, rude aliens on a freaky prison ship. And oh yeah the ship is alive. Welcome to Farscape! 

Did you know all aliens have an Australian accent? Or maybe it’s a fault with the translator microbes John gets injected with. 

As a sci-fi show made in 1999 it’d invariably be judged on it’s special effects, which happily still hold up today. But it’s the Jim Henson Production Company’s puppets and prosthetics that really sell Farscape’s aliens in a way not previously achieved in the Star Trek school of “mostly human with some forehead ridges” aliens. 

Most sci-fi stories take place from the perspective of humans expanding out and discover/fighting The Other, but Farscape flips that on it’s ear. Our protagonist is a fish-out-of-water human in an unfamiliar galaxy full of aliens who’ve never ever heard of Earth. 

There’s a deft two minute scene in that pilot that gives some nice exposition (and flirting) between two of the main alien characters. It’s a valuable chunk of time to spend in the pilot in a scene without our human protagonist, but that’s part of the point. That scene really humanizes the characters for the audience and shows it’s an ensemble show about aliens, with a human providing audience perspective. 

It’s a well crafted pilot. Small seeds of character & plot bloom naturally later on in the episode and the season. In 44 minutes the show manages to get us up to speed on the universe, characters, their relationships, and desires. And it does so in a light-hearted, thoughtful way. And the show is funny! With all the unique characters comes a lot of grounded, relatable humor. Also fart jokes. 

Of all the great scenes in the pilot my favoriate would probably be the reveal of Aeryn. A masked warrior jailed along with John, she takes off her helmet and proceeds to tackle and interrogate him about who he is and why he’s not in uniform like her. Zhann reveals that after doing some tests, while he may look like Aeryn, he’s definitely not the same species. So with even human-seeming characters not being able to be taken at face value, the pilot really leaves the door open for the series to ask a lot of interesting questions. 

John: How do i know i can trust you? 
Aeryn: That’s just another thing you don’t know. 

(The full series of Farscape is available to stream on Netflix.)

I’ve tried to resist their siren song for months but I give in. Let’s talk TV. 

I’ll be watching all three shows but you should watch any of the three that interest you:

Farscape - Season 1 - 22 eps, 50 mins each. (~4 episodes per week)

• A sci-fi show with heart and Jim Henson puppets. (Trailer)

Better Off Ted - Season 1 - 13 eps, 22 mins each (~3 episodes per week)

• A quirky and incisive office comedy. (Trailer)

Downton Abbey - Season 1 - 7 eps, 48 mins each (~2 episodes per week)

• A British costume drama set pre-WWI.  (Trailer)

Reviews of pilot episodes will go up this weekend.  Please watch along and submit any thoughts you have on them!  

Watching and discussions will happen throughout June. If people like this we’ll vote for new TV shows come July. 

(Movie reviews will go on hiatus for the summer. Recommendations will crop back up when I have time to do a round-up. Sherlock review and related titles will be out later this week. Thoughts on anything? Comment or email me.)

UPDATE 4/4/11: Turns out these shows didn’t expire, though they were set to at the 1st of the month. Hooray! 

Here’s your mid-month warning. All seasons of these shows are expiring April 1st. They may be back eventually, but it’s hard to say with the ebb and flow of Netflix’s availability. Stream ‘em while you got ‘em!

 24

Follow 24 hours in the life of federal agent Jack Bauer (Kiefer Sutherland). The tense drama tells an interweaving tales about terrorism and assassination.

 Angel

In this “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” spinoff, the titular character proves just how difficult it is to deal with a conscience when you’ve been living without one for hundreds of years.

 Arrested Development

When the wily patriarch is sent to jail, his responsible son takes over the family business. But he’s no match for his crazy siblings and sharp-tongued mother in this critically lauded Fox sitcom.

 Better Off Ted (I love this show! Catch some eps while you can.)

With the motto “Money Before People,” Veridian Technologies’ truth-twisting, unscrupulous business tactics make for the interesting subject of this satirical office culture sit-com.

 Bones

This darkly comic series follows Dr. Temperence Brennan, an employee of a Smithsonian-like institution who has a knack for finding clues in the bones of murder victims. Co-starring David Boreanaz.

 Buffy The Vampire Slayer

Buffy Summers (Sarah Michelle Gellar) seems like a typical teenager dealing with the run-of-the-mill adolescent frustrations … except she’s also a vampire slayer, preordained to kick undead butt.

 Dollhouse

Eliza Dushku stars as Echo, a member of an secret organization that sends its operatives on missions, then brings them back to their Dollhouse to wipe out all memory of the assignment.

 Firefly

The ragtag crew (including Nathan Fillion, Gina Torres and Alan Tudyk) of the transport spaceship Serenity view no job as too small, too dirty or too close to the line of illegality.

 King of the Hill

When Hank Hill, a proud, somewhat slow-moving Texan with a good heart, is not at work selling propane or at home with his wife and son, he’s sipping beer by his back fence with friends.

 Lie To Me

Tim Roth stars as Dr. Cal Lightman, a behavioral scientist with a special talent for reading the giveaway body language and other tell-tale signs of criminals who try to get away with a lie.

 My Name is Earl

When he discovers he’s got a winning lottery ticket, chronic ne’er-do-well Earl (Jason Lee) vows to use his good fortune to right everything in his past that he’s done wrong in this NBC comedy.

 Prison Break

Determined to help his brother break out of the prison, structural engineer Michael Scofield holds up a bank to get himself arrested so he can hatch an plan to set them both free.

 The Riches

After years of roaming across the US with a band of Irish gypsy con artists, Eddie Izzard and Minnie Driver try the straight life and assume the identity of an average suburban family in the South. 

 Roswell

Three alien-human hybrids (Jason Behr, Katherine Heigl and Brendan Fehr) have been sent to Earth save their race. In the meantime, they struggle with everyday teen issues in this mix of sci-fi and drama.

 The X-Files

The truth is out there and the search begins as FBI special agents Fox Mulder (David Duchovny) and Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson) team up to solve mysterious cases involving the paranormal.

It’s February 1st and there are some new TV shows now available on Netflix streaming! Here’s five of the best.  

This is a special mid-week, first-of-the-month edition of the weekly Quick Picks feature. Check back Saturday-ish for the regular edition of Quick Picks for New To Streaming / Expiring Soon movies.  

 The Cosby Show

 3rd Rock From The Sun

 Ugly Betty

 That 70’s Show

 Roseanne