INTERCUT:

The only way this pilot isn’t getting picked up to series is if something goes seriously wrong during production. It’s been two seasons since the long-running heroics of Clark Kent in Smallville left our screens, and the script for Raven last year died before it even got a chance, so here we are: Here is Arrow. The character, Oliver Queen, will be familiar to viewers of the later years of Smallville as Green Arrow so to add to the chances of this going somewhere is the fact we have two built-in audiences; the comic-book fans, and the Smallville fans.

Anyway, here’s the first image released Stephen Amell as Green Arrow…

Alongside the very broody Amell will be Katie Cassidy, Willa Holland, Suzanna Thompson and Colin Salmon.

The CW must be very confident by releasing this, and I see no reason for them not to be. Unless something better sneaks up, like their upcoming reality show Oh Sit!, I’d be willing to bet Arrow will be their first pick-up to series.

I’m excited, are you?

It’s been an interesting week all round, did Daylight Savings affect your favourite shows? What’s going on with Community? Is Alcatraz okay? Read on to see…

Monday: Let’s not forget where it all began though: that strange TV time where time literally jumps for no discernible reason. Not that it affected much with most nets opting to go on a break. Alcatraz inches closer to death with it’s 1.6 demo, following a House repeat. Right now, the only way I see this particular JJ Abrams drama making it another year is for it to get renewed along with Fringe for 13 episodes each so they can sit together on a nice little Friday scifi constant. (It’s not exactly bad business to keep Abrams in your good books, but by my numbers, he’s losing a lot of TV rep and execs have to note that his appeal will always be niche). The Voice over on NBC continues to be a bizarre TV phenomenon, one that will definitely keep the network alive for the foreseeable future. 2.4 at 10PM for Smash isn’t exactly awful either.

Tuesday: Daylight Savings is a thing. Just ask Bill Lawrence. Cougar Town scored a 1.4, with no Tim Allen lead-in. It’s hard to call, but if 1.4 stays the lowest and “it’s audience is it’s audience,” I’m pretty confident we will get one more season. I think Paul Lee’s respect for Bill and Kevin [Biegel, co-creator], as well as wanting to continue being partners is too high. And honestly, just to make the Viewing Parties not a complete and utter waste, I think he’s obligated as long as it’s a above a certain level. In other quirky comedy news, FOX’s lineup is consistent – Raising Hope delivered a 1.8, the now shelved I Hate My Teenage Daughter a 1.4, with New Girl averaging a 2.8 at 9PM meaning Breaking In’s 1.5 is back at death’s door. Exciting all round, eh?

Wednesday: The middle day is rarely exciting, though there may be potential cause for alarm with The Middle and Suburgatory only getting 2.1′s, although I think we’re safe for now. At 9:30, the very funny Happy Endings continues to get better at hacking Modern Family‘s overall audience and demo in half, garnering a 2.4 (5 mill) against Family‘s 4.5 (10 mill). Whitney and Are You There, Chelsea?have respectable cancellation numbers – 1.4 and 11, respectively – but I could easily see Whitney sneaking back next year with that. It’s cheap!

Thursday: This is where things get more exciting. Community‘s 2.2 is staggering. It’s was the number #1 show 18-35, even against Idol. The highest I was expecting would have been a 1.8. With The Big Bang Theory returning, I would hope that a relatively large sample size still sticks around for next week’s episode, but I’m prepared to not be too disappointed if it falls back to a decent 1.5. To the opposite end, the now unbuzzy Grey’s Anatomy continues to pull in a large 3.0. Renewal prospects are interesting, but I expect it to be back with or without the series namesake Meredith Grey. CSI does what CSI does, while American Idol is king.

Friday: Fringe-less, Grimm-less. There’s not much going on, except a notable drop for Supernatural even against no competition. Still, it’s 0.7 is up from Nikita’s 0.5. (Although on-par with a Grimm repeat! Guess that’s why it’s the on,y returning show on NBC’s sked so far).

I caught up with the first season of Downton Abbey one night a few weeks before the second premiered. I enjoyed it quite thoroughly. It’s soapy, gorgeous and features some great one-liners. I thought it’s it’s use of historical moments to kick off momentous moments was smart; the sinking of the Titanic introduced at the beginning of the series, to the way the First World War was announced at the end makes me smirk in and of itself. It’s exciting and fun to see how these lavish people, both upstairs and downstairs in Downton, can live in the same world as the rest. The second season proves quite conclusively that other than passing mention – they can’t.

The fun of Downton Abbey is disregard any important matters, and believe these otherwise trivial events are the most important in the world. An engagement falling through? That’s the Hellmouth opening. Buying a telephone? Death of a mother. By introducing a war, and cutting away to the war makes the Lords, Ladies and their staff far less sympathetic and, in all honestly, less essential, to their own show.

There is still frothy fun to be found in the second season – which I wouldn’t say anyone who enjoyed the first shouldn’t watch – but it’s just not as rhythmically told. The war setting introduces elements the series is uncomfortable with and manages to make the low points of the series “song” really off-kilter. John Lunn’s “Did I Make the Most of Loving You” works wonders to fill in the holes that when the story and character beats aren’t exactly fulfilling, it can still often feel like a decent album. Not a great one. Not one worth all the hubbub, but a solid 8-track collection. (With a significantly better Christmas No. 1, actually!)

I’m not a huge advocate for the show, not in the slightest, but think it can be exceptional when working as a silly soap with little to no social commentary (Julian Fellowes’ script manages class thematics relatively well, however, even in this season where it takes significantly less precedent). The amount of time that is given to the war means that a lot of narrative threads feel undercooked, with only a couple (Bates, Countess’ of Grantham’s zingers and something about Matthew) of stories feeling fully formed. The show needs to flow, and when it doesn’t, it technically fails. This season isn’t as strong as the first and any newcomers to the series would think they are sorely missing something if this is the show that raided the awards and has momentous hype. Thankfully, there’s a reason for the storm so if you’re even teetering with the idea of checking it out, you should, but please for the love of God begin at the start.

I never normally set aside the time, like I should, to review things while they are preoccupying my head. I thought I needed to make an exception for the midseason return of Switched. In case you haven’t been watching, Switched At Birth tells the (shocking!) tale of two families who’s daughters were indeed swapp—switched soon after delivery. It’s the stuff of Nicolas Sparks novels and Lifetime movies, but the tone set almost immediately by creator Lizzy Weiss (who penned tonight’s ep) is of a different story. One tonally much similar to ABCF’s Greek in some respects if looking for network companion, but shares much more with The OC. There’s a few levels at work; the warm and fuzzies provided by the entire cast, even highlighted by the cosy color-scheme against the more dramatic opportunities provided by parental clashes, lawyer work and teenage angst/romance drama.

The reason I picked the, uh, rather bizarre quote above as fitting as it is is because of how the scene on the docks between Daphne and Wilkes is representative of the show as a whole. It’s taking the opportunity to deepen Wilkes who so far hasn’t had a whole lot to do besides building an attraction to Daphne while she struggles to make sense of her new collaborational-dual-family-thing of a new life. Katie LeClerc here is fantastic, and honestly one of the best fresh performers that has come out of 2011. Weiss’ script is great in how it caps of emotional beats with snark or humour. The scene begins with sarcasm, gets emotional and before Wilkes – predictably – throws her into the water, he gets her to take out her hearing aid. Which does interesting stuff, y’know? He cares. D’awww.

This isn’t to say everyone else’s life is going swimmingly. (Heh.) Mama Kentish wants to connect with Daphne, Bay wants to connect with her father (and Emmet, still), Emmet meanwhile is trying to teach Bay that his signs are the way he connects with the world and Toby is trying to connect with being an indie-pop band! Yes. Connections are the theme of the episode, and theme of the show.

I went into this striving for tonal comparisons to The OC, and although I firmly believe if you appreciate the balancing act one does, you’ll like the other, I’ve come out appreciating Switched At Birth all the more. It’s warm and cute, but it does have bite! A soap opera, but seemingly with an ever-expanding cast of important members, so I recommend jumping in now if you’re thinking of checking out how deaf sign-language fights can make one cry and if ABC Family can really genuinely truly produce something of quality.

Watching the latest episode of Once Upon A Time, it finally dawned on me the real problem with the show. And I‟m not the first to say it, but I can hopefully expand on why I think the show is failing, and it‟s not through lack of ambition. There‟s a constant weight over every episode – there‟s an arc at work. Before the show premiered, Adam Horowitz and Edward Kitsis said they have a planned 12 episode story, with an idea of what a full 22 episode first season would look like. This planning, something that‟s intimately occurred since the legacy of Lost began to mean something, has never been successful in accomplishing a good narrative.

Two of the most notable pieces of serialized genre fiction on TV are Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Lost. They don‟t share a lot, but one of the things they do and I think is intrinsic to their longevity is a sense of discovery and progressive world-building. It‟s a mythology that‟s prevalent and perhaps obvious in some cases, but not delved into till much further. In the case of Buffy, we don‟t even begin to learn about the Slayer mythos until season four and it doesn‟t even become even remotely directive to the shows until arguably places in Season 7. Now, Buffy was never a show about mythology. It used demons as metaphor, which makes it different to Lost. What Lost done, however, was indeed, start with a bang but not tell any other stories than who these people are in these circumstances (and who they were before).

By using existing fairy tales, Once is constantly drawing upon the viewerships own knowledge of the original stories and sometimes the Disneyified versions. As of right now, these are relatively one-note people. They are showing characters going from A to B. How Snow White met her Prince, how Jiminy Cricket became a, uh, cricket. It‟s a series of reveals informing the audience, but to no one else (Except, sometimes Henry, but he‟s another hole that I don‟t want to touch – and one that Oliver Sava did in his review of last week‟s episode over at The TV Club.)

One of the most magical things about writing for TV is to let the ability to let the characters and actors inform themselves over time. Dan Harmon, the creator of Community, has said that he expected the chemistry on his show to take double the amount of time and always hoped to achieve an sandbox of a narrative. I honestly think only good things can come out of having little vague planning. This is not the absolute truth, but when you are attempting a soap – especially one burdened with a lot of mythology – it‟s always hard to get the right actors together. For instance, if Snow White had more chemistry with Aladdin, but was bound together to her one and only Prince Charming just because that‟s how the existing story played out then we most certainly have a problem.

This isn‟t something that can‟t be fixed, however, and I actually am hoping something like this will „break‟ the show after episode 12. The series opens itself up. It needs to, it absolutely needs to do something to survive and by cutting the ties to it‟s fairy tale world in some batshit mythological fashion, it would make the series a
lot better for it. People can make their own “Happy Endings” and they don‟t need to adhere to a “destiny‟.

Destiny is what I think the fundamental issue at hand is. It wasn‟t something introduced at the beginning of Lost, or one used in the Buffyverse early on but both those series introduced elements of fate and Always Gonna Happen universe powers. If we found out in episode 12 what we found out in the pilot of Once, I think we theoretically could have had a more compelling storyarc. Right now, I‟m just hoping that the stories of the future will live up to the impressive cast‟s abilities to, like, be human and stuff. Either way, I‟ll be watching.

According to preliminary TVByTheNumbers numbers, Glee has fallen a further 5% to a 3.5 (18-45) demo. It’s up from 8.12m to 8.30m in the overall, but that’s not much. Now, let’s get this out of the way – Glee will get a fourth season. The empire that the show built for the latter half of the first season carrying over to midway through the second season will be the reason, even if the numbers are not there. And, honestly, I’ll be very shocked if it goes as low as even a 2.5 this season… assuming it doesn’t go off-the-rails.

Sure, I’m being presumptuous, but assuming the numbers keep steadily falling for the rest of the season, it’ll make Glee a particularly interesting case of the ‘Burn Bright, Burn Fast’ phenomenon that catches the TV zeitgeist every so often. Heroes*, a show that didn’t have the answers the viewers were looking for, didn’t lose many viewers over the course of the first season so the majority had enough faith to follow through the second (even with the writers strike interrupting the season) and that’s when the major flaws fell through. Being as short as it was though (11 episodes), people still had enough trust and I personally thought the writers still had a vague idea of what they were doing and the show remained fun and sort of speculative. Until the third season, anyway: the third season the audience began dropping like flies because – creatively – the show was huge mess. It didn’t have direction, the writing were clueless and Tim Kring kept moaning at everyone about it, learning the wrong lessons and mentioning how it was popular “overseas.” The show was DOA. (It’s forth season, apparently, was less of a mess but whatever – people didn’t care.)

Similar story with The OC, although I remain a fan of it. The first season (granted, never reached the rating heights of Heroes or even early season two Glee). The show “burnt” through a lot of story potential in the first season, in fact, this was considered one of the exciting things about it. The second season didn’t live up to it the expectations set and the audience began to drop. The show needed a balance of drama, romance and comedy to work and while it managed in some cases, it never felt like it was back home. Enter the third season, the darkest season, and the one where nobody began to care. It fell, and fell, and the network notes became more and more visible. Upon arriving in season four, it was, like Heroes, absolutely DOA. (Arguably, killing off a major/popular character didn’t help.)

Glee, however, is and always has been in an interesting place. I don’t quite understand it. 13 episodes of the show were filmed and and finished before even began airing. There’s a finality to that 13th episode. A finality that is almost ignored when it returns. A return that is more significant of what Glee is, and shall be remembered for however many years it’s continues on. The “phenomenon” of Glee lasted about a year. I’d argue it began with it’s April 2010 return ‘Hell-O’ and continued until some in season two where it’s huge demo began to dwindle. Actually, for a lot of the second season, the show averaged middle to low 4.0 ratings, capping it up with a 4.6 for it’s ‘New York’ finale. Not that bad.

Now, three episodes into it’s third season, we’ve already seen a steady downfall – from 4.0, to 3.7 and for the latest, a 3.5. Again, I don’t quite understand it. The ratings are falling, but the series isn’t going batshit and dreadful in-show. In these trends, it’s one of the few times the wider audience gets it right. This isn’t what is happening. The show has a writers room this year, and arguably in the three episodes that have premiered it’s had some already pretty strong stuff from all the characters and critically, episodes have been received on-par or, better than most of season two.

But there’s been no spectacle. No spectacle = no onslaught of fandom and viewers? Glee is basically back to where it started. It’s telling darkly funny and emotionally manipulative stories and seemingly because of it, it’s audience is back to where it began. (S1: 3.0~ w/ 7~ million overall). Is this Glee fandom burn out? Are people done finished with the crazy unfulfilled writing of season two? Or did people seriously just watch the show for Lea Michele singing Katy Perry songs?

I guess, like the kids in New Directions; the show can have a moment in the limelight, it just needs to remember normalcy and a Slushie is never far off.

*I do love how the Heroes narrative can be applied to the state of NBC right now.

This review contains vague spoilers.

The debut film of writer-director Gavin Wiesen, The Art of Getting By stars Freddie Highmore as George, a high school senior who is his own worst enemy.  George is crippled by the kind of existential angst most people don’t experience until they begin facing their mortality during a midlife crisis.  His fatalistic philosophy results in him disengaging from life and school until a chance encounter with Sally (Emma Roberts) atop the school roof.  From this point on, the film follows George as he struggles to overcome the inertia he had become accustomed to as his friendship with Sally begins developing into something more.

The Art of Getting By isn’t your typical Hollywood teen rom com.  George is not your everyman protagonist and there is no bad guy to generate conflict.  Rather, the conflict is generated by George’s approach to life – something which many reviewers have found to be highly frustrating, as George seemingly causes many of his problems and does little to overcome them.  It would be a mistake, however, to think that George’s passivity is a fault of the writing.  Rather, it is what makes the film work.  It would also be a mistake to think George is a character who doesn’t want anything: it is shown multiple times he does, but is afraid of putting himself out there to get it.  George is not someone everybody will relate to.  But for those who do, Wiesen’s script practically forces you to experience every emotion George experiences to such a point that the final act of the film becomes painful to watch.

Wiesen should be commended on crafting a story where the majority of conflict comes from within the protagonist as opposed to from external forces, creating a far more immersive experience than is to be had in more mainstream films of this genre.  The film resists mainstream conventions right up until the final five minutes; however this is no bad thing.  After being asked to relate with George so heavily during the rest of the film, anything less than a happy ending would have been way too much of a downbeat note to end the film on.  Instead the happy ending provides a pleasant amount of much-needed catharsis. 

Anchoring the script are the performances of Freddie Highmore and Emma Roberts, who both adeptly portray characters who are simultaneously naive, cynical, self-assured and lost.  Towards the end of the film, Sally makes a choice that could easily turn the viewers against her, yet both Roberts and the writing do such a good job of showing where she’s coming from that the audience is able to sympathize with her decisions even if they don’t agree with them.

Complimenting the writing and acting is the direction.  George is in every scene of the film and the direction ensures you experience everything firmly from his point of view – when the world feels alien to him, it feels alien to the viewer and when he’s exploring the city, so too is the viewer.  New York is also presented as being a character in its own right, adding to the relatability of the film while rich red, blue and green hues imbue the film’s color palette with a dream-like quality.  Honorable mention should be given to the soundtrack, which features Mates of States and The French Kicks among others and is well worth picking a listen independently of the film.

Ultimately, The Art of Getting By won’t be for everyone and how much you enjoy it depends heavily on how much patience you have for its protagonist.  For those disposed to having the odd existential crisis from time to time, however, this film should serve to be a very rewarding – if at times, painful — experience.

Pasha: Welcome to our first Intercut dual review/discussion. To pilot this we’re going to talk about last week’s first issue of Angel and Faith. The first thing I noticed about this was how familiar the characters felt after feeling distant from most of the characters in Buffy Season 8.

Jamie: First off, we need to congratulate Christos Gage on getting the characters right. Have you been familiar with his work before this?

Pasha: I haven’t read any of Gage’s stuff. I wasn’t really sure what to expect from his writing as I’m always iffy about people who didn’t work on the shows being drafted in. But I think he wrote the characters better than some of the more familiar Season 8 writers.

Jamie: You said it a few days ago, and it’s stuck with me since. It’s like we’re talking about the TV series again.

Pasha: Yeah, I never really felt the need to discuss Season 8. There were a few issues that stuck with me after reading them — “The Chain” and issue 40 — but it wasn’t really common. With Angel and Faith, I can feel myself eagerly awaiting the next issue ‘cos I actually want to know what’s going to happen.

Jamie: This season, even from a first issue, just seems so much more focused than the last. It’s definitely an issue that deals with the impact of Season 8 heavily, though. For that reason, I’m very curious how the Gage will navigate through the arcs, creating new enemies for our infamous duo to fight instead of just relying on the past. (Which is very important too, for obvious reasons.)

Pasha: I’m also curious about that. As promising as Pearl and Nash seem, I hope they’re only the big bads for this arc. I’d like to see Whistler as a recurring big bad throughout the season though as I’ve always been bothered by the fact he was only ever in two episodes of Buffy.

Jamie: Speaking of the past, what do you make of Giles’ flashbacks? As a timeline and continuity nut, I’m still unsure about it all. I want to place it sometime during season 8 now.

Pasha: I think it’s gotta be from sometime during early Buffy based purely on his wardrobe. But then the demon girl didn’t seem to age. But maybe girls with demons in them don’t age…

Jamie: I appreciate characters like Whistler because of how little they show up. They’re the world just outside of what we see, and indeed although he was only he two episodes of Buffy, he’s very much an Angel character in that sense. Angel has a scope that Buffy doesn’t.

Pasha: I’ve always loved how vast Angel seems to be in scope… which is a concern I kind of have with this season. I’m worried that big parts of Angel the series will be missing in action. I’d very much like to see Wolfram and Hart again but I’m not sure that’s gonna happen.

Jamie: I’m more than happy to leave them to rest now now, for a while at least. Angel – and to an extent Faith – have always been characters that move around. The promise of Faith series, just her and her motorbike excited me for that season. She and him are restless. They have no attachments. The only person, really, who Angel may need to see is Connor.

Pasha: As you’ve mentioned both characters liking their mobility… what do we think of the London setting? I was wary when it was first announced as I try and avoid London as much as possible and I really liked Angel‘s LA setting, but I didn’t mind it too much in the comic. I think it helped I didn’t have to hear British people’s accents (being British, I’m allowed to say this).

Jamie: As I’m flicking through the issue now, I also have to just say how impressive Issacs is. Her artwork captures the dramatic, cartoonish and natural style that Jeanty tried to implement and perhaps made it even stronger and more defined.

Pasha: I have to say I think Isaacs’s art is a step up from some of the previous Season 8 stuff. It feels a lot more cinematic and the characters look a lot more adult than what we’ve been used to. I think it suits how Angel and Faith are both old souls.

Jamie: One of the things I’m excited about in this series is actually, seeing Buffy. If I remember right, she may appear in a flashback or two during it. It’s just something that hasn’t happened before in comic book Angel.

Pasha: I’m also looking forward to characters crossing over in various ways. Got to say at the moment though I’m very happy with Angel, Faith, Whistler and Giles getting the lion share of the focus. Speaking of Giles, what did you think of the cliffhanger at the end of the issue?

Jamie: The ending is okay. In the days leading up to it, I think the final page hype started to build up a little bit beyond what it was. The manner Angel says it seems very forced, but what will make the story work will absolutely be the execution. Hopefully it will lead too some very intriguing scenes between Angel and Faith as she tries (or forces!) him out of resurrecting him. The photo in the final page is also curious – presumably a young Giles with two women behind; one his mother and one his grandmother?

Pasha: I can’t shake the feeling… and I may have dreamt it… that Giles will be resurrected as a child. I realize that’s a dumb thought. But something in the last week made me think this might be a possibility. Either that or he’ll just be resurrected as something evil and Angel will have to kill him again. Assuming he’s resurrected at all. We’ve spent a lot of time talking about Angel and Giles: what do you think of Faith’s role so far?

Jamie: I love the woman Faith has grown into. She’s responsible, strong and still loves to party. Her little introduction with Nadira is fun, and I suspect it’ll eventually dovetail with Angel. As much as new baggage Twilight brings to Angel, I think one of the most reoccurring themes this season will be Acceptance. Angel’s main narrative has been of Redemption, but I think his actions as Twilight will eventually end with Acceptance for it. Similarly, I think Faith will have to Accept these horrible things her friend – and herself – have done.

Pasha: As much as I like who Faith’s grown into, I kinda miss the days of her stabbing people. But I can very easily imagine a situation where Angel’s latest redemption comes at the expense of Faith’s new found morals. She seems far too well adjusted right now and I just don’t see that lasting.

Jamie: Absolutely. I was thinking of writing that myself. If Acceptance is a theme, she lacks anything significant happening specifically too her. It’s nice and all, but it’s very Tara before she Saw Red.

Pasha: Ha, yeah, this very much feels like the calm before the storm for her. Was there anything else you wanted to add?

Jamie: I think we’ll end it with saying that this is a fantastic start, and continuation of the Buffyverse, but it’s just that. Season 2, 3 and 8 of the Buffy series seem to be very important to this series almost completely bypassing Angel’s own series. It’s not a bad thing, but something readers should ready themselves for as the story goes on.

Following the US successful of Torchwood‘s latest season, Miracle Day, the BBC have opted to begin production on more dramas with the Starz TV label.

The BBC have a history with US networks and have worked hard trying to stay in contact with the biggest US cablers, attempting to maintain a friendly relationship with the biggest premium supplier – HBO – with Ricky Gervais’ Extras notably being shown, and co-financing the historical epic Rome at the same time. Soon after, however, it became obvious that the BBC were only after certain types of programming and never striked an exclusivity deal with HBO even with their reputation for high quality dramas.

Shortly after Rome production ceased, the BBC begun working on a similar international historical soap opera; The Tudors, but this time, not with HBO as the partners: Showtime arrived and the show maintained relative popularity for the four years it was on. BBC had a certain freedom, they programmed Showtime shows such as Nurse Jackie, broadcast The Wire and won big with the popularity of AMC’s Mad Men.

This was until bSkyb came along and done everything BBC had been dodging: Sky Atlantic. Sky struck a million dollar deal to broadcast all future HBO programming and have access to their back catalogue that includes The Sopranos and Six Feet Under. They also purchased all future seasons of Mad Men. Simply put, this took away a lot of the freedom over the US TV market that they dominated in terms of availability. So the news that the BBC are now working with Starz, a new premium broadcaster, is intriguing because it might bring a newfound respect to the network of the trashy excellence of Spartacus (and outright trashiness of Torchwood). But considering their output thus far, and the Starz execs ideal of creating a dedicated niche for their shows, I can’t quite see what an original BBC/Starz co-production might look like and that’s troubling.

Going into this episode I was sure I was going to end up writing about the recent trend of cable shows having something that I’ve started to call hyper-serialisation, because, well, while it’s explanatory it also sounds damn cool. I also hope it makes more sense to the average person than using The Wire as a adjective like I have done for the past few years.

Breaking Bad’s ‘Open House’ continues the seasons focus on fleshing out the women of the cast. In fact, Marie arguably got more to do in the this episode than she has all series long. It’ reintroduce ideas that have laid dormant for a while and the show is slowly beginning to shape up the narrative for the rest of the season, or until Vince Gilligan gets bored again.

The pacing of all three episodes so far, including the intense-build of ‘Box Cutter’ is once again doing what all good books do, and as of late, most hyper-serialised shows do. It’s different to Mad Men, and it’s different to Boardwalk Empire. Those are shows about people, and almost every episode works as a small novella of their own. Breaking Bad can do fascinating stand-alone episodes like bottle episode of season three – The Fly – but it’s also a show that takes almost no time episode to episode, while also building up to an eventual shocking end. The plot, over both the series and the season, is as central to the show as individual episodes. Or chapters.  Functionally, shows like Breaking Bad and apparently Torchwood prefer to work their episodes like chapters in a book rather than entirely embracing the weeks in between each segment. I feel kind of awful putting Torchwood and Breaking Bad in the same sentence right now, but I think we will see over the course of the season that they are two attempts at doing the same thing.

Three episodes into Torchwood, I can’t even say its badness circles around to good again. It lacks the energy of 24, the Miracle Day itself has gotten severely boring and we’re constantly surrounded by nobody changing. It’s almost too ironic to say, but Torchwood: Miracle Day is completely lifeless. It’s not allowing us to see Gwen and Jack, the heart of the show, interact or even occupy much screentime. Breaking Bad is telling two opposite stories with Walt and Jesse, so although they aren’t always together, we’re invested in their lives. Well, I’m invested in them. Torchwood’s third episode, “Dead of Night”, attempts to crack it’s characters so we can throw some emotions into them for once, but all it does is make the overarching Miracle Day all the more obvious. I’ll go as far as saying giving individual Torchwood seasons a subtitle and making them so widespread is the worst possible thing a show can do for it’s characters.

To bring up the book narrative again; a chapter of characters working out their lives amidst a crisis can work. It’s only a chapter and it’s there’s always going to be forward momentum. Taking episodes out to celebrate moments of freedom for characters, as fun as they are, when there’s a mystery to be solved is incredibly awkward. If the show were just called ‘Torchwood’, like Fringe it may be able to tell stories that thematically fit into the larger narrative while digging deeper into the character. Then again, having the widespread phenomenon’s that the last two Torchwood seasons have done are almost asking for just a puzzle to be solved. They don’t allow character moments, or Russell T. Davies doesn’t know when to implement them, which may well be the case.

I begun this talking about this goofy hyper/super/awesome-serialisation thing, and all I really wanted to say is, in 140 characters or less: Why are shows like Sons of Anarchy and Torchwood doing seasons that work towards a future goal rather than enjoying their current journey.