NYPD Blue – Season 1 – Episode 1: Pilot

Original airdate (episode 4): March 19, 1985

The episode starts by throwing us right into the middle of a case. Here was see a detective, Andy Sipowicz (played by Dennis Franz) being examined over his arrest of a suspected mobster. The case is thrown out, and the ensuing plot follows Sipowicz as he gets drunk, threatens the mobster, and eventually gets shot. His partner, detective John Kelly (played by David Caruso) shakes things up at various mob-run businesses in the hopes of getting them to help turn over the one who shot Sipowicz. He’s also going through a divorce, and is trying to force himself to move on.

The first episode was fantastic. It was well written, well paced, and handled all the characters perfectly. A show like ‘Moonlighting’ gets bogged down with more than four characters, because they don’t know how to introduce them where we learned anything about them. They also put too much emphasis on the characters that had minor to no importance to the plot of show and this took away the chance of building on the characters that were important. NYPD Blue handled all the characters perfectly. You quickly formed opinions on them simply based on the dialog or scenes, and none of the scenes were pointless. The plot itself was interesting and easy to follow without being too complicated, which shows these days tend to be. Hopefully the rest of the season can retain this level of entertainment and that this isn’t simply a case of a pilot being reworked until perfect and then the rest of the series falling off as the scripts get rushed out. ‘ER’ premiered in 1994, the following season, and I see now how much ‘ER’ borrowed from ‘NYPD Blue’. It’s interesting that feel as though ‘ER’ gets more credit in television history than Blue, and I wonder if that’s because Blue got too much negative attention due to the nudity, which is really too bad. Obviously both shows were very popular, and I could be remembering things differently, I just feel as though this series is being forgotten as time passes and that’s too bad.

Before watching this show, I was curious about how I would appreciate David Caruso’s role. Honestly I assumed he would be no different than he is on CSI:Miami, but he actually is. He’s not a great actor by any means, but the fact that he actually shows emotion and humility surprised me. Where did it all go wrong with him? Obviously he’s the reason CSI:Miami is unwatchable. I don’t know a single person, regardless of age, gender, or intellect that enjoys his performance on that show. At what point did he decide that all emotions were that stoic staring performance that he deliverers in every scene. It almost angers me. While actors such as George Clooney figured it out and got better and better over time, he got worse to the point that all he’s doing is staring and delivering lines. I’m interested to see if he starts mailing it in during ‘NYPD Blue’.

As for the nudity, I guess this was just a way to get people to watch the show. I remember at the time everyone talked about it before hand, but I don’t remember how it was received. How I receive it now is that it was ridiculous. It was obviously just stuck in there to grow a controversy, which is unfortunate because the show stood on it’s own fine. I won’t venture to guess whether more people tuned in to see the nudity and loved the rest of the show or if more people didn’t tune in and missed out on a great show, but I will stand by my statement that it was unnecessary. The big scene was a sex scene that consisted of the same butt being shown as the woman (Amy Brenneman playing Officer Janice Licalsi) rolled off and on and back off of Caruso. It was especially ridiculous since that’s all it was, rolling off and back on him. Sheesh, if you’re going to create a controversy over a little butt nudity, at least make the scene enjoyable. Regardless, it was unnecessary.

So, in conclusion, I’m very glad I chose ‘NYPD Blue’. I’m already excited for the second episode thanks to two cliffhangers, one of which I honestly didn’t see coming (officer Janice Licalsi is tied to the mob!). I hope the rest of the first season keeps up this quality, and I have feeling it does. This is much, much better than ‘Moonlighting’.

Normally, as I write about shows, I’d like to watch one episode at a time, write about it, and then move onto the next. For some reason the last episode of the last series I watched (Moonlighting) put me in such a bad mood, I never wanted to write about it, despite starting on a new series. The episodes of ‘The Office’ were so short they were easy to knock two at a time, and thus after a mere three days I’d watched all six episodes from season one.

I have multiple friends who prefer the British version of ‘The Office’ to the US version. I’ve read many articles by people who also prefer the British version. Recently, in an article in the Onion, Aziz Ansari (who I admire as a comedian) called the British version “…like my favorite thing in comedy, maybe ever.” But after watching the entire first season, I have to say it’s not high on my list of favorite programs, and definitely not ahead of the US version.

Episode 1 – Downsize, Episode 2 – Work Experience

The first two episodes were disappointing to me BECAUSE I’d seen the US version. Obviously they aired well before the US came about, but the fact that the US version took so many jokes from these first two episodes hurt my enjoyment (a stapler in Jell-O!).  So, while I should knock the US version down a few notches for straight up stealing from the British version I feel the opposite way. (I’m very tormented by this…)

Episode 3 – The Quiz

Starting with episode 3, the series finally deviates from the US version. Sadly, that’s not a good thing for the series. Am I wrong in thinking that David Brent is simply evil? At least Michael Scott has redeeming qualities (i.e. he likes the people he works with). In ep3, we watch as Brent belittles his new temp, trying to prove his intellectual superiority. He attaches himself to an equally crappy fellow, Chris Finch, to win some pointless quiz show year after year, and then upon losing they take Tim’s shoes and throw them over a building for some reason. I could make the argument that David Brent is a complicated individual torn between low self-esteem and high self-interest, but it’s my opinion that he’s simply a shitty person.

Episode 5 – The New Girl

Again Brent is in poor form, as he A) Hires a secretary despite needing to cut back, and B) Hires the female applicant solely because she is female. After work, he then goes to a bar where he hits on a handful of various women, including the new secretary.

Episode 6 – Judgment

Brent takes a higher job, which basically forces the closure of his old office and firing of many of his old employees. At no point is he shown to have a conscience, and while his dim-witted-naivety is humorous at times, it doesn’t change the fact that he is basically a bad person.

I don’t dislike bad people as characters in TV shows, but there’s something about him that irks me. There have been characters on Television that don’t bother me despite them being poor ‘human-beings’. Tony Soprano is a good example. Like David Brent, Tony was always looking out for his own interests. Even his family was only there to service his own needs as a part of his perfect image. But somehow when watching The Sopranos, I came to enjoy delving into Tony’s life. Could it have been because we saw his weak moments? We saw weakness in David Brent as well. Could it be that Brent was stupid? There have been lots of stupid characters in TV history that I don’t dislike. Woody from ‘Cheers’, Rose from ‘Golden Girls’, Joey from ‘ Friends’, even Michael Scott’s stupid, but I generally like him… BUT, now that I think about it… do I? The past few seasons of the US Office have been unbearable at times. Also, those others I mentioned never carried the show. Could it be that I don’t like stupid people as lead characters in my Television shows? I’m not the most intellectual person and tend to lean towards the popular opinion, hence my love for television over movies, comedies over drama, and me having no problem with laugh-tracks. So why would I dislike stupid characters?

Or, Could it be that I’m simply biased against all British humor regardless of quality? I don’t know, but sadly, I feel as though I must apologize for not liking the British version of ‘The Office’. I’ve let Aziz down.

BTW, Why was Donna always wearing purple?

As I finish watching the 6^th and final episode of ‘Moonlighting’ I ask myself, ‘Why am I doing this?” I honestly don’t know. I don’t want to write for a living. I don’t want to be a famous blogger. And I’m not very good at doing those things apparently, either. I feel as though I should keep plugging along, but it feels like work. Is that the point?

Regardless, I’m moving on the British version of ‘The Office’ now. Cheers.

P.S. The 6^th episode of ‘Moonlighting’ was fairly forgettable which is why it was hard for me to write something about it afterward. There was a guy who was acting spy like. He ended up dead, with some other people after him. In the end there was an Asian guy who was to be assassinated, but Maddie and David foiled the attempt with pies. Yes, Pies.

Perhaps, the reason it was so hard for me to write about this series is because it was pointless fluff. But that’s what I like (as I mentioned earlier my favorite series is ‘Friends’). Maybe I’ll do better with a more ‘acclaimed’ show, or maybe not. Regardless, as I said, I’m moving on to the British ‘Office’.

Original airdate (episode 5): March 26, 1985

I wasn’t able to watch an episode yesterday, so I watched two episodes in a row tonight. The funny thing is both episodes fit together well. Both had very ‘noir-esque’ plot lines that featured a murder early in the episode and then worked around various characters until the end when the criminal was revealed.

The first episode I watched revolved around the ‘murder’ of a late-night radio host who is killed on-air. The suspects include his mistress, her husband, and the station manager. The second episode had the murder of an author on a murder-mystery train, and the suspects are his wife, his technical advisor, and a handful of mystery buffs. The change of formula once again (from a Miami Vice rip-off to a Remington Steele rip-off to a Hitchcock rip-off) is greatly appreciated. I feel as though this could be the formula that eventually makes this show a success. There’s something to the naïve quality the Shepherd brings to the screen that works well with the viewer’s naivety (brought on by lack of clues shown) that builds tension naturally as opposed to the fluff that was the elevator chase in episode one.

I would never call myself a mystery buff, despite enjoying an episode of Law and Order or CSI in my past, but these past two episodes were highly entertaining. Unlike clichéd shows such as those I noted above where the first suspect is always wrong and the real criminal ends up being a random person in the back-ground, these episodes made everyone a suspect right from the beginning and worked from there. With nearly every television show it takes a while for the production team to find their flow, and I’m hoping that this is the flow of this show. Theoretically, I was spellbound, trying to figure out who the murder could possibly be with so many suspects (though in reality it wasn’t that mind-blowing during the reveal, but I won’t ruin it like I’ve ruined past episodes because, as I said, both were honestly entertaining).

As an aside, I find the idea of the radio host-romance very interesting. I don’t personally listen to much radio, so I don’t know if there is still a lot of late-night content directed to the lonely-hearted or if it’s a byproduct of an era that died with the passing of Wolf Man Jack. What I find interesting is this image of a woman finding comfort in the voice of a man ala ‘Sleepless in Seattle’. This is very different than the image of womanly lust that Sex and the City brought us in the late 90s (aside from the Miranda/Sausage romance). Could it be that in the past the male/female relationship, could have been nearly the exact opposite of female oppression countries such as Iran which force their women to only be heard and not seen? I don’t know, and I think I’ve gotten beyond my level of knowledge or discussion at this point (plus, I must admit, I’m a tad drunk while writing this tonight)…

I’d also like to discuss the idea of romance between characters on a series. Everyone knows that when a couple pairs up the series always goes down-hill from there. Thats why I like the idea that a show such as ‘How I Met Your Mother’ will never (hopefully) reveal who the actual mother is, because thats when the show will die. I did some research on ‘Moonlighting’ to find out that Maddie and David hook up during season 3. I guess that it’s nice to know that for the remainder of this season I won’t have to deal with that, and can revel in the tension brought on by their not hooking up. The funny thing is that the actual actors refused to hook up for fear of it ruining the show and in the end I don’t know that it would have mattered as much as when their fictional characters ended up doing the deed, fictionally…

Episode three is another entertaining episode of ‘Moonlighting.’ Willis’ trademark-snark is back, and we see Shephard’s character trying to evolve as she attempts to do some detective work herself. The series seems to be coming together at this point, and they’ve definitely worked out the pacing which plagued the pilot. There was no long music segment, which hopefully says that the show is not going to end up being a Miami Vice rip off, and the final fight-scene was much shorter than in previous episodes.

The formula that probably made this show a success is starting to come together. Take some David Addison quick-witted remarks, add some Maddie Hayes sex appeal, multiply with a ridiculous plotline that would fit easily into any 80s drama, and you have something. It’ll be interesting to see how this balance lasts as the series progresses.

According to show creator, Glenn Gordon Caron, NBC didn’t want Willis because they didn’t find it believable that there’d be an attraction between him and Shephard. Because of this they told him to not have them have a relationship in the pilot. Through the third episode, it seems as though that this verdict has continued, which is nice. The few moments seem more natural and less forced than they would be if there was a finish line, so to speak.

This episode revolves around a company that creates weapons for the government. Someone is apparently stealing these plans and selling them to a competing company. At first it appears as thought the culprit is using psychic powers to do this; sadly, Shephard believes this. When it turns out to not be a psychic, but an inside job an incredible laser battle ensues after which Willis and Shephard obviously prevail. For some reason this laser battle, straight out of a James Bond film, didn’t bother me in the slightest. Perhaps the climax of the first episode, and the ridiculous whose-the-best hit man battle of the second episode have slowly trained me to not bother with physics or reality, while watching these shows wrap themselves up. I wonder if after I finish all 6-episodes, will I be able to revisit the first, and not have the clock tower sequence bother me?

Unlike the first episode, which was drawn out trying to increase the tension throughout, this episode had a more tightly woven plot. While the story line was every bit as ridiculous as the previous one, it didn’t have the WTF scene that left me angry like the clock tower scene in the pilot. Because of this, the episode was much more entertaining despite having less Bruce Willis delivered singers.

The plot of this episode revolved around a hit man who was dying (Pat Corley as Frankie Tate). Apparently other hit men were trying to knock him off as some sort of trophy, of course why knocking off a sick old man is a source of pride I don’t know… The older hit men hires Willis and Shephard to find his ‘son’ (Gary Graham as Michael Wrye), which turns out to actually be the current best hit man. The episode climaxes in a shoot-out involving the two in the hopes of determining who the best really is.

Obviously, after reading this plot, you may wonder why I feel this ridiculous plot is so much better than the previous ridiculous plot involving the watch and Nazi diamonds. First, the plot wasn’t so convoluted with random other characters. Aside from the two main hit men, there was just one other hit man (Tim Robbins!) who failed to kill Frankie Tate early in the episode. In contrast the previous episode had the guy with the watch, the Nazi, two other random people, and a guy with a Mohawk, none of whom seemed to be working together. One reason, I believe, the plot worked is because since this was a single hour program and not a two-hour pilot, they were forced to make the plot as tight as possible. The first episode felt like a sloppy movie instead of a two part television show, and thus when they got to the end of the pilot they realized they had to wrap things up a little too quickly than they probably would have liked. The second episode was paced well throughout.

An interesting thing is that on TV.com this episode rates very low (7.9) compared to the rest of the episodes the first season and especially compared to the pilot (9.1/9.2). Perhaps people are simply turned off by hit man story lines (perhaps the 30mil take of ‘Assassins’ also proves this point). Perhaps people were disappointed in the lack of Willis zingers. Regardless in my opinion this episode was hands down better. It was more entertaining. Didn’t anger me with ridiculous scenes. Didn’t bore me with long-drawn out music numbers or elevator chases. If the rest of the season is as good or better than this than I’ll be happy.

Fun Fact: Listen as Willis describes the basis for the show ‘Wings’!

It was hard figuring out what show I wanted to start with; there are obviously many, many TV series that have been produced over time. I wanted a series that was somewhat popular when it aired, but now, no longer talked about. I wanted a series that wasn’t cheesy, yet also isn’t so critically acclaimed that there are a ton of websites devoted to dissecting it episode by episode. I also wanted a series that I could start with episode 1, and something I hadn’t seen too many times before. I chose ‘Moonlighting’

I had never watched ‘Moonlighting’ before a few years ago, when I purchased the boxed set of seasons 1 and 2. After purchasing the DVDs I made it through season 1 and a few episodes of Season 2 before losing interest (and disc 4 apparently). I remember it being funny enough, but nothing amazing. Because it didn’t make much of an impression on me, good or bad, I figure I might as well give it another shot.

I’m only watching season 1, which consists of 6 episodes.

According to IMDB, ‘Moonlighting’ is about, “the quirky cases of an ex model and a wiseguy detective who co-run a private detective agency”. Bruce Willis plays David Addison, the ‘wiseguy detective’, while Cybill Shepherd plays Maddie Hayes, the ‘ex-model’ who owns the detective agency.

This first episode is very reminiscent of an episode of Miami Vice. There are long sequences of no-dialogue, with music setting the tone. Unfortunately these types of scenes are no longer groundbreaking, as they once were, and drag on seemingly forever, especially one scene that was basically an elevator chase. It’s also similar to Miami Vice in the way it drags out the story line (in this case over and hour) before giving us any real idea of what’s going on, and then finally wrapping things up much too quickly. These similarities worry me because, honestly if I wanted to watch a season of Miami Vice I would have (I have season 2 waiting to be watched right now).

In ‘Moonlighting’, unlike Miami Vice, the characters end up carrying the show despite a very week story line. Bruce Willis is great in the pilot, throwing out John McClane-esque zingers left and right. He steals every single scene he’s in. According to Wikipedia, when casting for ‘Moonlighting’ the creator, “Glenn Gordon Caron had to fight with ABC to put Willis in the lead roll,” but it’s a good thing he did. The show would have been nearly unwatchable without him. Cybill Shepard is obviously very easy to look at, and the sexual tension between the two some-how works, but she is definitely the weaker of the two stars.

As for the plot… Sheesh. What a crappy plot. The funny thing is that they drug it out for so long that we wouldn’t know how crappy the plot was until we were way too invested to turn it off. The mystery revolved around a watch. Various people were trying to steal the watch. In the end it turned out that the watch didn’t work, but did include longitude/latitude coordinates, which led to the location of some Nazi diamonds. The climactic scene atop a clock tower was horrible, and made me regret choosing this show as the first to blog about.

Rant: They’re on a clock tower. Bruce Willis is supposed to be unable to climb, but obviously keeps jumping down on his own. At this point Shepherd is supposed to be a better climber and shimmies right up. Whatever. Then she somehow clings Spiderman-like to a giant marble divide between the stones she climbed and the clock. When she gets stuck on the clock hand, Willis goes and gets a ladder. WTF! Get the ladder in the first place! Then there’s this whole thing where the ladder falls over but gets hung off the edge of the building. Then they climb out on it while hanging 200 feet in the air on an aluminum ladder. I can’t even describe how bad it was and give it justice. There’s a part where Willis climbs back out on the ladder to avoid the Nazi, yet the Nazi follows him. Why not take Shepherd’s character as hostage and have Willis throw you the diamonds? What’s the point of climbing out on the stupid ladder? And then there’s the part in the first place when the ladder’s falling over and instead of pushing it back to the clock, Willis is the one who lays it out over the edge of the building, WHILE Shepherd’s hanging on! /rant

In conclusion, while I enjoy Die Hard as much as the next guy, if the cases don’t get more interesting, and the climactic scenes don’t get less horrible, I’m not sure if I’ll be able to finish this season, despite it only being 6 episodes long.

Fun Fact: Watch for the scene inside Shepherd’s house where one of the bad-guys removes his coat to reveal that his shirt is actually see-thru mesh!

People have used Blogs to showcase themselves as potential authors. People have used blogs to brag about their fabulous lifestyles (or lack thereof). People have used blogs to write about their kids and animals. I don’t aspire to be an author (I don’t think). I do have a wildly fabulous life, but don’t plan on bragging about it (that’s what Twitter’s for). I do have animals (but no kids), though I doubt anyone wants to read about how awesome my guinea pigs are (Yet, I bet there’s already a Blog like that).

I love television. I love it’s long format for story-telling despite the fact that, usually, over time the ‘story’ falls apart as people try and stretch the series on forever. The medium of television lets you reveal characters slowly, lets you watch characters evolve, lets tension build, and lets it’s viewers experience moments apart from the story to think about the show more in depth while in the midst of the story-telling. Films lock the viewer in for 90-150 minutes, and thats all the time the story has to develop and resolve, and all the time the viewer has to experience, think about, and disect that story. Even vast film trilogies such as the ‘Lord of the Rings’ equal less screen-time than a single season of most series on television.

I especially love ‘bad’ television, or as I call it ‘entertaining’ television. My favorite series of all-time is ‘Friends’. I don’t know what my second favorite series is. If you simply cannot read a blog written by someone who loves ‘Friends’ I understand if you move along. There’re plenty of other blogs out there.

There’re also plenty of Blogs by people who review things. People already review TV-shows, as well as films, CDs, video games, etc. And while I feel as though I don’t have anything special to add to all those various reviews, I do feel as though that’s simply what I want to talk about. In my original post I wrote about how much I miss writing essays in college. Ideally I’d like to get into that, but I feel that I need to set a schedule for myself to get into the groove. Thus here is my plan:

- I will watch a season of a series. That series could be a comedy, drama, dramedy, whatever, but the season will not be the current season of said series.

- I will write a review of each episode I watch as well as an overall review of the series.

- Once I’m done with that season, I can continue to the next, or jump to another series altogether.

- That’s it.

I do not have a facebook account, yet I want one. I don’t really want to keep up with the people I knew in high school. I don’t really want to keep up with many of the people I knew in college. The people I do want to keep up with, I call or write e-mails to on a some-what regular basis. Those who I’ve stopped calling or e-mailing, even if for no apparent reason, I see no reason why I must force them to continue knowing what I’m doing; yet for some reason I do. I’ve avoided getting a facebook account, but that has caused me to find other forms to let people know what I feel about things unimportant.

I started tweeting six months ago. I limited myself to contacting with people using only 140 characters and sometimes a picture. After six months, my tweets can pretty much be boiled down to jokes and me bitching about sporting events. Obviously I don’t have much more to say, or my tweets would be more varied. If my whole existence can be trimmed to around 1000 characters a day, I should be able to get by with no other forms of social media. Yet, for some reason I’ve decided to start a blog.

Facebook allows you to write short notes to everyone or to specific people, and it lets you read the notes others have written. Twitter does this as well. Facebook allows you to post up photos to show people. Flickr (which I also have an account with) accomplishes this same thing. Because I already have a twitter account, and a flickr account (as well as a youtube account, of course), then there’s really no reason for me to want a facebook account. Realistically, though, I should only want a facebook account.

Someone eventually will read this far. That person could be a friend of mine. They could be someone I don’t know. Or it could just be me, a few months from now, re-reading what I’ve written. That person might wonder, what the point of this blog is. I wonder that as well. I started the blog, I should know. Most blogs have a reason for being. Some people review movies, some write about cars, some just have a person do a singular thing every single day and write about that. I had hoped to write some essays. I’ve recently read two books by Chuck Klosterman. The two books I read reminded me how much I used to love writing essays at school.

I attened The University of Texas, and graduating with a degree in Radio/TV/Film. I took many classes where we had to discuss various radio and TV programs or films. I loved creating ‘well-written’ essays that compared Bewitched to the struggles of homosexuality, or Sex in the City with the four types of feminist. The majority of my arguments were made despite me not really believing them. This is the thing that I found so entertaining.

Because I miss writing such articles, I thought I should start a blog. Perhaps I will write similar articles here. Perhaps not.

Now, I’d like to say something to the people who’ve read this far. Thank you. The real reason I’m putting this out there is because I want you to know something. What that is, I don’t know, but I will put it in this blog. Or perhaps I will put it on twitter. Or perhaps it’ll be a photo you can find on flickr. Or a simple video on youtube. Sadly, though, the one place you won’t find this information is on facebook. And sadly I probably should just have stuck with facebook in the first place.