While it’s not a show I’ve ever written about in any detail on the blog, I’ve probably given enough clues that I am a huge fan of NBC’s Parks and Recreation. I was one of many who tuned it out in the first season (not being an Office fan at all) but caught up on the second season through word of mouth, and became a die-hard supporter by the time that the delayed third season finally kicked off. It’s got one of the strongest ensemble casts in recent years, an idiosyncratic small town universe that’s fast become a real-world equal to the Springfield of The Simpsons, and probably the biggest heart on any contemporary sitcom.

However, there’s been a bit of a brewing discontent about some choices made in the fourth season’s plot, notably the decision to have main character Leslie Knope run for city council. The story has raised no small debate, ranging from asking if Leslie is in fact a corrupt politician to blatantly saying she’d sacrificed her role as a feminist icon. And I haven’t been immune to the discussion, offering some regular post-episode concerns on Twitter that have given the impression I’m worried about the show’s direction. At one point in particular, after watching the episode “Bowling for Votes,” I took to Twitter to seek some therapy, as her behavior in the episode struck me as “incredibly insufferable.”

That comment caught the eyes of my good friend Cory Barker, who took some time off from editing his master’s thesis to trade a few emails with me about our feelings on Leslie Knope, the story arc she’s found herself in and the way the character’s been perceived in the media this season. It was a nice long chat that helped us both articulate our feelings on the show, as well as hash through some of the other pieces that have been written and trade some theories as to what direction the show could take both before and after election day.

You can find the whole text of our exchange over at TV Surveillance. Fans of our podcast collaborations will be disappointed there are no impressions (well, technically one if you look hard enough) but will certainly be pleased there is seventy percent less stammering when I write out my thoughts as opposed to speaking.

After having been somewhat positively disposed towards ABC’s Once Upon A Time when it first premiered, I found myself steadily losing interest as we got deeper into the season. Partially it was a continually full queue of programming and catch-up projects as we headed for the end of the year, but also because the little things that bothered me in the early going kept not improving. I still enjoyed the performances and occasionally parts of the story, but I found less and less to keep it appointment viewing as time went on and finally jettisoned it after the eighth episode.

But Monday night, there was nothing in my Sunday drama backlog – having already seen the Luck pilot during its 2011 sneak peek – so I thought it couldn’t hurt to give the newest episode “Fruit of the Poisonous Tree” a shot to unwind. Plus, this was the episode centered on the Chicken Man himself, Giancarlo Esposito, so it had a natural appeal that worked past my general apathy for the programming. I thought it would be mostly harmless, and figured if any episode would be able to reawaken my positive feelings towards the show it would be this one.

Did it? Short answer: no. Long answer? Well, let’s just say there were a lot of tweets like this one going out during viewing.

But in a way, I suppose I should thank “Fruit of the Poisonous Tree” for being as bad as I found it for two reasons. First of all, it ensured that I’ll never watch another episode of this show again; and secondly, it served as a checklist for the many things Once Upon A Time does that I find so immensely frustrating. Unlike its NBC cohort Grimm, where I really do believe some simple tightening up of the overarching story and supernatural world would elevate it from second-tier, Once Upon A Time has flaws so deeply ingrained I don’t believe the show’s ever going to get better than what it is.

Let’s begin with the most obvious problem the show has: the writing is terrible. I don’t mean to belittle the prior accomplishments of Edward Kitsis & Adam Horowitz, Liz Tigelaar or Jane Espenson,* but there’s no other way to say it. It lacks any subtlety in its presentation, spelling out its themes in speeches that are delivered so self-seriously they cross the line into goofy. This episode’s theme of “all actions have consequences” was hammered into the viewer with every decision made by the characters. Emma weighs the concept of going against Regina with dirty tricks because of what Henry will think, while Mary Margaret continues her affair with James and stammers over her rationalization. In the fairy tale world, the Genie of the Lamp is freed with a wish** and given one himself, only to never use it because he’s seen all the ways they fail… until he uses it anyway. Every episode, the show clearly has an idea it wants to hit, and just piles on the references until it’s sure you got the point.

*Okay, we can still belittle the execrable Torchwood: Miracle Day.

**Resolving in 30 seconds what it took Disney’s Aladdin almost 90 minutes to achieve. Groan.

In many ways, the show’s increasingly messy attitude toward its big picture is starting to remind me of a show from last year I absolutely despised, FX’s American Horror Story. AHS failed for me for a lot of reasons, but one of the biggest is that it kept incorporating horror elements and scare tactics one after the other, to the point that it lost sight of why any of those elements worked in context. Similarly, I’m noticing that Once Upon A Time‘s desire to include absolutely every fairy tale they can think of is completely ruining its ability to tell a coherent story, or even care about the individual elements I like.

This episode in particular was an egregious example of it, thanks to how they decided to explain the past of the Magic Mirror. Yes, I can buy that the Magic Mirror was once a magical being in love with the Evil Queen, and I can buy that his affection would be what damned him to imprisonment and break his cardinal rule about a wish. But when you ask me to believe he was also the Genie of the Lamp, a being from a completely different fantasy realm? And that the person who frees him is the father of Snow White? And they just happened to find each other on the same beach? You’ve crossed the realm from creative license to simply inbreeding your fables.

You’re also not earning any points by casting Giancarlo Esposito as that genie and dressing him in an outfit better suited to an organ grinder monkey, which gets to my second point: this show has a remarkable cast and squanders them to a fault. He’s clearly trying his best here, but so much of it feels underplayed – the opening scene between him and Richard Schiff’s King Leopold played like a bad middle school Shakespeare play. I’m willing to admit that Breaking Bad has raised expectations about what material Esposito should be given, but the Genie just had no character to speak of and was impossible to take seriously. His real-world version was much more believable though as a man who seemingly lost everything, and credit to him for pulling out Gus’s poker face to try keeping viewers in the dark.

And this isn’t a new thing either, as we’ve seen with every character who’s been given a spotlight episode. Josh Dallas, Ginnifer Goodwin, Jamie Dornan, Raphael Sbarge and particularly Robert Carlyle have done a competent job handling both real and fantasy sides of their characters, but you can’t take any of their character growth seriously when they telegraph every one of their moves in their words and gestures (and the equally unsubtle music cues). The central conflict at the show has also been stalling for weeks: once again Morrison had nothing to play save stony glares directed at Parilla when she got between her and Henry*, and Parilla could only offer lines that were so cliché “I’m the all-powerful villain and I want you to know it” groaning is the only conscious reaction.

*Oddly enough, the thing I hated the most about the first few episodes, namely the Henry character and Jared Gilmore’s acting, has been somewhat subdued as the show’s gone on. He was absolutely intolerable in the fifth episode where his explanation for believing in the fairy tale world was along the lines of “There has to be more than this” and since then he seems to have only had a scene or two per episode. I still don’t like him, but the hate has either cooled or spread to many other targets.

And of course we should touch on the obvious: for all its lavish decoration and aspirations of epicness, this show is starting to look really cheap. Abuse of the green screen seems to be endemic to ABC these days (Revenge has been particularly laughable) and the grandeur of the castle was sorely lacking. The costumes seem like they were taken from The Borgias‘ scrap pile, and the production team also continues to be incapable of rendering any animal – bad CGI deer and worse CGI dragons were joined by a pair of unbelievably fake snakes. I know network drama doesn’t have the funds cable does, but for how well it’s doing in the ratings you think they’d throw it a bone.

Once Upon A Time has remained a hit for ABC as time’s gone on, and it’s certain to be renewed – but for the life of me I don’t understand why. I tried to defend it as being somewhat escapist when compared to the more serious dramas on Sunday nights, even as I said it was “kind of horrible,” but this episode just highlighted the fact that it’s losing whatever made it fun and completely deserves to lose the “kind of” qualifier. If you can’t pull out of the skid after 11 episodes – or make even a passable episode centered around one of 2011′s best actors – you don’t deserve my attention.

Stray Observations:

• This episode also apparently included a character called “The Stranger” who now has possession of Henry’s magic book, but since I haven’t seen the last two episodes where he was introduced I’ll refrain from comment. Short answer, he bores me and seems to have no reason to be in the show.
• Sidney’s real-world outfit reminds me way too much of Inspector Gadget, to the point I couldn’t keep myself from making jokes. “I’ll get you next time, Regina – next time!” “Mreeeooowww!” (Feel free to imagine me saying that in the Dr. Claw voice, as apparently a lot of you like that sort of thing.)
• Okay, the title of the show – referring to both the Evil Queen’s apples and a term for evidence obtained illegally – is kind of clever. I’ll give them that much.

Last Sunday, sandwiched between the juggernaut of the NFC/AFC championships and the surprising resilience of Once Upon A Time, NBC elected to burn off the two remaining episodes of their beleaguered drama Prime Suspect. The decision came as no surprise to anyone, given that it was essentially a dead show walking for weeks: it had ratings that were abysmal even by NBC standards, a poorly received pilot that obscured the fact that the show improved, and a general apathy from fans of the original British series. At the Television Critics Association press tour earlier this month, NBC president Robert Greenblatt offered his condolences, saying that under different circumstances (i.e. on his old cable network) it would have been a hit and earned a five-year run.

In an effort to close the book and reorient to NBC’s hopefully brighter future, Greenblatt offered a brief joke, based on some of the show’s more controversial wardrobe choices: “Maybe I should just blame the hat and move on.”

Leaving aside my own personal feelings on Prime Suspect (most of which I share with The A.V. Club in that I thought it was a good-not-great cop show with a very strong core in Maria Bello), Greenblatt’s comments raised a point I’ve been meaning to talk about for some time: hats. Or more to the point, hats and the role they play in television. I’ve heard the argument several times that people don’t want to watch shows where men wear hats – typically in reference to the failure of such period pieces as Pan Am – and I consider that a cliché that unfairly impugns what a good hat does for a show. As a devoted fan of and sporter of hats (I typically sport a C-crown style brown felt fedora for those of you who are curious) I thought I’d take a little journey through some of television’s contemporary chapeaus and offer my take on just what a good show can do with them.

So, let’s begin with Detective Jane Timoney’s hat: a black straw trilby with a small brim and a white and grey band. This hat was maligned by most members of the press in the original promotional materials for the show – with “silly” being the most commonly uttered word – but I don’t think it deserved that attention because it did exactly what it was supposed to. Jane w/as set up at the start as an outsider in her department, and the hat gave a visual approximation to that to make her stand out against the dark-suited detectives who traded jabs with her. Additionally, Bello (who called it “her magic hat” in at least one interview) also did an admirable job using the hat as a prop, taking advantage of its crushable nature to make her seem more assertive: gesturing forcefully at a crime scene, or tossing it onto her desk with feeling when the occasion called for it.

If I had a problem with the hat, it’s that the type of hat itself doesn’t really lend itself to the sort of character. It certainly did the job of setting her apart from the rest of the squadroom, but it almost went too far. That particular style seems a bit too hipster for the character of Jane, and seemed as equally out of place in the comfort zones of her apartment or her father’s bar. Personally, I think it’d have been better served as a more traditional felt fedora or homburg, something that made her at least seem professional even if her behaviors didn’t go along with it. It probably wouldn’t have saved the show, but a little bit closer tailoring to character could have improved the perception going forward.

So that’s a hat that didn’t quite do what it needed to, but if I need an example of a hat that does in spades, I don’t need to look any further than FX’s Justified and its leading man Timothy Olyphant as U.S. Marshal Raylan Givens. Olyphant obviously sported an assertive cowboy hat on Deadwood, but the wide-brimmed tan Stetson Raylan sports puts that one to shame, and tells us at first glance what sort of person he is. Raylan’s core character trait is that he’s spiritually a lawman from the Old West – “born a hundred years too late” as his boss Art observed in the short story that inspired the pilot – and seeing him walk into a room with a hat like that perfectly projects that level of confidence to simultaneously impress and unsettle a room. It might not be the businessman’s Stetson that Elmore Leonard originally assigned to the character – a point that made for an excellent inside joke in the season three premiere – but by this point it’s hard to imagine him wearing anything else.

More to the point, the hat has become so intricately tied to Raylan that not only do we notice it when it’s vanished, its absence seems to change the whole dynamic of the show. Season one’s “Hatless” was certainly the best personification of it, with Raylan already off his game as a result of a week’s suspension, and losing the hat following a bar brawl just pushed him further off the path. The whole episode turned into Raylan trying to find his momentum again on a case for his ex-wife, and it was almost fitting that he not have the hat while off the reservation. Plus, his search for the hat wound up being as much a part of his character’s rejuvenation, particularly as he sparred with those who could help him in wonderful Leonard-esque style: “Wouldn’t it be easier just to go and buy yourself a new hat?” “Probably. But it ain’t easier I’m after.” Since then, the show hasn’t made as big a deal of the instances where he’s without his hat, but there’s always a clear feeling in installments like “Bulletville” and “Bloody Harlan” that not having it means Raylan’s nowhere near in control as we’d like him to be.

In other instances, hats might not only add something to the performance but go a step farther, serving as a transitional prop for the character. On AMC’s Breaking Bad, Walter White began wearing a black porkpie hat very early in the show’s run, combining it with a black windbreaker and fit-over sunglasses when he had to make public appearances as his “Heisenberg” persona. Starting out, the hat wasn’t taken seriously, much as Walter himself wasn’t taken seriously – he even tried using it as a prop for a weak joke with his wife following a three-day disappearance, which was as uncomfortable for her as it was for those of us who knew where he’d really been.

But as time went on, the porkpie became synonymous with Heisenberg, beginning at the start of season three when the only identifying image of Walt the Cousins had available was the now iconic pencil drawing of a man in hat and glasses. What started out as a somewhat silly piece of camouflage started to become almost menacing, and you could see Walt start to use it as an excuse to embrace his darker nature. That particular moment at the start of the season three finale “Full Measure,” when he puts on the hat and strides from his car to meet the vengeful Gus Fring was the clearest indication it had become a shield – the impotent scientist now carried himself like a criminal, and could finally articulate his points without an visible instance of fear. (They later tried to recapture that imagery in “Thirty-Eight Snub,” but it was too close to the original scene to feel truly impactful.)

Of course, this doesn’t mean to say that a hat needs to be at the forefront of a show. More often than not, you can use hats or hat-oriented discussion in limited doses to make a better point about both the character and the setting of the show. On Mad Men for instance, the topic came up in the discussion of the Nixon-Kennedy presidential race, and Pete made the observation that neither Kennedy nor Elvis wore hats – a point quickly shot down by the old guard of the firm. It’s a throwaway detail at first glance, but one that gets to the core of what Mad Men‘s about: the times they are a-changin’, and not everyone’s going to be able to move fast enough to keep up, even if it’s only starting with headgear.

And of course, as one of those old guard Don Draper’s hat is an important part of his image, even though it’s understated. He’s got no need to be flashy with it, it’s simply a piece of the armor and the image he’s built up for himself as the man in the gray flannel suit. To him, it’s the symbolism that matters, and in the second season premiere “For Those Who Think Young,” he proved just how much when two younger employees didn’t think to remove their hats in an elevator as a woman entered. He told them to take them off, and when they didn’t he did it for them. For a character whose career is littered with disrespect to women, it was a very respectful moment, even as it betrayed he’s likely not to be on the more progressive side of society.

For the lighter side, take a look at the Doctor from Doctor Who, more particularly his eleventh and current incarnation, who not only wears the most outlandish of the hats but has the best excuse for doing so: fezzes are cool now. It’s both a nod to some of the past Doctors, and a move that proves despite centuries of wandering and war there’s a childish ebullience buried in his personality that can never truly be suppressed. If he thinks it’s going to be fun, important or simply a new experience, he’s going to do it, societal norms and companion disapproval be damned. And even when his companions try to keep him from wearing one, he simply moves onto a Stetson and wears it almost as well as Raylan Givens. Why’d he pick that one? Same reason: Stetsons are cool now.

Finally, in using hats well there’s the complete opposite of using it sparingly: the shows where everyone wears one the time. Usually reserved for the period pieces (hence the cliché I mentioned at the start of this piece) this is even more challenging to pull off because not only do you have to pick the hat that matches the character but you also have to do it with the knowledge that you’re doing the same thing for at least a dozen other characters, and the caveat that they’ll be wearing it virtually all the time.

It’s difficult to do right, but not impossible, and in contemporary television HBO’s Deadwood is the clearest example of doing it right. Gunslingers like Wild Bill Hickock and the aforementioned Seth Bullock wore assertive cowboy hats (all the better to squint from under in a threatening fashion) while business types like E.B Farnum and Charlie Utter went for the more unassuming derby hats. A rough-and-tumble sort like Dan Dority would naturally need a more workman-like cowboy hat, while legally minded Silas Adams kept a tall top hat – unsurprisingly, the two’s personalities were as dynamically opposed as their chapeaus. If you didn’t have a hat in Deadwood, you needed to be able to back it up with something else – and in the case of Al Swearengen, his charisma was so potent and threatening no other prop was necessary.

HBO’s latest period piece Boardwalk Empire still hasn’t gotten to the point where it can truly call itself a spiritual successor to Deadwood, but in terms of knowing how to use its hats it’s at least gotten to the point that it can match the former. Indeed, Boardwalk treats its hats like status symbols: protagonist Nucky Thompson typically sports a pearl-gray homburg hat*, a dignified affair that gives him a sense of being untouched by the criminal elements he increasingly connects himself with. Professional gangsters “Lucky” Luciano and Meyer Lansky sport assertive fedoras, Chalky White switches between homburg and fedora depending on what side of the tracks he does business, middle manager Mickey Doyle has a quiet derby, and lower-level enforcers like Richard Harrow and Owen Sleater sport anonymous watch-caps. Many of Boardwalk‘s characters are clearly of the belief that clothes make the man, and the wardrobe department knows how to get the point across.

*And it also gives the show a spiritual connection to Brooklyn author Gilbert Sorrentino, for those of us who like that sort of thing.

But what’s really impressive about Boardwalk‘s hat choices is that it knows how to use them to illustrate character evolution and adaptation. Perhaps the best illustration of this was in “The Emerald City,” when still up-and-coming mobster Al Capone had a brief chat with an elderly Jewish man during a bar mitzvah, where not only was he told keeping his hat on was a sign of respect but that he was wearing “the cap of a boy.” In tandem with some harsh words from his superior Johnny Torrio he took the words to heart, and the next time we saw him he was in the snap-brim fedora that would be associated with his criminal empire. Jimmy Darmody made a similar change as he rose in the ranks of Torrio’s organization, and Agent Nelson van Alden made an inverse move after being forced into exile from his role as a Prohibition agent.

I really could go on and on with other examples – or even go old-school with J.R. Ewing’s assertive hat on Dallas or Gilligan’s floppy white cap on Gilligan’s Island – but I think by now the point’s been made. For all the talk about how people don’t want to watch a show where men wear hats, there’s a lot of instances where the hat can say as much as the performer can. NBC’s apparently picked up a bewildering slate of pilots for next season, and I do hope that if one of the ones that gets order to series has a conspicuously hatted protagonist, they won’t be turned away from featuring that in the promotion.

Because really, if done right, everyone should wear a hat. Hats are cool now.

Now, I’m not as astute a scholar of the networks as Cory and Myles are, so I won’t get into that world of trying to seriously answer the question of how NBC can put itself back together. What I can do however, as someone who writes about TV from a creative angle, is say that it’s damn hard to defend a network if it’s going to put a show like Are You There, Chelsea? on the air. While it’s probably the least bad of all the bad comedy pilots I’ve watched this season, it still belongs in that category – a lazily written, crude and occasionally shrill show that doesn’t take any steps to earning NBC back its glory.

Based on the books and stand-up comedy of Chelsea Handler, Are You There, Chelsea? centers on Chelsea Newman (Laura Prepon), a bartender in New Jersey with a reputation for being very friendly with both a bottle and the random men who walk through her bar’s doors. After a DUI she starts to think about changing parts of her life, though those changes don’t come close to improving it: her first move is to relocate to a new apartment that’s fortunately walking distance from the bar. Most of the other characters question her commitment, particularly her pregnant sister Sloane (played by the real-life Handler), who doesn’t find Chelsea’s irresponsibility an attractive quality for an aunt to have.

And it’s not very attractive to me either, which gets to the main problem of Chelsea in that it’s not particularly funny. I think I only laughed once or twice during the show at a joke about nuns (“I can count on a nun to be there Saturday night!” “That’s because she has to work Sundays!”) but barely cracked a smirk at anything else the show presented to me. In fact, I found myself more actively offended by certain elements – a few jokes centered too heavily around the bar’s little person barback and Chelsea’s ginger one-night stand, and the show’s audacity at playing a DUI for laughs actively angered me. At one point, I tuned out and started thinking that this is yet another comedy where it would be much funnier if it dove heavily into black humor, focused on just how much Chelsea’s drinking problem destroys her family and those around her, and the title* becomes a cry for help instead of something random.

*The title is also a problem, as being shortened from Handler’s original book now just makes it sound stupid. On Twitter during the Chelsea TCA panel, at Todd VanDerWerff’s suggestion a few of us started pitching ideas for what the show should actually be about to fit its title. My suggestion was a The League-style British comedy about a group of football fans who go on road trips to games and actively despise Manchester United.

Instead, it’s just another “hot girl with a dirty mouth” scenario offering up lines such as ““Holding a flag between your legs is not patriotism” and “This apartment is giving me lady-wood” as punchlines. Virtually all the humor revolves around Chelsea’s sex life and particular quirks, eschewing character moments in favor of shock value punchlines and general unpleasantness to outsiders. For that reason I will give NBC some tonal credit for pairing it with a very compatible lead-in in Whitney, but considering I’ve established on many consecutive occasions that I despise Whitney that should tell you that I don’t care for this show either.

However, Chelsea does have a leg up on Whitney (no pun intended) in that the cast is merely bland as opposed to detestable. I never watched That ’70s Show* regularly but I always liked Prepon there, and she’s not appreciably bad as the lead, she’s just not asked to do more than say raunchy lines and banter with her co-workers (known as “2 Broke Girls Syndrome”). Handler, playing a character who is oddly not herself, doesn’t have much definition beyond being offering a sober yin to the raging yang of Chelsea and the excuse for an unearned touching moment at the denouement. Most of the supporting cast also fails to register, be it Ali Wong as equally raunchy best friend Olivia, Mark Povinelli as a bartender and a shockingly skinny Lenny Clarke as her father Melvin. If there’s one bright spot on the show, it’s newcomer Lauren Lapkus as Chelsea’s new uptight virgin roommate DeeDee. A few critics have already said this and I agree – Lapkus gives her all and seems to be capable of doing more than just pretending to be a cat** and talking about her virginity in a high-pitched voice, and I could see her being one of those actresses who bounces through a few sitcoms before finding one that sticks.

*With the context of That ’70s Show, it’s hard not to laugh as an actress whose character was once nicknamed “Big Red” now finds herself recoiling at a redheaded man whose “gross ancestors… once shagged a court jester.” However, that’s not humor I give the show credit for.

**The show does earn another pass here: Chelsea’s cat Assface (or Boots as Dee Dee calls him) could totally fit in at Cats That Look Like Ron Swanson.

I’ve never read any of Handler’s books before so I can’t speak to whether or not this is a problem with the source material or simply the poor construction of the show, but as it stands Are You There, Chelsea? is just not a very good show. Again, it’s certainly better than some of the horrible shows in the last few months (looking at you, Work It and I Hate My Teenage Daughter) but it’s still a pretty tepid comedy pilot that I can’t say is worth watching. Maybe it’ll find its footing in the weeks to come and become good – we always say that sitcoms can do that – but after the trainwreck of Whitney and NBC’s recent track record, I’m not holding my breath.

So, Grimm‘s managed to thwart the naysayers who said it was going to die a quick death, and has become the first freshman drama on NBC to be picked up for a full season. Whereas Playboy Club was justifiably taken out behind the shed and shot, and Prime Suspect allowed to run out the string before sadly fading away, Grimm‘s mix of supernatural elements and police procedural have done well enough by the network’s standards to survive into 2012. Most likely NBC is just starved for any piece of good news they can get in yet another dismal year, but I’m sure no one who works on the show (and by extension the city of Portland) will question their good fortune.

As a critic though, I have to ask the question: Has Grimm done enough to deserve this extended lease on life? Now that the show’s completed seven episodes it’s certainly gone past the point of my “televitmus test,” and given that I’ve watched every single one of those episodes it should be obvious it’s passed. It’s developed into a competent supernatural procedural, one that’s gotten better with passing weeks and that’s found new things to do with both its setting and source material. At the same time however, the show’s foundation is nowhere near as solid as it needs to be, and there are a few cracks appearing that they’re going to need to patch if it wants me to keep watching on a weekly basis.

After seven episodes, Grimm‘s clearly established the formula for how it wants to conduct itself week to week. A crime will be committed with some unexplained elements, and Nick and Hank will begin investigating it. In the process of said investigation, Nick will glimpse a monster losing control of their human image, and enlist the help of a reluctant Eddie to track down more information. From there, things will continue to build to a point where Nick (alone or with one of his partners depending on circumstance) is forced to confront the monster and defeat it in a manner that still allows Nick to keep his secret intact. And through the course of the episode, we’ll get more hints of the overarching plot that Nick’s captain (and the fantasy world by extension) is deeply involved in, either by tying it directly to the case-of-the-week or by getting an unconnected b-plot.

For the most part, this structure has been working out well for the Grimm team, as they’ve been able to execute each of these steps competently if not amazingly. The execution each week moves at a compelling pace – save the semi-regular exposition dumps that come from the police’s research – and each week there’s been at least one moment that’s been legitimately unsettling or even frightening. In terms of story, after the somewhat disappointing pilot the writers have been getting more creative in how they tweak the fairy tales to mesh with the real world. In the more memorable examples, “Lonelyhearts” took the Bluebeard folktale and made a story on par with a Law and Order: SVU story, while “Let Down Your Hair” completely revised Rapunzel into a wild child story that touched on themes of nature v. nuture.

And aesthetically, the show’s also managed to move past the SyFy-style cheapness many critics docked it for when it first aired. Some of the monsters – particularly the Mellifers and Ziegvolk – were actually legitimately unnerving* in their presentation, and they’ve avoided having to be too elaborate with any of their otherworldly powers. The setting has also gone a long way toward making the show look better, and compliments to whoever runs the show’s location scouting. Its use of Portland’s wooded areas helps give it the convincing feel of Germanic fantasy, and episodes like “Beeware” and “Danse Macabre” have incorporated appropriately foreboding warehouses and boiler rooms to emphasize the horror atmosphere.

*Not to say they’ve been perfect by any stretch of the imagination – at the scene where Eddie and his old flame are leaping through the woods, transforming under the moonlight as they run, it appeared fake enough I couldn’t stop myself from commenting “Oh no Paul! You is warwilf!”

While the weekly execution has been working out well for the show, it’s not doing such a good job handling the introduction of an overarching narrative. Ever since the start, it’s been hinting at some turmoil in the world of the fantasy beings, in which Nick’s commanding officer and his associate Adalind Shade are playing a key part. After seven episodes, I have no idea what that turmoil is or why I should even care – Grimm‘s been doling out details very sparingly, with only “Beeware” devoted to Renard’s machinations and other episodes having him act completely aside from the week’s narration. We still don’t know who Renard is and what he wants, and having him threaten a Reaper or glance threateningly from his car door isn’t enough to engage. Obviously they shouldn’t overplay their hand if there is a big picture to work towards, but I still can’t shake the niggling urge that there’s a much better way to play this than the way Greenwalt and company have chosen.

This is actually a problem endemic to Grimm, in that it feels like the show is turning out to be too reactive in its plotting. Nick has little agency in the show that isn’t forced on him by circumstances: he glimpses the monsters change* out of the corner of his eye and then gets into a standard investigation, sticking only to his instincts as a detective and Eddie’s counsel to get anything done. His only reactive moments come when he’s prodding a monster into revealing their true form, be it his aunt’s attempted assassin or a corrupt arson investigator, and the rest of the time he’s just playing detective. For being someone who’s got the blood of a fantasy warrior – and a trailer loaded to the brim with medieval weapons – being a Grimm doesn’t seem like it makes you into a warrior, and Nick’s not trying to learn beyond his weekly research.

*This is also raising a question: Nick can identify the monsters when they let their guard down, but how can they identify him? The rat-catcher’s son was quick to identify him, but Hap had no idea until his sister pointed him out. It’s one of the show’s more annoying inconsistencies.

I am beginning to wonder, however, if the passivity of Nick is because Greenwalt and company are starting to realize just how dull of an actor David Giuntoli is. Seven episodes in, it’s sadly clear he doesn’t have the range necessary for a protagonist, as I’m not convinced he’s modified the tone of his voice once or demonstrated more than three facial expressions. While he’s been able to build a rapport with Russell Hornsby’s Hank that wouldn’t be out of place on a more realistic procedural, there’s absolutely no investment in his relationship with Bitsie Tulloch who, as a top-billed actress, is starting to feel as unnecessary to the show marshals Tim and Rachel on Justified. It’s a problem for the show going forward – certainly not on the level of The Cape and David Lyons’ laughable seriousness, but the show’s still shackled to a leading man who doesn’t seem to have the energy to lead.

Fortunately, Silas Weir Mitchell has been picking up the slack in his absence, as Eddie Monroe remains the funniest and strongest character on the show. Each episode shows us something new about him that makes the character more interesting: he’s a wine snob who can be bribed with a quality bottle of Bordeaux, an accomplished cello player with an ear for good talent, and enjoys Christmas to the point of recreating Santa’s workshop in his house. He manages to coax a sense of humor out of Nick (the latter’s “Good boy” was one of the funnier moments) and his resignation at having to help the latter out has been giving way to curiosity as time goes on. If the show’s going to find a new gear in the coming weeks, it’d be smart to center more episodes on Eddie and the connections he’s been making – a vengeful ex-girlfriend on a motorcycle, a semi-feral Blutbad teenager – are certainly ones that would be welcomed if they formed a larger part of the action.

So between him, the Portland scenery and the competent storytelling, there’s still enough to keep Grimm worth checking out on a regular basis. Unlike ABC’s Once Upon A Time, which I’ve jettisoned after watching the whimsy and mishmash of fantasy elements quickly run out of steam, this show feels like it has the foundation to make something more out of itself if it can ever find the jolt to push its story forward. And until it does, watching Eddie wisecrack is enough to stick with it.

Other Thoughts:

• From a professional standpoint, it remains to be seen where Grimm‘s going to wind up this season. NBC gave it a trial run after their Thursday comedy block early on, and with the flat-on-its-face debut of The Firm that slot’s likely to be vacant in the near future. But with a few other shows still waiting for a slot I’d put money on it staying where it is, especially with Chuck‘s upcoming finale leaving more Friday real estate.
• It’s become harder to draw parallels between this and Once Upon A Time as each show has developed its own take on the fantasy world, but I was very taken aback by discovering Eddie Monroe and Emma Swan both drive battered yellow Volkswagen Beetles. Is there a symbolism to them I’m missing?
• This Week in Portland, “Beeware”: Using the Portland streetcar as a murder scene is a very distinct detail, and if you wanted to you could pinpoint the exact location of the the flash mob/murder thanks to the mention of street names. We also get some good opening shots of downtown and see that Nick is storing his aunt’s trailer in the shadow of the Fremont Bridge.
• This Week in Portland, “Lonelyhearts”: Product placement returns as Eddie orders a Rogue Brewery Double Dead Guy Ale at the bar, and the grocery store scenes were shot in a co-op where a friend of mine works. Also, much of the episode’s climax takes place outside Multnomah Falls, which happens to be one of the most scenic locations in the Columbia River Gorge and a location well worth your time.
• This Week in Portland. “Danse Macabre:”: A stellar view of my favorite bridge in Portland, the St. John’s Bridge, in the shadow of which the Geigers make their home. Plus, more evidence Eddie enjoys himself some Rogue at home.
• This Week in Portland, “The Three Bad Wolves”: Positive confirmation of where Grimm locates its police station, right off of the park blocks in the United States Customhouse.
• This Week in Portland, “Let Your Hair Down”: Mentions of Mount Hood and Beaverton help establish some geography, and also correctly observe that driving from the former to the latter if you have a medical emergency is a bad idea.
• Portland Miscues: The Blue Moon bar depicted in “Lonelyhearts” is far too upscale to be the real bar of that name in Portland, a cozy location happens to be only a block from my apartment for all you stalkers. And I’m the only person this bothers, but the location of the Geiger family’s home is in North Portland, not Northeast. Get your facts straight!
• Who’s That Guy #1: the Ziegevolk was played by Patrick Fischler, recognizable as comedian Jimmy Barrett from season two of Mad Men.
• Who’s That Guy #2: Eddie’s old friend Hap was played by Brad William Henke, most recently seen on Justified‘s last season as dimwitted pot grower Coover Bennett.
• Some of Eddie’s better delivery: “This is so the part of the horror movie where the sidekick gets it.” “I should complain, but I’m just not in that place right now.” “The only bleeding heart I ever had was… well, that’s in the past.” “How did I know you were going to ask me that?”

If you’ve learned anything about me from following along with this blog, you know that I have a weakness for terrible television – so much so that I’ll stick with shows I know are going to be bad for at least four episodes, and then going on to talk about said shows for two and a half hours. There’s a lot of reasons why I do it, ranging from a penchant for self-flagellation to a hope that the show will get better to simply wanting to participate in the MST3K-esque ribbing that live tweeting provides. But more to the point, I consider it something of an obligation – as I discussed with a fellow critic on Twitter last week, as someone who writes about popular culture it’s our job to find out what’s good and what’s bad, and have the steel to call it out when it’s the latter.

So as part of this public service, allow me to tell you: ABC’s Work It is awful. And not only is it awful, it’s an automatic contender for worst show of 2012 despite the year only being 11 days old. This is worse than any other comedy pilot I watched last year – worse than 2 Broke Girls, worse than The Paul Reiser Show, worse than Whitney, worse than I Hate My Teenage Daughter. Hell, I’d even go so far to say that it’s worse than American Horror Story, the show I hated more than anything else in 2011, because at least that show was trying to do something new and experimental. Here, they’re not trying anything at all: it’s flaccid, unfunny, unbelievable, and just miserable to sit through from start to finish.

Work It takes place in St. Louis, Missouri, where former car salesman Lee (Ben Koldyke) has been out of work for over a year due to the failing economy. With his last unemployment check gone and his insurance coverage lapsed, Lee jumps on an opportunity at a pharmaceutical company, only to discover they’re seeking women. So rather than trying to sell himself normally, what does he do? He slaps on his wife’s dress, a wig and some makeup, and not only gets himself hired but also manages to get his best friend Angel (Amaury Nolasco) hired on as well.

So, where do we begin with what’s wrong with this show? Well, we might as well start with the obvious: the cross-dressing. I’m certainly not opposed to cross-dressing as a method of comedy, and it has a long track record of success in films – Some Like It Hot and Tootsie wouldn’t be topping the AFI’s list of 100 best comedies if it was a bomb of an idea. And several times in television shows over the last few years, I’ve enjoyed characters who dressed in drag on a fairly regular basis. Off the top of my head, I can point to John Carroll Lynch on The Drew Carey Show, David Duchovny on Twin Peaks, and David Cross on Arrested Development as executing the idea successfully.

The difference between these performances and Work It, however, was that the cross-dressing was either a) an integral part of their character’s psychology, or b) played to the point where it was clear no one else on the cast believed it. Here, neither Koldyke nor Nolasco are even close to convincing, both being well-built men who tower at least a head over any of the women on the show, and their outfits don’t obscure it in the slightest. And when you ask a viewer to accept that these two were hired on to a position as pharmaceutical reps – where one of their coworkers overtly states that they’re only hiring women because doctors would rather sleep with them – it gets even harder to suspend disbelief.

Perhaps it wouldn’t be so obnoxious if there was anything else to hold the show together, but this is just an egregiously written pilot in every way. I don’t think I cracked a smile at any of the punchlines, be they Lee and Angel’s friend Brian* who argues that women are going to make us all sex slaves because of the “mancession,” Angel’s woes as a fast food worker or the angsty neuroses of some of their fellow pharmaceutical reps. None of the characters have anything approaching chemistry with each other, and the writing spells out every choice the characters are going to make – Koldyke at one point has to talk to himself because apparently the viewers can’t figure out he’s conflicted. And even in its musical choices, the show is lazy at best and painful at worst: watching Lee and Angel try to dance** to T-Pain is excruciating, and the montage of Lee picking through his wife’s wardrobe to the Black Eyed Peas “My Humps” might go down in history as the worst montage ever used in a sitcom.

*Watching this bit, I was reminded a little of Jim Norton’s character on Lucky Louie, who had similar rants that worked their way through racism, sexism, and various other prejudices. The difference here is that those bits clearly came out of Norton’s own stand-up and were deliberately trying to provoke. Here, it’s an attempt at edginess that just comes across as ignorant.

**Alan Sepinwall made the observation in his own review that this nightclub scene was the cheapest thing he’d ever seen on primetime, and I can’t argue with that. I’ve been to strip clubs that had more elaborate decorations.

It’s also hard to shake the feeling that the cast seems to know they’re in a project that is going to leave a very black mark on their resumes if anyone sees it. Koldyke in particular looks resigned and stressed in every scene – even when he’s not trying to apply makeup – and there’s a particular desperation to his real and fake voice that I’m certain isn’t acting. Nolasco on the other hand appears to have abandoned himself to the role, with a shameless giddiness to his drag role that indicates he’s ready to go down with the ship. None of the women working in the office gave any indication that they have personalities beyond “neurotic,” “vain” and “bitch” – I’ve already forgotten all of their names – and Lee’s wife and daughter apparently graduated from the ABC Academy of Generic Sitcom Families.

A review of a pilot should have some speculation of where you see the show going next, and when we get to that we hit the fatal flaw: I honestly don’t see how you can expect Work It to get a story a week out of this premise. Is every week going to be an adventure where Lee and Angel come this close to being discovered as men by their evil bitchy coworker, only to escape in dramatic fashion? Is it a journey of self-discovery where each week they learn something new that makes them better men with their significant others? I don’t see them going for any of these things – the entire show feels like it had one idea and built the loosest possible framework around it, and that there’s nothing else to even work towards holding it together.

And should they even try? My advice to ABC: It’s not worth it. Don’t flip it, don’t reverse it – just put the thing down. Work It is an unfunny, irredeemable show, and even with my tolerance for terrible TV I would sooner nail my eyelids to my bottom desk drawer than watch a second episode. Watch at your own risk.

Yesterday, I teamed up with my good friends Cory Barker and Andy Daglas to discuss the worst television of 2011 in a podcast over at TV Surveillance. For those of you who had the patience to listen to all two hours of it, it was a wide-ranging discussion where we had fun excoriating many painful shows, mourned the downward spiral of many others and I discovered a heretofore unused talent for impressions.

Today, we did the flip side of the coin, talking for an even longer clip about the best television of 2011. Among the early highlights, I explain why I felt Justified made the best seasonal leap in quality of any 2011 show, Andy gets one last opportunity to talk about just how meaningful the ending of Friday Night Lights was and Cory goes into the virtues of Game of Thrones’ inaugural season. We each had a chance to opine on some of our favorite comedies, revisit our original discussion of Boardwalk Empire in the wake of its finale, see how good Homeland was at sticking the landing, and get to the show that knocks as the best show of the year. As happened last time, expect ten thousand tangents on semi-related shows, and one moment three-quarters of the way through where I have a minor breakdown and go through a multitude of impressions in five minutes.

Also, contrary to podcast impressions, I do not live in my mother’s basement. Just making that clear.

As always, you can stream the podcast over at TV Surveillance or download it from iTunes.

Happy holidays to all listeners, and I hope to bombard you with more opinions and impressions in the new year.

It’s the end of 2011, which means that the time has come for most media outlets and bloggers to prepare their Top Ten and Best Of lists for the year. I, tragically, will not be one of those making a list. For a multitude of reasons – many of which were already phrased so well by The New Yorker‘s Emily Nussbaum – it’s just not something I’m in the mood to write up, especially considering I haven’t had the chance to watch everything of note this year.

That being said, there was a lot of television I watched in 2011 that needed to discussed. More to the point, there was some really fucking awful television this year that deserved to be cut apart with a good set of steak knives. And I knew I couldn’t do it alone.

So I got together with my good friends Cory Barker and Andy Daglas, we resurrected the three-man podcast and went on an epic discussion of the worst television of 2011. No show was safe – I attacked American Horror Story with gusto, Andy was a hater about H8R and Cory got to vent his frustrations about Dexter season six. From there we began whipping the NBC dead horse, revisited the muck and mire of The Killing, tore into a few returning comedies that are clearly past their prime, identified the show that was so bad it looped around to entertaining (six seasons and a movie!) and just generally left off some steam about the shows we had to suffer through for your benefit. As to be expected from us, there’s also are a vast number of tangents and digressions, plus guest appearances by several media personalities! (Or maybe just me doing impressions.)

You can find all the fun over at TV Surveillance, or download the podcast directly from iTunes. Check back tomorrow, when we’ll reunite for the other side of the coin.

Long-time readers of the blog might remember that a few months back, I teamed up with friend of the blog and frequent podcasting partner Cory Barker to join his ongoing Test Pilot series, with a discussion of the pilot episode of Sports Night. Cory, for those of you who sadly may not know, runs an excellent series discussing the pilot episodes of various shows, pairing with fellow TV writers to “discuss its historical, cultural and industrial context.”

Well, Cory and I have teamed up once again to discuss a pilot episode, this one being HBO’s 2006 sitcom Lucky Louie. Both of us watched the pilot and wrote about it at length, comparing Louis C.K.’s first effort in television to his much more successful FX show Louie and looking at its interesting move to blend old-fashioned forms with more mature comedy. And in addition to writing the articles, we also decided to fire up the Skype hotline and did a supplemental podcast, talking about our differing views on the show and going into a longer discussion on the multi-cam sitcom format.

So head on over to TVS and check it out – it’s coverage endorsed by Lucky Louie‘s own executive producer Mike Royce as “very insightful stuff… thumbs up!”

Happy early Thanksgiving, everyone! Wanted to provide a quick update and let you know what to expect around the holiday – which, I’m sure you can guess, is not much. I’ll be spending the next few days away from the TV and in the presence of some good friends and family, trying to recharge my power cells after an exhausting month. Things will probably be a little quiet around here for the next week after that as I work through my backlog and digest the season finales of a few cable dramas, but I’ll pop up with a catch-up on my Grimm recaps and some thoughts on seasons wrapping up. (Also, I’ll be appearing on Cory Barker’s Test Pilot series in a couple weeks, discussing the pilot episode of Lucky Louie, which will occupy most of my attention.)

But really, that update’s just an excuse for me to get a little sappy around the holiday season. As of this month, A Helpless Compiler has been operational for nine months, entering into the competitive world of television blogging and offering commentary of elaborate length and questionable certainty. I started doing this because I wanted to get something out of all the television I watched and because I was burned out on writing book reviews, and it’s turned essentially into a second unpaid job I’ve committed to with gusto. I’ve invested in shows to a ridiculous extent, watched things I never would have otherwise, and suffered through some really terrible television for the benefit of people who might be reading. I enjoy doing this more than I thought I was going to, and a large part of that is the fact that it really does feel like I’m contributing to a broader conversation.

So let me just say: thank you. Thanks to anyone who’s read, followed, retweeted or linked to any of my content over the last few months, anyone who’s had feedback on my commentary either positive or negative and who’s taken the time to let me know what they thought of it. I may not make a living off this, but I know at least someone’s reading it, and that means quite a bit.

And of course, a special thanks to my “toxic study group” on Twitter, friends of the blog with whom I’ve lost countless hours to discussing the nuances of various shows. There’s too many to count I’m sure, but thanks to Noel, Daniel, Chris, Andy, Jaime, Adam, Phoebe, Justin, Carrie, Andrew, Jamiesen, Christopher, Jamie, Elena, Sava, Kelly and Orrin – all of whom have a standing invitation for a drink if you ever find yourselves in the Portland metro area.

Special thanks to Rowan Kaiser, whose early encouragement helped me move from just tweeting about TV to actually writing about it; Cory Barker, whose offer to collaborate has led to a lot of fun in podcasting and pilot revisiting; and Todd VanDerWerff, who paid me one of the highest compliments I’ve ever gotten by including me in a Follow Friday list of “awesome TV critics not enough of you follow.”

Happy Thanksgiving everybody, and I’ll see you when I get back.

P.S. To make this post still TV relevant, my favorite Thanksgiving episode of television is “Bart vs. Thanksgiving,” from season two of The Simpsons. Runner up is “The One Where Underdog Gets Away” from season one of Friends – I’m a sucker for Thanksgiving stories where it’s clear how your friends become your family.