Category: Television

Almost 19 years ago, I read and fell in love with a little novel called, Lonesome Dove. In my view, it was nothing less than a masterpiece. To this day, I consider it to be my favorite book of all time. The miniseries is a rare gem as well. Subsequently, I learned that Larry McMurtry penned a sequel titled, Streets of Laredo. I eagerly devoured it and felt a profound sense of disappointment. No Gus. No Jake. No Deets. Faugh! I then discovered that McMurtry had written, not one, but two prequels to Lonesome Dove; Dead Man’s Walk and Comanche Moon. I devoured them… And felt even more dispirited. The magic of the original novel just wasn’t there. I then learned that Hollywood had created a sequel miniseries to the original called, Return to Lonesome Dove. I watched it, and bemoaned the four hours of my life that were utterly wasted. McMurtry described the project as, “Spurious.” I heartily concur.

All two of you who read this blog may remember that, some months ago, I expressed fretful trepidation at the prospect of a Breaking Bad sequel movie. Casual readers of these hallowed pages don’t have to read far to know that I view Breaking Bad as the best TV series ever made. It was expertly acted, masterfully written and apparently, beautifully shot.

This included the finale. I agree with critic Alan Sepinwall that the emotionally brutal episode, “Ozymandias,” represented the true climax of the story of Walter White, while the final two episodes served as a kind of epilogue. Walt’s final bloody siege of Uncle Jack’s compound, resulting in Jesse’s rescue and his own death, was a fitting way to go out.

The final image we get of Jesse Pinkman is that of him tearing out of Uncle Jack’s compound in Todd’s pilfered El Camino, shrieking and laughing hysterically as he drives. It is a parallel to the episode, “Crawl Space,” in which Walter White lies prone in the crawl space under his home, screaming and cackling maniacally after learning that Skyler gave away a large chunk of his ill-gotten lute to Ted, her one-time lover. Walt arises from the crawl space as Heisenberg fully born. Jesse’s eruption from the place of his imprisonment symbolizes, not only his liberation, but a rebirth of sorts.

Jesse made quite a journey over the course of Breaking Bad. He went from hapless drug-dealer, to the capable right hand of the most powerful and ruthless drug lord in modern crime fiction, to an imprisoned and broken animal, all within 62 amazing episodes of television. When he burst forth from captivity, he was headed toward… What? El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie, seeks to answer that question.

Did we really need a movie to wrap up Jesse’s story? My initial answer was, hell no! Then, I got sucked in by the trailers, the pre-release interviews, the social media hype, etc. Skinny Pete telling the cops, “I ain’t gonna tell you where Jesse is!” was music to my ears. I thought, if anyone can pull this off, Vince Gilligan certainly can.

After the fact, I have to say that my original view was correct. El Camino is an enjoyable romp down memory lane. We get to see Aaron Paul flex his acting chops once again. We get to hear Dave Porter’s unique musical score. We get to visit a lot of familiar faces, including dead characters such as Mike, Jane and yes, Walt. But ultimately, I feel that Jesse would’ve been better served if the final memory we had of him were that of a half-crazed escaped prisoner fleeing for his life.

One of the many things that made Breaking Bad so compelling were the emotional gut-punches that it could deliver when appropriate. Vince Gilligan often said that the show was really about the quiet, in-between moments of Walt and Jesse’s lives. I agree. The quiet subtlety of Walt’s family life, or Jesse’s PTSD after Gale’s murder, is what made the show special. But this is a crime series and it requires violence to drive home the point. Everything from the murder of Krazy-8 to the plane crash to Gus’s murder to Walt kidnapping little Holly was a ‘holy shit!’ moment that fans would be buzzing about on Facebook and at the office for days hence. El Camino held no such moments for me.

The primary question posed by El Camino is, will Jesse get away? I don’t want to seem like a know-it-all, but all you had to do was study interviews from the cast and crew during the final season of Breaking Bad to know where El Camino was headed.

One of the refrains echoing over and over again by Gilligan and company was, “I feel sorry for Jesse. He’s really being manipulated and abused by Walt.” Given this mindset, it wasn’t hard to guess where Gilligan (the sole author of El Camino) was headed. He probably thought, Jesse has been punished enough for any misdeeds he may have caused. He was jerked around by Walt, then used by Hank as a means to an end, then imprisoned and tortured by Uncle Jack and Todd. His penance has been paid.

When looking at El Camino through the lens of sympathy, it’s no surprise that Jesse is treated, not as an anti-hero as Walt was at his best in Breaking Bad, but as a fully-formed hero. Jesse, the boy-turned-man, ground down by his enemies, now deserves redemption. To that end, the movie glosses over the sins of Jesse Pinkman in an effort to help the viewer feel more sympathy for him.

And what are the sins of Jesse Bruce Pinkman? As a diehard fan, it’s not hard to catalog them. Among other things, Jesse is guilty of:

• Selling addictive poison to people, first tainted by chili powder, later tainted by a harmless blue coloring.
• Breaking the hearts of his parents by refusing to engage in serious addiction recovery.
• Knowingly re-entering the drug trade with Walt after disposing of the bodies of Krazy-8 and Emilio.
• Sparking a drug war between Walt and Gus Fring by killing two of Gus’s henchmen, knowing that it was a fatal move.
• Shooting Gale Boetticher in the face as he tearfully begged for his life.

• Targeting people in an addiction recovery program in the hopes of getting them hooked on Blue Sky meth. One of these targets was Andrea Cantillo, who had a young son named Brock.
• Participating in a train robbery that lead to the death of an innocent boy, Drew Sharpe.
• Wearing a Kenny Rogers T-shirt.

These are just some of the transgressions that Gilligan seems to want us to forget as he converts Jesse from anti-hero to hard-bitten hero, desperately trying to seek escape and redemption after Walt rescues him from the neo-Nazis in the finale of the show.

My sister-in-law is living proof that a person with a PHD does not always make smart judgments. One of her questionable judgment calls is her assertion that the show Sons of Anarchy is superior to Breaking Bad. This is just silly. Yet, as I watched El Camino, I occasionally felt that some of the plot elements would’ve been more at home with Jax and his merry band of loser bikers than on the greatest TV drama in history. I won’t rehash all of it here, except to say that the villains whom Jesse confronts as he struggles to find enough cash to leave Albuquerque forever ring a bit hollow next to the complexities of Gus, Todd, Lydia and even Tuco.

We do get to see long dead characters in flashback, but the scenes smack of contrivance more than necessity. It’s as if Mike, Jane and Walt are all holding up signs that say, “Forgive yourself, Jesse, and move on!” These are a far cry from the nuanced flashbacks often presented in the course of the series that usually high-lighted a character aspect that was going to be flushed out in the subsequent plot.

The best part about watching El Camino was that I got to spend time talking to Katy. Aside from that, I honestly could have done without it. I wish that my last glimpse of Jesse was as he was bolting from the compound with Walt’s bloody carnage in his wake. I wish Vince Gilligan had left the rest to my imagination. I hope showrunners like Shawn Ryan, Graham Yost and others take heed. I don’t need to know what Vic Mackey did after he walked out of his cubical at the FBI office. I don’t need another reunion between Raylan, Boyd and Ava. I don’t need to see the further adventures of Arya Stark and Jon Snow. And I sure as hell don’t ever want to see Lumberjack Dexter again!!! Leave the masturbatory fan service to the fanfic authors. Because, as we’ve now discovered with Deadwood and Breaking Bad (and we’ll probably discover again with the pending Captain Picard series), having is not nearly so pleasing a thing as wanting. It is illogical, but it is often true.

Sidebar: Better Call Saul will commence with its fifth season in four months. It’s solid, but it doesn’t hold a candle to the mother ship. I also want to again voice my disgust at the fact that BSC and El Camino have audio description, but we still can’t get Breaking Bad with an AD track. NO JUSTICE!!!

Lightning may strike twice, but you can only catch it in a bottle once. If Walt were here, I’m sure he would give me the scientific explanation for this concept… But he’s dead, isn’t he?

The theme to Game of Thrones was composed by Ramin Djawadi. According to Apple Music, the title is called, “Main Title.” This isn’t very original. Then again, no one asked me. If they had, I wouldn’t have given a peasant’s shit, because I wasn’t a fan of Game of Thrones up until about three months ago.

That said, another perfectly acceptable theme song for this epic series could have been lifted from the Mel Brooks musical, The 12 Chairs:

“Hope for the best,
Expect the worst.
Some drink champagne,
Some die of thirst.
No way of knowing
Which way it’s going.
Hope for the best,
Expect the worst.”

Those lyrics perfectly encapsulate the central themes of this epic series about war, sex, dragons, more sex, more war, family, more sex, political nihilism, more sex and a little magic thrown in there.

Now, I won’t try to recap Game of Thrones, because even those who aren’t fans of the show have a basic understanding of what it’s about. Like its predecessor, Harry Potter, Thrones was a cultural black hole that swallowed everything else in its orbit. Sufficed to say, it’s about a mythical world where several large and powerful houses compete to sit on the Iron Throne. It’s kind of like a grand reality television show, but with dragons, swords, graphic sex, medieval sensibilities and no Donald Trump.

My purpose in writing this is to address the conclusion of the show. When it aired on May 19 of this year, I was probably about half way through the fourth season. Yet, I couldn’t help being spoiled. My choices were either to be spoiled on the ending, or to avoid Facebook and Twitter for a solid month. Since I am a pathetic, shameless social media whore, I chose to be spoiled.

What sparked my desire to write this was a petition on the internet that actually *demands* that the powers that be rewrite and reshoot the final season of Game of Thrones. This is due to overwhelmingly negative feedback from fans over the trajectory of the final story of Jon Snow, Arya Stark, Cersei Lannister and especially, Daenerys Targaryen.

The ire of the fans is mostly righteous. The entirety of the season was not true to the original spirit of the series as envisioned by the author of the source novels, George R. R. Martin. The plotting was rushed and sloppy, the character notes rang false and the sex wasn’t nearly as gratuitous as it was in previous seasons. In short, it blew great big dragon balls! That said, the fans have about as much chance of getting a do-over of the final season as Tyrion would have trying to successfully peg The Mountain.

Look, you little wussbags just need to relax and get the fuck over yourselves. I loved The Sopranos and invested five years of my life in it. The black screen pissed me off too. But I celebrated the series by inviting my ex-girlfriend over to my apartment and nailing her on the kitchen floor. I got up, wiped off and moved on with my life. I know some of you reading this who are of the feminist persuasion, and who are pickled in your own bitter bile of rage of the ultimate fate of Dany, Mother of Dragons, Breaker of Chains and Fucker of Nephews, may not be able to relate to my decidedly masculine perspective on the virtues of impulsive kitchen sex as a soul-cleanser, but give it a try sometime.

You know who really needs to get laid? Some guy on YouTube named, Think Story. He actually took the trouble to rewrite the final season of the show in his head. Then, he posted it on YouTube, where it currently has 4,871,306 views. So that’s nearly five million nerds, geeks, angry feminists and a few amateur film critics who could be spending their energy burning calories with some Shae equivalent, rather than signing some internet petition that has less value than a spent condom.

So this guy rewrites the season. I won’t recap the whole thing because you can look it up for yourselves if you’re that desperate. In short, in Think Story’s version, the White Walkers win the battle of Winterfell and lay siege to King’s Landing. Dany doesn’t go mad, but kills the Night King and becomes queen, Jon Snow dies heroically in the final battle, Jaime kills Cersei, who was faking her pregnancy all along, Arya gets wounded, and Brienne never gets laid by anybody. Oh yeah…and Eleeria Sand (anyone remember her?) plays some part in it all, but…ahh, screw it!

No offense, Mr. Think Story, but I would’ve had about as much fun watching your version of the finale as Tywin Lannister would’ve had at an Occupy Braavos protest.

There are two main problems with Mr. Story’s Kelvin timeline version. One is that, no matter what they do, The White Walkers will always be the most boring characters on Thrones; with the possible exception of Bran the Broken. Yes yes yes, I know they were in the books and are therefore part of the GRRM source material, but there was absolutely nothing compelling about them. The Night King was a dull, uninspired villain who felt like a knockoff of The Walking Dead. Whether they were vanquished at Winterfell or King’s Landing, The White Walkers had not built up enough emotional capital to serve as a satisfying final antagonist for the ultimate conflict of the series.

This leads me to the second reason why Mr. (or is it Mrs?), Story’s scenario. It was even less true to the original spirit of the series than was the hot mess cooked up in a cauldron by Benioff and Weiss.

Look, if I were David and D. B., I’d be embarrassed. I mean, really humiliated. We’re talking Reek territory here. The GOT crowd wants their heads on a spike, and they did themselves no favors with the Star Wars crowd. They seemed to forget the basic idea that the central appeal of Game of Thrones is not the magic, or monsters, or even the sex. It was the machinations, manipulations and perfidy that occurred between the human characters in an effort to rest power from one house to another. My earlier commentary about reality television wasn’t based entirely in jest. Thrones really was a competition to see who the ultimate winner would be. The White Walkers, The Dornish, The Brotherhood, The House of Black and White and all of the other B-plots were instrumental in world-building, but they were mere trappings that served as obstacles along the path toward the final goal. And that goal was The Iron Throne.

That’s what makes the arc of Daenerys Targaryen so tragic. She probably would’ve been a better ruler than Robert Baratheon, or Cersei Lannister, or maybe even Jon Snow, but the seeds of her own destruction were planted centuries before her birth. The only way for fans who want to impose their politics on their pop culture would come to realize that is to watch innocent men, women and children burn under an onslaught of dragon fire. The way David and D. B. handled it was inexcusable, but the end goal was legitimate. Dany ultimately learned the same harsh lesson that many real world tyrants, and many male fictional characters such as Darth Vader and Michael Corleone have learned to their detriment. In the words of Lord Acton, “Absolute power corrupts absolutely.”

Like it or not, the universe carefully constructed by Mr. Martin is based on a deep cynicism. That doesn’t mean that individuals can’t find happiness within his giant wheel of misery, but most folks are destined to be crushed under it. If a benevolent ruler like Jon Snow, or even Tyrion Lannister, were to seize power for a while, it would serve only as a rest bit until Gendry decides that his papa had the right idea. The whole notion of a democracy with Bran the Broken as a king in partial absentia and Tyrion as his hand is just fake butter on stale movie theater popcorn. Arya the Explorer, Jon Snow the Wildling King and Sansa the drop-out queen may feel good, but they are about as realistic as The Hound in a corset.

Sidebar: Have you guys ever watched behind-the-scenes videos where Benioff and Weiss give commentary? It’s very telling. I mean it. Go watch interviews with David Chase, Vince Gilligan or David Simon. If you have two weeks to spare, go watch David Milch. Those guys are really smart guys who understand the universes they created. This doesn’t mean that the creator of an alternate world can’t fuck up his own recipe. Ronald D. Moore is Exhibit A in the bed-wetting department. But Benioff and Weiss are clearly as mentally capable as Hodor on an abacus. Without George Martin’s source material, their grayscale of the brain becomes obvious through clunky dialogue, contrived situations and climaxes steeped in Stevia.

Look, I’m not a hypocrite. As a wannabe author, I sometimes rewrite stories in my head. I too have ideas of what would’ve made the Thrones finale better. In my version, George R. R. Martin gets off the podium at whatever comic nerdfest he’s lecturing at in between glasses of wine and lobster tail drenched in real butter, and he writes the rest of the Goddamn story!

As for Thrones, we’re stuck with it. We’ve got six seasons of excellent television and two subpar seasons to wrap it up. As far as the final story itself, I would’ve done two things differently. I would’ve flip-flopped the killings done by Jon Snow and Arya Stark. Let Jon take out The Night King, and let Arya kill Dany. Had I watched the show in real time, that would’ve been my prediction based on Arya’s exit from the smoldering ruins of King’s Landing on her horse. Arya’s assassination of Dany would’ve been a fitting end to Dany’s character, all while paying tribute to the show’s ability to subvert expectations during the Martin years. Besides, who doesn’t like a little girl-on-girl action? I’m sure Littlefinger would have smiled from one of the seven hells.

Finally, I want to pay tribute to my favorite character on Thrones, Jaime Lannister. I really do feel that he had the most satisfying arc of any of them. He was a callow, incestuous, child-murdering, entitled twat when we first met him, but even before he lost his hand, we began to see the man of honor underneath. Once he became disabled and began to be rejected by his family, his true character shown through. His journey parallels that of Hank Schrader on Breaking Bad. Both men were pompous jerks at the beginning, but after they faced a life-altering disability, we learn that they were men of honor at their core. Yet, once again I have to disagree with Think Story. Jaime’s actions in season eight were the only ones I found true to character. Despite his honor, and despite the fact that she had shunned him, he loved his sister. In the world of GOT, emotion trumps all. His choice to try to rescue Cersei, and ultimately to die with her, was perfectly in character.

In closing, I should say that Think Story has millions of viewers. This blog entry will probably get two hits; Mags and maybe…maybe Dana, if she’s bored enough.

Hi, Danamonster. And hi to my other GOT buddy, whom I don’t want to embarrass by naming on this conservative-based website.

I’m off to bed. The night is dark, and full of terrors, like the next three Star Wars movies.

Last October, I took the time to write a blog entry about Deadwood the series, followed up by an entry in which I expressed eager anticipation for its return in Deadwood, The Movie. Well, it aired last night and, thanks to my friend Dana, I was able to watch it in real time through her HBO app, sans a television in my house. Here are my initial impressions:

First, it behooves us to ponder the usefulness of sequels. In my mind, a sequel, prequel, spin-off, reboot, or in Deadwood’s case, a revival, only has two creatively valid purposes. One is to break new ground by telling a new story, or by effectively building upon the mythology that the initial story created. Think of successful sequels such as The Empire Strikes Back, or The Godfather Part II.

The other reason to make a sequel is purely for fan service. If the fans love it and want it to continue, go for it. We all love a good story. In my view, reason number two pales in the shadow of number one. People are always going to want more of something they like, even if it isn’t good for them.

Of course, Hollywood’s main reason for making sequels, prequels, spin-offs and the like has nothing to do with either of the above. It wants to make money. That’s why our culture is engorged with 10,000 Marvel movies, 2,000 Star Trek movies and TV episodes, and we’ll soon have 50,000 Star Wars movies. Story potential for these franchises was exhausted years ago, but like the villain of Deadwood, George Hearst, Hollywood can’t help itself, so it keeps going on and on in perpetuity. This means that they have to keep recycling the same story over and over again with new polish on an old car. Think Rocky, Home Alone, Die Hard, etc.

Deadwood was not a money-maker, though at the time, it was the most expensive TV series being produced. It did not generate ratings that would translate into revenue for HBO. Nor did it generate the kind of commercial or mainstream buzz that enveloped office coffee machines around The Sopranos, Sex and the City and especially, Game of Thrones. It was sadly telling that I found many reviews on the Deadwood movie from the usual suspects such as the New York Times, Rolling Stone and Slate in the days leading up to the movie, but there was nary a word about it from the common folk on Twitter and Facebook, who had been in an angry buzz over the Game of Thrones series finale nearly two weeks hence. We can certainly blame the passage of time for this, but I think you’ll see much more excitement from the hoopalhead crowd when the Breaking Bad movie comes out. The reasons are stark and obvious. Deadwood was a niche show, adored by stuck-up cosmopolitan critics and a small-but-vocal band of devoted fans like me. It’s meandering narrative style and dense, complex language made it inaccessible to mainstream fans who found The Sopranos and Game of Thrones far more digestible.

Why then make a movie after 13 years of silence? The answer seems to be, unfinished business.

Clearly, there was more story to be told within the universe of David Milch’s historically revisionist drama. Like Wild Bill Hickok, The series was killed before its time and history provided a road map that Milch could adopt or discard at his whims. In its original series form, it was good for at least three more seasons, though it likely would have only run for one more before Milch, “Got off the bus,” as he put it.

But history rendered its judgment, fingers got leveled, tempers flared, every cocksucker abandoned the table with nothing but their pride, and the expensive sets came down. So the only reason to resurrect it was, because that small band of adoring fans and critics wanted it.

HBO certainly wants to make money, but they also have a habit of sometimes lending their might to projects that transcend mere monetary value. It wasn’t out of character for them to give Deadwood one more breath of life so that it could offer a proper farewell to its fans.

So, did Deadwood, The Movie, accomplish the goal of telling a new story with the same old characters? Did we get Daddy Vader, or Mr. T? My answer is…a little of both. Did it adequately service the fans who wanted more? My answer is an enthusiastic, hell yeah!!!

I started leaking at the first sound of Calamity Jane’s voice. It was not the last time I lost it. On Facebook afterward, I wondered if my reaction to the conclusion was because the movie was just that great, or because I suffer from a touch more emotional incontinence as I age. As I reflect upon the final sojourn of Al Swearengen, Seth Bullock, Calamity Jane, Charlie Utter, Trixie and the rest of the cast of this fine series, I do tend to think the answer is due to the latter.

Don’t get me wrong… It was a wonderful feeling spending time once again with characters whom I’d come to know and love 13 years ago, and whom I occasionally revisit. I was glad they got a send-off. We fans spent years patiently waiting and eventually, not believing that we’d ever get that movie we’d been promised. Anything surpassing Seth reading bedtime stories to his kids, or Al and Calamity Jane playing poker, would have been welcome.

That said, the movie did have its flaws; some of them quite glaring.

If you will consult my earlier entry, I wondered how the movie would treat Doc Cochran, who had been stricken as a “lunger” in the third and final season of the show. Tuberculosis was a death sentence to most anyone who contracted it in 19th century America. In the movie, not only did Doc survive, but he seemed completely healthy and normal. Not only was this not addressed in the movie, but no reviewer (of whom I read plenty), seemed to catch this obvious discrepancy. “Nobody gets out alive, Doc,” Al tells him during a coughing fit in the show’s third season. Apparently, Doc did get out alive. Others were not so lucky. What else would we expect when George Hearst comes to town?

The main thrust of the plot did seem to be a rehash of the third season. Hearst, now a senator from California, comes back to Deadwood and wants to appropriate Charlie Utter’s land so that he can string telephone wires across it. As was the case in season three, Hearst proves to be a predatory capitalist, who only knows how to grab everything he wants like a child. If he can’t get it by coercive bargaining, he tries to obtain it through violent means. In the third season, his primary conflict was with Alma Garret-Ellsworth, who refused to sell him her gold mine until the final episode. Alma’s second husband Ellsworth proved to be a casualty of their war of wills.

In the movie, Charlie Utter, former friend of the deceased legend, Wild Bill Hickok, wound up dead from bullets from two assassins dispatched by Hearst. Ultimately, Seth Bullock challenges Hearst and prevails, even though more bodies fall in their ensuing conflict, including Samuel ‘The Nigger General’ Fields. Hearst goes to jail, but we are left with the sense that he will likely walk yet again.

Aside from the obvious recycled conflict, I find its genesis problematic.

In the series finale, Trixie, Al’s former favorite prostitute, shoots Hearst in the shoulder in retribution for his murder of Ellsworth. Hearst survives and agrees to leave town, but demands that Trixie be murdered as a consequence. Since Al favors Trixie, he kills a different prostitute in Trixie’s stead. Hearst did not get a good look at Trixie when she shot him, so Al’s gamble works and Hearst leaves Deadwood amidst vocal rebukes from the town citizenry.

10 years later, Trixie is pregnant with Sol Star’s child. When Hearst comes to town to celebrate South Dakota’s official entrance into the Union, Trixie gives into an angry fit and berates him in her customary acid-tongued fashion from her balcony as he passes by. This, of course, raises Hearst’s suspicions, thereby causing him to demand that Charlie Utter surrender his land in exchange for Hearst’s forgiveness of Trixie. When Charlie refuses to sell, he gets dead, and things escalate from there.

I don’t buy for a second that Trixie would dishonor the dead whore’s sacrifice (her name was Jenn, by the way), and put her future baby and marriage in jeopardy by calling out Hearst as she did. Trixie was my second favorite character because of her sharp tongue and irascible manner, but she wasn’t a fool. I believe that impending motherhood and the welfare of the community of Deadwood, which Al killed Jenn to protect, would have suppressed her fiery temper. A moving scene between Trixie and Al late in the movie illustrates extreme survivor’s guilt on Trixie’s part over Jenn’s death, which lead to her serious lapse in judgment. I just don’t buy it. I believe she felt guilty, but I think she would recognize that the burden she carried was not hers alone.

There is a subplot involving the romance between Jane and Joanie Stubbs, but it feels hollow. Apparently, Cy Tolliver left Joanie his saloon when he died, but the circumstances are barely mentioned. I’m not sure I buy that Joanie would take anything Cy gave her, as she was trying to break free of him at the end of the series. Even so, what was to prevent Al from waltzing across the street and bargaining with Joanie once Cy had been declared dead? He may have grown soft in his old age, but he was still a pragmatic businessman.

Some fans criticize the fact that Al had relatively little to do in the movie. With respect, that was the fuckin’ point. Al tries to keep his finger on the pulse as he did in his prime, but his diminished capacity causes him to be shunted to the side, allowing Seth to take center stage.

Years of drinking and whoring had worn away Al, finally taking a toll on his liver. Remember also that he was afflicted by a stroke after suffering from a kidney stone that almost cost him his life in the second season. It is perfectly credible that, 10 years later, he would be on death’s doorstep. Some fans wanted him to go out in a blaze of glory, killing Hearst (and himself in the process) in order to save Trixie and the town. Again, with respect, that is not what Deadwood was all about. I found Al’s final scene, passing away quietly in his bed, being tended to by his close friends, far more true and fitting for the end of Al’s story arc than I did the shoot-out between Bullock and Hearst’s mercenaries.

Like it or not, Al Swearengen served as the heart and soul of the budding community of Deadwood. More than any other character, he symbolized its journey from a lawless, violent camp to a thriving town. He began as a cut-throat crime boss who abused his women, killed his disobedient underlings and hurled racial insults at any non-white person within his vicinity. By the end of the movie, he was gently urging Sol Star to run for political office and offering to leave Trixie his saloon.

Like Breaking Bad, Deadwood is the story of change. Unlike Breaking Bad, which showed the decay of one man’s soul, Deadwood shows that healthy change can be wrought through redemption and forgiveness. Seth Bullock begins the series as a man filled with rage at injustices he sees all around him. By the end, he is a husband, a father and an upstanding member of his community. The brief scene he shares with Alma demonstrates that their feelings for each other still smolder, but Seth remains a good man who stays loyal to his wife and honors his commitment to his family. Trixie becomes a mother and a wife. Charlie Utter dies defending the land that he worked so hard to cultivate. Others in the community, such as Tom Nuttall, continue to lead quiet, normal lives.

Not everyone changes. Jane is still an alcoholic vagabond, adrift on a sea of her own insecurities. Joanie appears to struggle with substance abuse and E. B. Farnum…well, he’ll always be E. B. Farnum. Hearst is also the same purple villain that drives the plot, showing less nuance than many of Milch’s other creations.

Yet, it is heartening to watch Al pass quietly, knowing that, whatever storms may pass over Deadwood, those whom he cared for in his own curmudgeonly way, are safe. That alone made the movie worth the watch.

I did have to chuckle at certain points. Many characters got very little to do. I knew that would be the case going in. Alma Garret-Ellsworth had little more than a cameo in the movie, though this was due to conflicts in Molly Parker’s own work schedule. Anna Gunn only had one or two scenes as Martha Bullock. Each time I heard her speak, I was struck at how much more like Skyler White she sounded. Tim Olyphant too had much more Raylan Givens in his delivery than he did pre-Justified. On the other hand, Calamity Jane seemed as if she’d never left the role.

At the end of the day, I liked the movie a lot. I didn’t love it. I’m beginning to wonder if it’s possible to ever wrap up a series in a satisfactory manner. Fans of Game of Thrones don’t seem to think so. Maybe finales such as that of The Shield and Breaking Bad are more of an anomaly than a real possibility. Yet, I will re-watch Deadwood, The Movie. Every two years or so, when I break out the series for a re-run, I will now happily include this final chapter in my viewing, not choosing to skip it as I do other wrap-ups such as Homicide.

Will Deadwood be back for yet another chapter. I say emphatically, hell no! David Milch’s diagnosis of Alzheimer’s, embodied in the story by the passing of it’s central character, assures that this series has been appropriately laid to rest. In short, there ain’t no more fuckin’ Deadwood without Al Swearengen. I believe that this is only as it should be. Let Seth, Sol, Trixie, Jane and all the others pass into the sunset knowing that a small few of us will speak of them fondly in TV heaven.

Huzzah, Deadwood! Huzzah!

There are television shows that do not age well. As much as I was addicted at the time, 24 sadly falls into this category. The program, while a compelling thriller in its early years, adopted a plot-driven formula that hinged on the Hitchcockian ploy of, what happens next. Once you learn what happens next, it greatly reduces the rewatchability factor after you experience your first go-round. There is little emotional reward in watching Jack Bauer save David Palmer’s life when you have the foreknowledge that, three seasons later, David Palmer will be felled by an assassin’s bullet in the name of, just another plot twist. I will always hold a place of affection for the first season of 24, but seldom rewatch anything past it.

Then, there’s Deadwood, a contemporary of 24, as well as other HBO stable favorites such as The Sopranos, Sex and the City, The Wire and Six Feet Under. I rewatch it every couple of years and, contrary to the adventures of Jack Bauer and Chloe, Deadwood grows ever sweeter and more profound with the passage of time.

One year after my move to Omaha, I unwound the first episode of Deadwood on a lonely Friday night and was amazed to discover that I lost track of time as I viewed it. The profanity-drenched Shakespearian dialogue, the complex plot, the wonderfully-woven characters and the minimalistic music all blend together to form nothing less than a masterpiece.

On its face, Deadwood is a western. The first few episodes carry all of the trappings of classic westerns, including a hanging that is little more than a lynching under color of authority, gunfights, gold miners, and even real life western heroes in the form of Wild Bill Hickok and Calamity Jane.

Yet, as you scratch beneath the top soil of this series, you discover that Deadwood is no more a western in the traditional sense than The Wire is a traditional cop show. This truth is brought home with a bang when Wild Bill Hickok (Keith Carradine) is murdered at the end of the fourth episode. Hickok belies the heroic image and is depicted here as a burned-out man who carries his celebrity status like a cross. Calamity Jane (Robin Weigert), long viewed through a historical lens as a tough-talking, quick-shooting female icon of the old west, is painted here as little more than a loud-mouth drunk with a streak of yellow; a loser who just happened to scout for General Custer.

So these two come to Deadwood, not first built as a town, but as merely a thriving, lawless camp in the Dakota Territory. With them come Seth Bullock (Timothy Olyphant), along with his partner, Sol Star (John Hawkes.) All they want to do is build a hardware store and make a modest living, but Bullock’s temper and his strong sense of morality propel him down a certain path until he becomes the local sheriff by the end of the first season. There’s the town medic, Doc Cochran (Brad Dourif), who’s irascible manner is matched only by the demons he collected on various battlefields of the Civil War. There’s Alma Garret (Molly Parker), a rich New York society woman who finds herself in Deadwood against her will at the behest of her doe-eyed, tenderfoot husband. There’s the slimy E. B. Farnum (William Sanderson), hotelier, grifter and spy for whomever has his price. There’s Ellsworth (Jim Beaver), a prospector down on his luck, but who’s affable nature makes him a universally beloved man throughout the camp. And there’s the Reverend Smith (Ray McKinnon), a preacher who brings religion to Deadwood, but who is doomed by a brain tumor.

At the center of it all sits Al Swearengen (Ian McShane), local crime boss, cut-throat and architect of everything shady that goes on in the region. Swearengen is a brutal but efficient criminal who operates out of the Gem Saloon, where he is quick to put a boot on the neck of any of his prostitutes if they get out of line, or cut the throat of any of his underlings should they cross him. His henchmen, Dan Dority (W. Earl Brown), Johnny Burns (Sean Bridgers), and later, Silas Adams (Titus Welliver), are bound to Swearengen by a mixture of fear, respect and loyalty. Even Trixie (Paula Malcomson), his preferred prostitute and sometime confidant is torn by her bondage to him as the series progresses.

The nature of Swearengen’s business makes him many enemies throughout the course of the series. Bullock is the most obvious. The two clash, both ethically and physically as their dealings continue. Al also has competition in the person of Cy Tolliver (Powers Boothe), a ruthless riverboat gambler who opens a larger, more expensive saloon right across the street from Al’s joint. Al also finds his power threatened after Hickok’s murder captures the attention of the territorial government in Yankton, embodied in a commissioner (Stephen Tobolowsky), who is the only man who surpasses Farnum in the unctuous department. And there are the non-human threats such as a plague of smallpox, which forces Al to realize that the camp can best defend itself against external threats if it comes together and forms a local government of its own.

The plague ushers in, not only a body count, but the reality that Deadwood is more than a collection of people brought together by their lust for gold. It is a budding community. If The Wire represents the death of a great city, Deadwood represents its antithesis in the formation of a small town. And here is why Deadwood differs from it’s postmodern contemporaries such as The Sopranos and Mad Men. While those shows are dark, gritty affairs tinged with existentialism, the main theme of Deadwood is growth. Many of the characters who come to Deadwood down on their luck find new strength in themselves as they see the town begin to take shape around them. The outward trappings of civilization begin to appear as evidenced by the formation of a town bank, a livery stable, a newspaper, a telegraph, a school for the children and even a local theater in the third season. Swearengen is the most blatant symbol of growth as he as he undergoes a gradual metamorphosis from a ruthless crime boss to the town’s unofficial mayor by series end.

This doesn’t mean that all characters transform themselves from bad to good people. Series creator David Milch is excellent at painting with shades of gray. Seth Bullock wears a sheriff’s badge and cloaks himself in rigid morality, yet he carries on a passionate affair with Alma Garret, even while his wife Martha (Anna Gunn) and young stepson are traveling to join him in Deadwood. Calamity Jane struggles with alcoholism in the wake of Wild Bill’s death. Doc Cochran, Alma Garret and Steve the town racist also struggle with addiction. Tolliver’s madam, Joanie Stubbs (Kim Dickens), tries to break free of her pimp, only to be driven into the arms of a serial killer (Garret Dillahunt) akin to Jack the Ripper, who has a taste for kinky sex and dead whores.

Deadwood was one of the flashpoints of the Gold Rush that typified life in the latter half of the West of the 19th Century. Naturally, it would draw a ragged assortment of criminals, drifters, drop-outs and honest people as its profile rose in America. And it was inevitable that it would also draw the attention of predatory capitalists. Such a figure arrives in the third season of the show in the form of George Hearst (Gerald McRaney), a greedy multi-millionaire who cares far more for gold than he does for human life. Yet, while he plods through the camp like a juggernaut, attempting to possess everything and everyone within his assumed domain, the town fights back, thereby strengthening their sense of community. Swearengen and Bullock are unlikely allies as they face a common enemy; a story that has played out time and again throughout the course of human history. Hearst is ultimately vanquished, but not in a manner that traditionalists who enjoy stories of the conflict between good and evil will find completely satisfying. The departure of Hearst from Deadwood proved to serve as the unexpected finale of the series as well, much to the consternation of the small but vocal group of fans.

The final episode of Deadwood aired in 2006. For years, HBO and David Milch pointed the long finger of blame at each other as to the reasons why Deadwood was suddenly fed to the pigs. To this day, no one can give a clear answer. The low ratings, even by HBO standards, certainly played a part. Small wonder. Deadwood is certainly not for everyone. The violence is often brutal. The plots are dense and sweeping. The language was often given as the reason why many people were put off by it. It is an irony that the dialogue is simultaneously guttural and elegant. Most of the characters spat out words like “fuck,” and “cunt” as casually as Kim Kardashian uses words such as “like,” and “umm.” “Cocksucker,” was often the centerpiece of many a deadwood drinking game on chat forums of which I was a participant. In short, Deadwood ain’t your grandpa’s western. Other reasons for the abrupt cancelation may have been a growing weariness of David Milch’s sometimes erratic shooting schedule on the part of HBO executives, or a lack of returns in the Emmy Awards department given the expensive nature of the show. At the time, Deadwood was the most expensive show being produced in American broadcast television.

Sidebar: Milch’s erratic production schedule was one of the reasons why he was removed as head writer of NYPD Blue. This was largely due to his fondness for heroin and gambling. In interviews, he claimed to have kicked the former habit by the time of the production of Deadwood, though he was more ambiguous about the latter.

Almost immediately after the announcement of Deadwood’s cancelation, there was talk of the cast and crew coming together once more to do a series of wrap-up movies, or a truncated fourth season… Or something. That was 12 years ago. Rumors have swirled on the internet, but after a series of false starts and empty hopes, nothing came of it. I gave up on the idea not long after I went to Denver, resigning myself to the notion of watching three seasons of epic television every one or two years.

Last July, I was sitting in the control room at work playing on Twitter when I came across a tweet from Deadwood sycophant, Alan Sepinwall. It said something like, “Can’t wait for W. Earl Brown to give us the inside scoop from the new Deadwood movie.” Google told me the rest. HBO had officially confirmed that, yes, Deadwood would indeed be filming a final movie to tie up loose ends. If things proceeded according to plan (and that’s always a big if where Milch is concerned), shooting was to commence two weeks ago. What a herculean effort it must’ve taken to bring all the surviving cast back together for one last hurrah! Or is that, huzzah!?

The only thing I know about the movie is that, of course, it will take place 12 years after the final episode of the regular series. There is no way they could’ve done otherwise. All of the cast members have aged, many of them with other trophies dangling from their belts. Timothy Olyphant starred in another western-style series, Justified; a show that is good, but not great. Titus Welliver has gone on to play Harry Bosch, Michael Connelly’s literary cop in an Amazon series. Ian McShane currently stars in American Gods. Molly Parker has a recurring role on House of Cards. Powers Boothe recurred on Nashville before his death in 2017. About half the cast had guest stints on Sons of Anarchy. Dayton Callie had a regular role on the show. And Anna Gunn (God bless her) played Skyler White on Breaking Bad.

Sidebar: The character I’m most curious about is Doc Cochran, who was suffering from tuberculosis in the third season. There is no way he could have survived another 12 years. Milch assures us that all of the regular cast will appear, except for Titus Welliver. The only way they can possibly incorporate Doc is through a flashback; a technique never previously employed on the series. We are also promised that Cy Tolliver’s absence will not go unnoticed. My fervent hope is that Joanie Stubbs is finally able to rise above her circumstances should Cy be dead.

However the movie turns out, I will be glad of a more fitting conclusion than that which we received in 2006. Whether or not the movie lives up to expectations, at least the wondering and waiting will soon be at an end.

Adendum: 10/23/18

I managed to locate W. Earl Brown’s Twitter feed. He confirms that, yes, the cast and crew are back together and in production. Deadwood the Movie is scheduled for a tentative Spring release. Of course, they are now on a two-week hiatus so that hoopalhead Milch can catch up, but it wouldn’t be Deadwood if things went off like clockwork.

Huzzah!

On New Year’s Eve Day, my dad texted me and said:

“Have been watching Breaking Bad this afternoon. What a mess.”

I didn’t ask him if he meant that in a good or bad way. I merely responded, “That is my fave show of all time.”

It turned out that Dad was watching one of several Breaking Bad marathons that AMC was airing in celebration of the 10-year anniversary of the premier of the series. Today marks the exact anniversary.

A little over four years ago, Breaking Bad ended its five-year run. As tribute, I authored three blog entries explaining why, in my opinion, Breaking Bad was (and still is) the best television series ever to be produced.

You guys remember my rather protracted ‘Deep Shadow’ rant? Just imagine three back-to-back entries just as long; maybe longer.

Since then, my old blog disappeared, which caused me to create this one. My attention span, along with that of the entire nation, seems to have diminished in the intervening years. I don’t have the wherewithal to try to replicate those entries. Still, I do think a commemorative tribute to Breaking Bad is in order.

A quick breakdown of BB for those who were under a rock from about 2010 through 2013. Breaking Bad tells the story of Walter White (Bryan Cranston), an over-qualified high school chemistry teacher who discovers that he has lung cancer. In order to provide for his family when/if he succumbs, he decides to partner up with a former student, Jesse Pinkman (Aaron Paul), and cook crystal meth. This leads to all manner of chicanery as Walt and Jesse rise from two bumbling fools cooking in an RV in the desert to Walt assuming the position as the most powerful drug kingpin in the greater Southwest. Meanwhile, Walt has to duck his brother-in-law, Hank (Dean Norris), who just happens to be a DEA agent, as well as his wife, Skyler (Anna Gunn), who is not the typical clueless or willfully ignorant TV wife of other crime shows.

Why is Breaking Bad the best show of all time, in my view? There are many reasons. The biggest also serves as the chief metaphor of the show; chemistry.

Why was the original Star Wars movie such a sensation? Talent had a lot to do with it, but it was as much about timing. America was in a bit of a blue funk in the latter half of the ‘70’s and a movie about a hopeful battle against an evil galactic empire was just the thing the country needed to spark its collective imagination.

Flash forward to 2008. TV critics call the period between 1999 and the present, “The second golden age of television.” This was evidenced by monster hits such as Sex and the City, The Sopranos, Six Feet Under and Mad Men. These were all shows that were broadcast on cable TV, where the standards of censorship were far more lax than those of the over-the-air networks who were under the thumb of the FCC. Cable was the perfect place for Breaking Bad to find a home.

Series creator Vince Gilligan’s vision of the story of a mild-mannered school teacher who conquered the drug world with aplomb under the alias of Heisenberg may not have been groundbreaking in its presentation of the archetypal anti-hero whom the audience simultaneously cheers for and despises, but Gilligan took it one step further. In an interview with TV Guide, he said that television was designed to keep its characters in a kind of stasis. He is absolutely right.

If you watch any show, from Star Trek to Law & Order, the basic formula from one episode to the next is the same. This makes the shows infinitely rewatchable on cable reruns. But really, the same form of stasis occurred even among the shows considered to be the critical cream of the crop.

Take The Sopranos, for instance. The basic premise is fascinating and deservedly captured America’s attention during the show’s eight-year run. A mafia boss who consults a psychiatrist about his problems? Who wouldn’t love that?

But if you dig beneath the surface, every season has a similar formula to it. Tony encounters a single or group of adversaries. In the first season, it’s his Uncle Junior and his mother. In the second, it’s Richie Aprile. In the third and fourth, it’s Ralph Cifaretto and Jackie Aprile Jr. And so on and so on up until the black screen of doom.

Meanwhile, Tony conducts a series of affairs while his wife feigns outrage, but secretly prefers the arrangement. Tony’s kids are spoiled and unmanageable. Tony takes his problems to his therapist, who gives him advice on how to handle his personal life. Being a sociopath, Tony twists her advice, using it to gain leverage over his enemies.

Another cable critical darling, The Wire, is similar in structure. In every season, the Baltimore police define a target. Throughout the season, they engage in a game of human chess against their opponents. By the finale, the cops nail their quarry, but something happens that renders all of their efforts null and void. They win the battle, but lose the war on drugs.

You can watch the first season of either The Sopranos or The Wire and stop if you wish, having gotten the basic message each series is trying to convey. Sure, you’d miss a lot of great future stories in each show. Adriana’s whacking, or the ultimate fate of Stringer Bell, but you’d still receive the message David Chase and David Simon are trying to send.

Not so with Breaking Bad. At the end of the first season, Walt and Jesse watch helplessly as their first business associate, psychotic, drug-crazed Tuco Salamanca, beats a guy to death in an isolated junkyard, then casually drives away. There is no possible way to know what comes next; no foreshadowing of the plane crash, Gus Fring, Saul Goodman or the machinegun in the trunk outside of an Albuquerque Denny’s. To employ a literary comparison, other programs are like a series of novels, while each season of Breaking Bad is like one section of the same long book.

Gilligan’s dark creation came along at just the right moment in TV history. The Sopranos had recently ended, The Wire was winding down and Mad Men was just hitting its stride, but was coming at the end of the TV revolution, rather than the beginning.

Though timing certainly played a role, you cannot minimize the top-notch talent that went into the creation and execution of this series. Vince Gilligan’s aleatory vision for the show was ignored by every major cable network, but AMC took a gamble because they had far less to lose than HBO or FX. He surrounded himself with a staff of superb writers, editors, camera operators and other set workers. He then assembled a crew of actors second to none in the business. AMC balked at Bryan Cranston being cast in the lead in the wake of his role as goofy husband Hal in Malcolm in the Middle, but Gilligan persisted and ultimately, history proved him correct.

The show is clearly Cranston’s domain, but every actor who supports him is at the top of their game. Aaron Paul is the most noteworthy. Jesse Pinkman begins his journey as a somewhat hapless associate to Walt. By the end, he is a scarred man who will never be able to escape the consequences of his actions. Anna Gunn as Skyler White walks a fine line between the nagging wife and the put-upon victim of Walt’s hyperbolic midlife crisis. Later, she becomes a somewhat unwilling accomplice. She manages all of it with convincing fortitude. Dean Norris as Hank seems like an alfa male jock type when we first meet him, but later when Hank suffers from PTSD, we feel for a man who is struggling with his own demons. Hank’s wife Marie (Betsy Brandt) seems flaky and self-centered at first, but her loyalty to her husband proves steadfast as things get darker and darker for him.

Walt’s antagonists are also well-represented. Chief among them is Giancarlo Esposito as Gustavo ‘Gus’ Fring, a Chilean businessman who uses a string of fried chicken restaurants as a front for his meth business. Fring was so compelling that fans were split on who they wanted to win when Walt and Gus inevitably fell out and entered into a deadly contest of wills. Then, there’s Jonathan Banks as the world-weary Mike, the clean-up guy who splits his loyalties, Mark Margolis as a crippled ex drug lord who can only communicate by ringing a bell, Bob Odenkirk as Saul Goodman, Walt and Jesse’s flashy criminal lawyer who got his own spin-off, and Laura Fraser as the mercurial Lydia, who is too bloodthirsty for her own good. All of these characters come together to form a rich, vibrant tapestry that drives the show toward its ultimate and inevitable climax.

Another facet of Breaking Bad that I find attractive is the show’s overarching philosophy. Some writers are more subtle than others, but each series has at its center a theme or message that it tries to convey to the viewer. The Sopranos is a very complex show, but the basic message is that most people cannot or will not change. The message of The Wire is that institutions ultimately fail despite the best intentions of those who run them.

Breaking Bad strikes a chord with me because of my father. More than once he would say to my brothers and I, “Life’s about choices.” No series better illustrates this truism than Breaking Bad.

As we observe Walt on his journey to becoming Heisenberg, master criminal, we see that Walt is confronted with many choices, both past and present, that propelled him down the path to depravity. The first and most obvious was in the first episode, when he chose to cook crystal meth in the wake of his cancer diagnosis. But many other choices present themselves along Walt’s downward spiral of self-degradation. His two old friends from college offer to pay for his cancer treatments in full, but Walt refuses due to his prideful arrogance. Walt allows Jesse’s girlfriend to choke on her own vomit right in front of him, without taking the necessary steps that would save her. Still later, Walt is forced to choose between his loyalty to Jesse and that of his employer, Gus Fring.

And it’s not just Walt. Nearly every character faces a stark choice at one point or another during the unfolding of the series. Jesse, Skyler, Hank and Marie all make fateful decisions that have an impact, not only upon them, but on the lives of others around them. In my view, this is the very nature of existence. No man is an island unto himself. The decisions we as humans make cannot exist in a vacuum.
It is a lesson that Walt finally learns in the show’s best episode, “Ozymandias,” 47 punishing minutes of television that twist your guts into mush.

Every couple of years or so, I break out my DVD rips of Breaking Bad and rewatch the series. Even after three or four viewings, the show never ceases to astound me with the depth of its writing, acting and production values. I hear the cinematography is pretty good, too.
Other shows have not aged well; 24, for example. Yet, Breaking Bad is a timeless classic that will always hold a place in my heart as the best television series ever to be made.

A pox on Hollywood for not providing it with audio description. My fanboy love for the show is so boundless that I downloaded and saved every single minute-by-minute recap of each episode that was provided by the AMC website. That’s right. I have to listen to each episode, then read the recap to fill in the gaps. It’s cumbersome, but Heisenberg and company are well worth the trouble. Yet, I will not rest until Netflix, the Brits or some lowly narrator chained to a pole with a bike lock in a basement somewhere describes all of the episodes for myself and my blind brothers and sisters.

Bekah, if you’re reading this, I’ve got a bike lock and a bologna sandwich with your name on them. Better beware when I call you to come to the control room.

As for Breaking Bad’s successor, Better Call Saul, you can read about my thoughts on the show elsewhere in the annals of this blog. My views on it haven’t changed much after three seasons. It is a very good show, but not great as was Breaking Bad. Small wonder. You can only catch lightning in a bottle once. Just ask George Lucas and Disney. No matter how many times they try, they will never recreate the crackling magic of the original Star Wars trilogy.

So here’s to you Vince Gilligan, Bryan Cranston, Aaron Paul, Anna Gunn, Dean Norris, Betsy Brant, RJ Mitte, Giancarlo Espozito, Jonathan Banks, Bob Odenkirk, Laura Fraser, Steven Quezada, Jesse Plemons, David Costabile, Krysten Ritter, Mark Margolis and all of the other actors, as well as the writers and crew who made this show a once-in-a-lifetime experience. David Chase might have broken the TV mold, but you all stomped on the pieces. Happy 10th!!! Let’s all raise a glass of Schraderbrau before we dive into a bucket of Los Pollos Hermanos.

YEAH, BITCH!!!

I’ve been in a Star Trek TOS phase lately and was researching it on Wikipedia when I ran across some top 10 lists compiled by Entertainment Weekly and IGN.com. I decided to see how their lists stacked up with mine.

Here are my top 10 favorite eps from the series that started it all.

10. “Where No Man Has Gone Before”:

The Enterprise travels to the edge of the galaxy and hits an energy field that turns Captain Kirk’s best friend into an evil God. Kirk eventually has to kill him in order to save the ship. This was the second pilot that sold the series to NBC and it laid the groundwork nicely. Less cerebral than its predecessor, but with more emotional impact and compelling characters.

9. “The Enterprise Incident”:

Kirk and Spock conduct an elaborate spy mission to steal a cloaking device from the Romulans. In the process, Spock commits subterfuge with the female Romulan commander. The third season sucked, but this is one of two episodes that made my list to help redeem it a bit.

8. “Journey to Babel”:

Spock’s estranged parents are on board as part of a diplomatic mission, but things go south when an assassin frames Sarek for murder. This episode has it all; political intrigue, suspense and family drama.

7. “A Private Little War”:

Kirk discovers that the Klingons are interfering in the evolution of a planet by supplying flintlock muskets to one side in a war. This story was a direct allegory of the Vietnam War and is probably the darkest episode of the series.

6. “The Trouble With Tribbles”:

This is probably the most light-hearted episode of the series. It involves Klingons, a space station and fuzzy little creatures that like to be fruitful and multiply. I don’t know how to give a better synopsis.

5. “Space Seed”:

The crew discovers an ancient ship adrift in space containing genetically enhanced super humans from Earth’s past. Kirk makes the mistake of waking them up and spends the next 15 years paying for it. This episode was good on its own, but it stands the test of time because of the sequel movie, The Wrath of Khan.

4. “Mirror, Mirror”:

Kirk and a landing party are accidentally beamed into a parallel universe during a storm and encounter a duplicate Enterprise and evil doubles of the crew. It sounds corny on paper, but the episode is a classic and the mirror universe was re-used time and again on Deep Space 9.

3. “The Tholian Web”:

Kirk is lost through a temporal rip in space and Spock and McCoy are left to run the ship while the crew goes insane. This is another third season ep I like because it high-lights the love-hate relationship between Spock and McCoy by placing Kirk in the background.

2. “Amok Time”:

Spock is usually a very logical being, so Kirk can’t figure out why he’s acting like a crazy guy. Turns out Spock is just hornie and needs to go back to his home planet to work it out with his wife. Turns out his wife is a bitch, so Spock takes it out on Kirk in a fight to the death.

1. “City on the Edge of Forever”:

This is pretty much a no-brainer in Trek fandom and I don’t disagree. Time travel is a concept that has been done to death in the Trek franchise, but this one is still the best example. Kirk and Spock chase McCoy through a time portal to Earth’s past after McCoy goes insane. Once there, Kirk falls in love with a woman, so of course, she has to die.

Honorable mentions:

“Balance of Terror,” “The Doomsday Machine,” “The Naked Time,” “A Wolf in the Fold,” “Devil in the Dark,” “Arena,” “The Galileo Seven.”

And now, the top five worst episodes of Star Trek TOS:

5. “Spock’s Brain”:

A strange woman appears on the bridge of the Enterprise and knocks out the entire crew. When they revive, they discover Spock on life support with no brain. It’s an unintentional projection for this entire episode, which makes no damn sense and is full of gender stereotypes. I can’t believe I just wrote that.

4. “Errand of Mercy”:

I used to love this episode, but every time I watch it, I like it less. It’s the first episode to feature the Klingons as they officially go to war with the Federation. Long story short, the war never happens, because an omniscient race of beings known as the Organians refuse to let the two powers fight.

It’s a giant cop-out, written in a time when pacifism was popular in the face of an unpopular war. It’s also worth noting that the Organians are never seen again after this episode in any Trek incarnation and are referenced only once in passing. Yet, the Klingons became the most popular antagonists in the original series, and later, they were steadfast allies to the Federation.

3. “The Way to Eden”:

Another sad episode that marks the time in which it aired. A group of space hippies under the control of a Jim Jones-like leader hijack the Enterprise in search of paradise.

2. “Plato’s Stepchildren”:

Another episode in which a group of beings with superior powers use the crew as sport for their amusement. It’s a story with no real meat to it. It is noteworthy only for containing the first interracial kiss between Kirk and Uhura. Of course, if you’ve read Shatner’s book on the series, you know that the kiss never really happened.

1. “Turnabout Intruder”:

The finale that took the series out with not a whimper, but a belly laugh. Decades before gender identity became a thing, Kirk is forceably transferred into a woman’s body so that she can take command of the Enterprise.

This episode is unintentionally ridiculous on many levels. The notion that women could not serve as the captain of a starship in the 22nd century was ludicrous when women were already emerging in positions of power in the 20th century. Also, Shatner was always a ham, but in this one, he is a scenery-chewing, double-fisted ham who outdoes even himself. This episode is so bad, it’s actually good.

Honorable mentions:

Most third season fare, plus “The Omega Glory,” “The Alternative Factor,” and “I, Mudd.”

Well, we’ve had a lot of heavy, serious crap going down lately on this blog, so how about lightening it up. Let’s switch from the cut-throat world of D.C. politics to the much more transparent world of, The Mafia.

I’ve been embracing my inner TV nerd of late by reading yet another critic’s book by David Bianculli. He’s charting the evolution of scripted TV shows in 18 different genres. Of course, he’s a big fan of The Sopranos.

What a coincidence. So am I.

So here are my top 10 favorite episodes from that landmark series, The Sopranos. As they say, “Come for the whackings, stay for the psychiatry.”

If you haven’t yet seen the series, be warned that spoilers abound.

10. “Made in America” (Season 6, episode 21)

Possibly the most infamous of all Sopranos episodes, it’s still being cussed and discussed to this day.

Overall, the episode isn’t particularly dramatic in the wake of the blood bath that occurred in the series’ penultimate outing, “The Blue Comet.” The whacking of Phil Leotardo is far less anti-climactic than other whackings that appear in this list.

What makes this series finale so memorable is the final seconds. Tony Soprano (James Gandolfini) and his family are sitting in a restaurant, eating onion rings and listening to “Don’t Stop Believing,” on the tabletop jukebox. A couple of suspicious characters come in.

Then… Cut to black!

What did the black screen of death mean? Many passionate fans insist that it represents Tony’s death. Other equally passionate fans insist that it just means the story ends and that life goes on in the Sopranos universe. Series creator David Chase has been adamant that we will never know, for he will remain as silent as a whacked rat on the subject.

9. “I Dream of Jeannie Cusamano” (Season One, Episode 13)

The central conflict of The Sopranos in its first two seasons is the battle of Tony with his mother, Livia (Nancy Marchand.) This season finale best illustrates the problem. After Livia nearly burns her house down while cooking mushrooms, Tony puts her in a retirement home. Livia resents him for this, so she colludes with Uncle Junior to have her own son killed.

Tony catches on to the plot and foils it. Tony whacks Junior’s number one hetman, but Junior escapes mob justice by landing in jail, courtesy of the FBI.

Tony pays Livia a visit in her nursing home and screams at her, “I try to do right by you and you try to have me whacked!?”

All of Tony’s issues come boiling out as he bellows at the prone form of Livia on a hospital gurney. The angry, wounded little boy is clearly visible beneath the hulking form. But Tony can’t do anything to his mother as she smiles underneath her mask and is wheeled away.

8. “Whoever Did This” (Season Four, Episode Nine)

Of all the murders committed on this series, this one seems to be referenced the most by fans. Was it because Ralphie Cifaretto (Joe Pantoliano), sociopath and misogynist that he was, also had a charming side? Was it because of the ultra brutal nature of his demise in his own kitchen, with Tony’s big hands wrapped around his neck after a fierce fight? Was it the toupee? Who knows. All we know is that Ralph was killed and buried in three separate places and no one cared.

7. “Members Only” (Season Six, Episode One)

Most of this episode concerns the fate of a small player in Tony’s organization at the hands of the FBI. However, the last moments of the episode serve as a game changer.

Tony is cooking pasta for Uncle Junior (Dominic Chianese) in his kitchen. Junior, who now suffers from advancing Alzheimer’s, thinks Tony is a long dead enemy and shoots him in the stomach.

This episode came along after rival series such as Lost and 24 had raised the bar, making it acceptable to kill off main characters. Fans went crazy on the internet. Would the writers actually let Tony bleed out on Junior’s kitchen floor, thereby rebranding the show as, “The Further Adventures of Christopha and Vito?”

OF COURSE NOT! They still had 20 episodes left to go before the black screen and the late, great James Gandolfini was still an Emmy magnet.

6. “Funhouse” (Season Two, Episode 13)

Speaking of the death of major characters, this episode featured the first. Sal ‘Big Pussy’ Bompensiero (Vincent Pastore) had committed the ultimate breach of the mafia code by turning rat for the FBI. Tony learned about it and thus, Tony along with his two trusted sidekicks Paulie and Sylvio, took Pussy for one last cruise on Tony’s boat. Of all the murders Tony committed, this one had the biggest personal impact on him, as Pussy was one of his mentors.

The other major aspect of this episode were the dream sequences. The show had flirted with them before, but this was the first time (and not the last) that Chase and his cohorts used Tony’s dreams as a means to advance the plot.

5. “White Caps” (Season 4, Episode 13)

Carmela Soprano (Edie Falco) is mad as hell and she’s not gonna take it anymore!

She’s tolerated Tony’s infidelity for years, but when one of his mistresses calls her on the telephone and taunts her over their affair, she explodes and kicks Tony out of the house in a hailstorm of golf balls.

There’s a B-Plot involving Tony’s cold war with a shark lawyer in which we learn that Tony knows how to resolve conflict without violence. There’s also a C-plot involving Johnny Sack and Little Carmine, but it is forgettable in the wake of the nuclear explosion that occurs between Tony and Carmela as their marriage is finally revealed for the crumbling façade that it truly is.

Does Carmela divorce Tony? Hell no! After a season of separation, she makes her peace with her life and her true nature and goes back to him.

4. “Employee of the Month” (Season three, Episode Four)

Tony’s therapist Dr. Jennifer Melfi (Lorraine Bracco) takes center stage in this one. Over the course of the show’s 86 episodes, we saw a lot of violence. But nothing was quite as shocking or brutal as Melfi’s rape in a parking garage.

One of the major themes of The Sopranos is that humans, by in large, are irredeemable creatures incapable of change. But Melfi defies this existential view when she refuses to tell Tony about the rape. She takes the high road instead. Rather than unleashing Tony as the instrument of her righteous vengeance, she handles it by suffering in silence.

3. “Pine Barrens” (Season Three, Episode 11)

The Sopranos wasn’t just all about the drama. It could be hilarious, too. This is the best example.

Christopher (Michael Imperioli) and Paulie (Tony Sirico) go to pick up a collection from one of Tony’s Russian contacts. How they bungle the job and end up spending a freezing night in the Jersey woods is something you have to see to believe.

This wasn’t a Tonycentric episode. Gandolfini was surrounded by a superb cast that often carried the action to great effect. The ending is somewhat ambiguous and served as one of several plots that drove fans to distraction because it was forever left unresolved.

2. “Long Term Parking” (Season Five, Episode 12)

Poor, poor Adriana (Drea de Matteo.) She didn’t mean to get nabbed by the FBI. She didn’t want to become an informant against Christopher. She never, ever should’ve admitted it to him. She winds up buried in an unmarked grave somewhere in the Jersey woods, while Christopher once again falls off the wagon.

This is a wonderful, yet heartbreaking episode from start to finish. It is notable because of the different approaches that the characters take when dispensing with a troublesome FBI rat. Big Pussy dies under a cloud of sorrow while he and his comrades do tequila shots on Tony’s boat with Sinatra crooning in the background. Adriana dies crawling on her hands and knees, begging for her life as Sylvio calls her a “cunt,” and puts three bullets in her back.

1. “College” (Season One, Episode 5)

The Sopranos was noteworthy for its serialized storylines, yet this is what producers call, a bottle episode. That means that all events are self-contained and don’t require having viewed the shows that come either before or after.

Tony is taking his daughter Meadow (Jamie-Lynn Sigler) on a trip to visit several college campuses. While doing so, Tony spots a rat who is responsible for the incarceration of several members of his crew. Much of the episode is a cat-and-mouse game between Tony and the rat, all while Tony tries to keep his daughter out of the line of fire.

The B-plot involves Carmela as she deals with her sexual attraction to her priest. It sounds lame on paper, but Edie Falco makes it work.

Surprise, surprise. Tony catches and kills the rat. This was the first time (and not the last) that we see Tony commit cold-blooded murder on screen. The HBO executives were worried that seeing Tony kill a man would turn the audience against him. David Chase argued that Tony would have no credibility if he didn’t whack the rat in true mafia style. Of course, Chase won out and the audience was clearly behind Tony as he wrapped a jumper cable around the rat’s throat.

Honorable mentions:

“Boca,” “Knight in White Satin Armor,” “Marco Polo,” “University,” “The Test Dream,” “Mr. and Mrs. Sacrimoni Request,” “Full Leather Jacket,” “Another Toothpick,” “The Strong, Silent Type,” “Proshai, Livushka,” and “The Blue Comet.”