Homeland (Season 2)

Starring: Claire Danes, Damian Lewis, Morena Baccarin, David Harewood, Diego Klattenhoff, Jackson Pace, Morgan Saylor, Mandy Patinkin, Jamey Sheridan, David Marciano, Navid Negahban

Creator: Gideon Raff

Genre: Psychological Thriller, Serial Drama

Rating: B+

I'm still a bit undecided on the second season of Homeland, owing largely to the sheer  unbelievability of a lot of it.  It kind of lost me about mid-way through the season, only to bring me right back into it at the end.  While I like being brought back, I don't like being lost in the first place.

The second season of Homeland switches things up a bit from the first.  At first things are all about getting Carrie (Danes) back into the business of the CIA, while Brody (Lewis) struggles with the duality of his life and identity, as he acts as both a patriotic family man and a covert terrorist.  Then the CIA finds his suicide video and discover what he's up to - and use Carrie to manipulate Brody into acting as a agent for the CIA against Abu Nazir (Negahban).  Through it all, there is the underlying theme of the relationship, or possibility thereof, between Brody and Carrie, and the implications that it has for both her job and his family.

I really didn't buy Brody's conversion back to being a patriotic American.  I don't think that you can have feelings as strongly as he had in the first season - he was prepared to blow up himself in order to kill the Vice President of the United States - only to very quickly switch back to being a patriot again.  As such, the whole plot with Brody really bothered me because I never really thought that he was being straight with us.  This is in a huge contrast to season one, when I spent the a huge chunk of the season unsure of Brody's motivations and allegiance and hoping that it was one way, but suspecting that it was another - this season I was told it was one way, then another, all while getting a bit bored with it.  I think I liked Brody more as a terrorist than as a former terrorist.

I liked what they did with Carrie a lot more.  Her mental instability really is key here, and I think in a lot of ways the relationship with Brody - and the things that Brody kind of gets away with - is dependant on her being mentally unstable.  I think Danes' character here is probably one of my favourite characters on TV right now, which kind of says a lot because I love a lot of TV's characters.  Danes does a great job, even when I'm not buying the actual plot of the show.  In a manner, while the character's believably is aided heavily by her mental instability it is Danes' skill as an actress that makes that instability believable in itself.  Kudos!

My favourite part about this season, however, has to be Brody's family, namely his daughter Dana (Saylor).  Her struggles were far more believable and relate-able to me than anything else that was going on here.  There was a point when I almost wished that Homeland was not about the plot to say the USA from a terrorist threat (or multiple terrorist threats) but rather about a family dealing with a father's rise into politics (with or without the whole father-is-a-possible-terrorist aspect of the plot).  There was a lot of greatness and potential for even more greatness within that plot.  Furthermore, I kind of see potential for greatness within Morgan Saylor that I expect to see in her future endeavours.

Grey's Anatomy (Season 3)

Starring: Ellen Pompeo, Sandra Oh, Katherine Heigl, Justin Chambers, T.R. Knight, Chandra Wilson, James Pickens, Jr, Isaiah Washington, Patrick Dempsey, Kate Walsh, Sara Ramírez, Eric Dane

Creator: Shonda Rhimes

Genre: Medical Drama, Serial Drama
Rating: B-

In many ways the third season of Grey’s Anatomy is one of my favourite seasons of the show, while at the same time in many ways it’s my least favourite.  I love what the show does with some of its more secondary main characters and I love how many characters are introduced or bumped up in this season. I love the dynamic that Callie (Ramírez) and Sloan (Dane) bring to the show, and the way that Meredith’s (Pompeo) father and his other family are introduced more – and the way that Meredith further embraces her other family, and the way in which her relationship with the Chief (Pickens) develops.  I love the whole idea of the Chief being a surrogate father for Meredith, and it’s in this season that we really begin to start to see that.

The third season of Grey’s Anatomy starts with Meredith trying to choose between McDreamy (Dempsey) and McVet (Chris O’Donnell), Izzie (Heigl) trying to cope with Denny’s death, Christina (Oh) and Burke (Washington) deal with the results of the shooting, the Chief is forced to choose between his wife and his job, Bailey (Wilson) tries to reaffirm her status as a surgeon post-becoming a mommy, and George (Knight) tries to figure out his relationship with Callie. And, of course, to mess with it all, Mark Sloan returns to Seattle Grace. As the season progresses there are hook ups and break ups, marriages and divorces, births and deaths, comings and goings. The season seems to go into so many different directions, with so many plots being picked up and dropped, that it’s hard to provide a quick summary of it all without spoiling the way in which things with the earliest plots develop.

Okay, so the McDreamy/McVet thing was great.  As was the addition of McSteamy and the Dirty Mistresses club.  I love McStreamy and the element that he brings to the show.  Somehow, the Mer/Der/Addison (Pompeo) triangle is so much with the addition of a viable love interest for Addison.  I also like the fact that Sloan is as much about getting his friendship with Derek back as he is about doing anything with Addison - and the fact that he's very much about sleeping with as much of the hospital's female staff as possible.  It's such a great element of his character, I love it.  I really enjoyed elements of the George/Callie relationship too.  I love how the crush that George had on Mer is gone, and that he's trying to become an adult and enter into an adult relationship with someone.  I hate where the relationship ended up going, but then my overall dislike of Izzie at this point may have been a huge contributing factor there.  Also, am I right in thinking that George's friends are complete asses for how they treated Callie here?

I didn't like the second half of this season nearly as much as I liked the first half.  Things kind of change following the three parter, "Walk on Water," "Drowning on Dry Land," and Some Kind of Miracle." While I really did like what they did with each of those episodes - and especially the reactions to Mer's situation in "Some Kind of Wonderful" - it marked a turning point in the season where everything just started to go to shit again.  I do like how the season ended, but the steps that they took in getting there just bugged me.  Sometimes I wonder if our Interns are growing up or if our Attendings are simply sinking down to their level.

That being said, I did absolutely love the season's finale.  The relationship between Christina (Oh) and Burke (Washington) has always been an interesting one, and I've found it intriguing to watch how much of herself Christina has been willing to give up for him.  There's a part of me that wonders what would have happened had real life not shaped the direction of the plot here - Washington's controversial behaviour on set had a huge play in things - but I like how they dealt with things as it was.  In my opinion, there was no better way this relationship could have gone.

Grey's Anatomy (Season 2)

Starring: Ellen Pompeo, Sandra Oh, Katherine Heigl, Justin Chambers, T.R. Knight, Chandra Wilson, James Pickens, Jr, Isaiah Washington, Patrick Dempsey, Kate Walsh

Creator: Shonda Rhimes

Genre: Medical Drama, Serial Drama
Rating: B-

I went into rewatching Grey’s Anatomy with the thought that at some point the character if Izzie Stevens (Heigl) was a good one.  Sure, she wasn’t the best surgeon in our crew of interns and she could be annoying at times, but I was certain that at some point in this show I actually liked her.  I’m not certain when I stopped liking her, but I do know for sure that by episode 19 of season two I really couldn’t stand her.

The second season picks up pretty much exactly where the first one left off, a trait that I always enjoy – while a lot of time has passed for the viewers, no time at all has passed for the show.  Meredith (Pompeo) has just discovered that her dreamy boyfriend Derek (Dempsey) is in fact married, with the appearance of his wife, Dr. Addison Montgomery Shepherd (Walsh).  This love triangle becomes the primary focus of this season, as Meredith comes to terms with Addison’s existence, Addison fights to get her husband back, and Derek is forced to chose between the women.  While this forms the focus of the show for much of the season it isn’t the only major plot.  There’s also Izzie falling in love with a patient (Jeffrey Dean Morgan); Alex (Chambers) grows as a character, as he develops a relationship with Izzie; George (Knight) finally deals with his feelings for Meredith; the relationship between Christina (Oh) and Burke (Washington) grows and finally becomes public; Bailey (Wilson) is pregnant; we discover more about the relationship between Meredith’s mother and Dr. Webber (Pickens); and we’re introduced to Callie Torres (Sara Ramírez), Erica Hahn (Brooke Smith), and Mark Sloan (Eric Dane), who each become main characters in later seasons.  Oh! And there’s a bomb! In a body!

 Let's start with what I liked about this season... I actually loved the triangle between Meredith, Derek, and Addison.  I don't remember how I felt about it when the show first aired, but this time round I definitely liked it.  I really like Addison as a character, I was disappointed to see her leave at the end of season 3 (and even more disappointed by Private Practice, but that's a whole other review).  The triangle later on in the season is less great, even if it does involve Chris O'Donnell.  At that point it really seems like the show runners are just trying to create drama and delay what has been set up to be the inevitable.  I would love to see O'Donnell's McVet return at a later date for a random appearance just because he was a fun character - I would not like to see him return as a romantic partner for anyone.

In addition to liking the Mer/Der/Addy triangle, I also really love what they did with George this season.  I actually think this might have been George's best season - as much as I loved the character, it's really all downhill for him from here.  Likewise, I really loved the growth of Alex here and the development of his relationship with Izzie.  While I really did not like Izzie in general, I did like what she brought out in Alex.  As for Christina and Burke... I'm never really sure if I think that Burke got Christina.  At one point in season 4 she comments on how much of herself she had to give up for him; in season 2 you start to really see her doing that.  I always love the character, but I don't think I ever really liked the relationship here.  Beyond the coure group of interns, we have the plots with Bailey (awesome!) and the Chief (less awesome, but still good).  If this show became Bailey's Anatomy I would be totally okay with that.  There is just something so unbelievably perfect about the way that Chandra Wilson portrays her.

The good having been established, let's now turn to the bad.  Mainly Izzie Stevens and her relationship with Denny Duquette.  There was nothing about this plot that was enjoyable.  While I understand that the interns (and the doctors) make mistakes and aren't always able to be professional, the relationship between Izzie and Denny is just a whole new level of wrong.  It's something you can really see building up overall with Izzie in general; she's never good at separating her emotions from her work.  While other doctors struggle with this at times, most of them are able to balance between appearing completely unemotional and heartless (Yang is an example of this, often) and being really emotional and thus unable to properly do their job.  Izzie isn't able to do this, and it just gets really annoying.  The thing that really gets me about this is that I think we're supposed to be rooting for Izzie - be it when she's having an emotional affair with her patient, or when she's violating the oath that she took before becoming a doctor - notably, the do no harm bit.  I really wasn't.  I didn't want Denny to die... I just didn't want Izzie to succeed.  Her actions really scared me - not in that I was frightened, but rather in the way that I was unnerved by the idea that a doctor might behave like that.

Revenge (Season 1)

Starring: Madeleine Stowe, Emily VanCamp, Gabriel Mann, Henry Czerny, Ashley Madekwe, Joshua Bowman, Connor Paola, Christa B. Allen, Nick Wechsler

Creator: Mike Kelly

Genre: Thriller, Mystery, Serial Drama

Rating: A-

I’m still not exactly sure how I feel about Revenge’s premier season.  I like the basic story, although it’s one that I’ve seen before, but the overall tone of the show kind of got to me after awhile.  After awhile I couldn’t help but feel like I was watching a daytime soap opera instead of a primetime TV series.  As the series wasn’t on the CW this feeling was a bit annoying.

Revenge follows Emily Thorne (VanCamp) as she moves to the Hamptons in order to pursue a plot of revenge against the Graysons - Conrad (Czerny), Victoria (Stowe), Daniel (Bowman), AND Charlotte (Allen) - an elite family that spends every summer at the Hamptons.  Seventeen years prior Emily’s father, David Clark (James Tupper), was framed for a terrorist attack by the Graysons and their colleagues, resulting in David Clark spending the rest of his life in prison and his daughter, then known as Amanda Clark, being shipped off to foster homes, an institution, and later a juvenile prison.  Now with a new identity and a lot of money Emily has a carefully detailed plot against those responsible for her father’s downfall.

I think the series can be kind of divided into two halves; the former where Emily’s beginning to carry out her plot and is a somewhat likeable character, even if she’s also a rather devious bitch, and the latter where Emily’s become rather consumed by her plot and is just an outright bitch.  There are a lot of big reveals – affairs, illegitimate children, multiple identities, murder, and so on – but the more that they happen the more disinterested with the show I became.  At some point the whole thing just seemed to be about everyone in it trying to screw over everyone else in it.  I don’t think there’s a single character in this show who actually has a descent nature – even Jack, who’s the nice guy uncorrupted by money, can be a bit of a dick at times, and when he’s not it’s hard to think of him as anything but a shmuck.  Making things worse is the fact that the more reveals happen the more the show feels like it’s little more than a soap opera – I’m seriously waiting for a character to be randomly recast or a baby to be born and then rapidly aged, or someone’s long lost evil twin to appear.  The show started with an interesting premise, but it just becomes a bit much after awhile.

Homeland (Season 1)

Starring: Claire Danes, Damian Lewis, Morena Baccarin, David Harewood, Diego Klattenhoff, Jackson Pace, Morgan Saylor, Mandy Patinkin

Creator: Gideon Raff

Genre: Psychological Thriller, Serial Drama

Rating: A+

I was really surprised by this TV show.  Going into it I wasn’t really sure what to expect; I figured it would be kind of typical of the cop versus bad guy type show.  Everything that I saw about it really suggested that it was a bit cut and dry, with the suspense being in whether or not the CIA would stop the terrorists.  In that case I was thoroughly surprised by this show, as it’s about so much more.  There is the element of whether or not the CIA is going to stop the terrorists, true, but there’s also the question of who the terrorists are, and in addition to catching them, will the CIA catch Carrie Mathison (Danes) in all of her not exactly appropriate behaviours?

The premise of Homeland appears simple: while on a mission CIA agent Carrie is told that an American prisoner of war is about to be released, but he’s been turned and is now working for Al Quida.  At first Danes thinks this is impossible, as to her knowledge there are no current POWs – then in the middle of an operative Sergeant Nicholas Brody (Lewis) is discovered, having been kept captive for the previous eight years and until now presumed to be dead.  Brody is greeted with a hero’s welcome by everyone, but Carrie believes him to be the turned POW that she had been warned of.  As no one in the CIA believes her, she takes it onto her own hands to deal with the situation, illegally bugging Brody’s home.  Carrie must determine whether or not Brody’s a terrorist, while keeping her actions hidden, and dealing with her own questionable mental health.

The thing that I really liked about the first season of Homeland was that it kept the viewers guessing about whether or not Brody is a terrorist for a long time.  You start off as convinced as Carrie is, certain that he must be a terrorist – after all, that’s what this show is being presented as.  As the season progresses, however, that fact comes into question as you begin to think that maybe he isn’t a terrorist, and then begin to hope that he isn’t one.   Brody’s experiences are fed to you throughout the series as you get to know who he is and what happened to him while he was captured.  You also get to know Carrie as well, and the journey of figuring out what it is that’s wrong with her and what fuels her obsession is just as interesting as the journey of figuring out Brody.  I wasn’t as big of a fan of some of the more secondary characters – especially Brody’s wife – but their stories are divulged into as well.  The show makes extensive use of flashbacks, but in a manner that isn’t as confusing as is seen in other shows.  The only character to experience a visual representation of his history is Brody, and as he’s the most cerebral of the characters I think this is important.  There are a lot of things about Brody that he wouldn’t share with anyone, simply because of the nature of his character, so it’s revealed in pieces to the viewer via flashbacks.  The performances of the two leads, Danes and Lewis, are amazingly well done.  Danes’ portrays the obsessive nature of her character perfectly, and the more unstable she gets the more I enjoyed her performance.  Lewis on the other hand does an amazing job of portraying this elusive character, he totally seemed to embody the character of Brody.  My one big problem with the show is that there is a lot of non-English spoken in it (which in itself I have no problem with), but an inconsistent use of subtitles.  A lot of it is greetings and the like, nothing actually important to the plot, but when it’s done in a manner that it’s obvious all characters present know what’s being said it doesn’t really make sense to not let the audience know what’s being said as well.  It’s just something that’s annoying to experience while you watch.

Grey's Anatomy (Season 1)

Starring: Ellen Pompeo, Sandra Oh, Katherine Heigl, Justin Chambers, T.R. Knight, Chandra Wilson, James Pickens, Jr, Isaiah Washington, Patrick Dempsey

Creator: Shonda Rhimes

Genre: Medical Drama, Serial Drama
Rating: B+

While not my favourite season of Grey’s Anatomy this also wasn’t my least favourite season.  Season one is about the relationships that the new interns of Seattle Grace Hospital are building.  Series protagonist Meredith Grey (Pompeo) sleeps with a stranger the night before her first day as an intern at Seattle Grace; the next day she discovers that her mystery man is none other than Derek Shepherd (Dempsey), a new attending at the hospital.  While Meredith is eager to put the affair behind them, leaving it as a forgotten one-night stand, Derek is eager to pursue it, despite it being against the rules.  Creating more drama are Meredith’s fellow interns; hardass Christina Yang (Oh), jerk Alex Karev (Chambers), former model Izzie Stevens (Heigl), and the insecure George O’Malley (Knight); the latter two become Meredith’s roommates early on in the season.  The cast is rounded off by the interns’ mentor resident Miranda Bailey (Wilson) a hardass known as “the Nazi,” attending Preston Burke (Washington), and Chief of Surgery Richard Webber (Pickens).

The basic overlaying plot of the first season is the relationship between Meredith and Derek and the way that the interns adjust to their new lives.  There are also, however, more secondary plots; the relationship between Christina and Burke (which is far more successful, and secretive, than the Mer/Der one), George’s crush on Meredith, and Meredith’s mother’s Alzheimer’s being the most prominent ones.

At this stage in the game, none of these plots are really all that strong on their own – beyond the two romances.  The thing that makes this season really remarkable is the way in which it sets the stage for a lot of things that happen in later seasons.  There’s Alzheimer’s, unplanned pregnancies, Alex being a douche, there’s sex in the on call room.  Having watched the series all the way through to the most current season it’s actually really easy to look back at Season 1 and see a lot of foreshadowing for what happens later – sure, some of the events that happened weren’t planned in advance, but the show definitely gives you a feeling that Shonda Rhimes has been plotting some of the major stuff for a long time now.  The individual episodes in general aren’t always all that great, but I do have to say I love how the entire season seemed to be setting up Meredith for the big reveal at the end; it’s almost like everything, from the first scene, was planned for that one crucial last season.

One thing that I do have to say about Season 1 is just how many reoccurring themes of the show were present here that have since been lost.  There’s the McDreamy, which we hardly hear anymore, and the “seriously”s, the sex in the on call room, and “the Nazi”.  Some of the characters that were in this season are no longer in the show, and others have had their roles rather reduced – while others have had theirs increased.  A lot of what I miss about the early seasons of Greys is the patients; as time has proceeded and our interns have grown things seem to be more about the doctors’ personal lives than the actual medicine.  There aren’t as many patients anymore, and the ones that they have aren’t as varied or as astounding.  You also don’t see the nurses anymore, which I think is a bit of a loss to the show.