Film and Television

Worst Finale Ever?

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No, I'm not talking about ER…I am talking about the bland American remake of the UK series LIFE ON MARS. The show was about a cop who is hit by a car…and wakes up in the 1970s. He's not sure whether he has gone back in time, whether he's imagining the whole thing,. or whether he is dead and experiencing the afterlife…or something else altogether. Throughout the series (which only ran 16 episodes in the UK) he is trying to get back to his own time by solving crimes which he believes will eventually lead him to the solution to his own predicament… and the way out.

SPOILER ALERT!

In the British version, the hero discovers that he was in a coma and that his experience in the 1970s was all a dream. He returns to his "real" life in 2007 but just doesn't fit in any more. He has become so emotionally and psychologically attached to the people in his his fantasy life that he ends up committed suicide to return to that make-believe world. It was a dark way to end the show but, at the same time, it actually worked.

In the far inferior American version, the hero discovers that he isn't from 2009 either…he's an astronaut in the future who has spent the last two years in suspended animation on a mission to Mars… and that his experience in 2009 and 1973 was all a dream induced by some haywire computer program. All the "characters" in his dream turn out, Oz-like, to have been his fellow astronauts in different guises. It was inane… and done so cheaply that it looks like an SNL skit. It was probably one of the worst, if not THE worst, series finale I've ever seen.

The Finale That Never Was But Should Have Been

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I look at all the hoopla surrounding the final episode of ER, ending a run of 15 years and 331 episodes, and I can't help thinking of GUNSMOKE. 

The legendary CBS western ran for 20 years and 600+ episodes…far more than ER. And unlike ER, most of the principal stars of GUNSMOKE remained to the bitter end… bitter, not because the show was doing poorly creatively or in terms of audience numbers, but because it was cancelled without a final episode, without so much as a thank you to the cast and crew that had labored over the show from 1955-1975.  Everyone on GUNSMOKE thought they'd be coming back for another season. They found out they weren't by reading the bad news in the trades. That would be unthinkable today. Respect would be paid, if not with a final episode, then certainly with the tributes and retrospectives we've seen lavished on shows like BOSTON LEGAL, HILL STREET BLUES, CHEERS, MASH, SEINFELD, BATTLESTAR GALACTICA and so many, many others…none of which has matched GUNSMOKE's longevity. 

GUNSMOKE still remains the longest running, scripted drama in U.S. television history. LAW & ORDER is fast approaching the record, but unlike GUNSMOKE, it has experienced a lot of cast-turnover. There's nobody left on L&O who was there in episode one.  The same is true of ER. The ER we were captivated by 15 years ago is not the same show that will be ending this Thursday…that cast, and that show, is long gone. But James Arness as Marshal Matt Dillon and Milburn Stone, as Doc, were there from start to finish (Amanda Blake as Kitty stuck with the show for 19 years). They deserved a better send off. 

Pinching Pennies with Trickery

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I am so bored now by TERMINATOR: THE SARAH CONNOR CHRONICLES that all I really notice are all the things they are doing to cut corners on the budget…which mostly involves lots of shooting on the standing sets and the Warner Brothers backlot. 

But they also use some other common TV tricks. In last weeks episode, for example, Sarah and John go to visit a friend who is staying at a house/lighthouse near the ocean. You assumed it was near the water because of the lighthouse and a boat on a trailer parked out front. 

What I suspect is that the lighthouse was a CGI shot, and that the house was nowhere near the water. There was never actually a shot tying the house to the water or the boat dock. What they had was the sound effects of surf and seagulls…and they did a scene with John and another guy working on the parked boat on the trailer. Why wasn't the boat in the water? Because the location was no where near it…at least, that's my guess. Later, there is some action on the boat at the dock, but there are no shots tying the boat, or the dock, to the house. You also never see the boat leave the dock…

I could be wrong, but what I think what I saw was a typical TV illusion, one I have used many times myself.

On DIAGNOSIS MURDER, we did an episode set in a small, seaside village. But we never got anywhere near the water, either. We used stock-footage establishing shots of Mendocino, California, a village on the cliffs above the raging surf, but we shot the episode entirely Moorpark, a farming community at least thirty miles inland from the ocean. We simply dressed the shops with surfing, beach, and fishing props and put lots of people on the street in beachwear…and in post-production, we added the sound of seagulls and crashing surf. We actually got letters from people asking where the town was so they could visit it.

On the first season of BAYWATCH, we shot footage of the Venice beach promenade and then dressed the commissary and garage of the Columbia Studios lot to look like part of it. We shot tight, filled the screen with people in bathing suits, and added the right sound effects. We did it more for convenience than to save money… afterall, we'd dumped a fortune into recreating the entire Santa Monica Lifeguard Headquarters, interior and exterior, on a massive soundstage (as well as an entire house, inside and out, but that's another story). Having a fake stretch of the promenade on our "backlot" saved us the trouble of a location shoot to Venice beach and allowed us some flexibility to complete a day "on stage" even if some exteriors were involved in day's shooting schedule. 

This kind of trickery is done all the time…and when it is done well, you don't notice it. The CSI shows are particularly adept at it…since CSI (LAS VEGAS), CSI: MIAMI, and CSI: NY are mostly shot in Los Angeles and not the cities where they take place. But thanks to the smart use of  establishing shots, some simple trickery, and compelling stories, viewers rarely notice…

Let’s Make a Movie

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My friend David Carren, with whom I worked on DIAGNOSIS MURDER and MARTIAL LAW, has written & directed a low-budget student film called THE RED QUEEN that features another good friend of mine, author/actress Harley Jane Kozak, who blogs today about her experience making the movie.

I loved making the film, working with students. Really talented, nice students. At least, I’m pretty sure they were nice. A lot of communication was in Spanish, Edinburg being on the Mexican border. I liked to think there were deep conversations on the works of Pedro Almodovar and Carlos Saura, but it’s possible they were saying, “If I ingest more vending machine Skittles, I shall go mad.”

I can't wait to see it.

A Man with True Grit

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Variety reports that the Coen Brothers next movie will be an adaptation of Charles Portis' western novel TRUE GRIT, which became a classic movie starring John Wayne, who won an Oscar as the ornery bounty hunter Rooster Cogburn.

Not a traditional remake, the Paramount film will be more faithful to the Charles Portis book than the 1969 pic […]Portis' novel is about a 14-year-old girl who, along with an aging U.S. marshal and another lawman, tracks her father's killer in hostile Indian territory.
But while the original film was a showcase for Wayne, the Coens' version will tell the tale from the girl's p.o.v.

I'm already looking forward to it.

The Best Finales

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All this talk about the final episode of BATTLESTAR GALACTICA got me thinking about the best, and worst, series finales.  Off the top of my head, the best ones were, in no particular order:

The Fugitive
Star Trek: The Next Generation
Newhart
MASH
Larry Sanders 
The Mary Tyler Moore Show
Boston Legal
The West Wing
Cheers
The Paper Chase
Inspector Morse

Among the worst series enders were:

Magnum PI (both the original, intended finale and the one they did when they unexpectedly returned for one more season)
St. Elsewhere 
Hawaii Five-O (one of the all-time worst)
Miami Vice
Star Trek Enterprise 
Seinfeld
Mad About You
Quantum Leap
Moonlighting
Roseanne
X Files
The Prisoner 
MacGyver

My list of series finales that were simply fine, but not outstanding, would include:

Battlestar Galactica
Hill Street Blues
The Sopranos
The Odd Couple
Star Trek Voyager
L.A. Law
Deep Space Nine
Who's the Boss
Family Ties
Barney Miller
Frasier
Jag
Friends
Thirtysomething
Everybody Loves Raymond
Will & Grace

And finally, my list of the best final episodes that were undone because the series unexpectedly came back for another season…

St. Elsewhere
Crime Story

I haven't seen the final episodes of THE SHIELD or THE WIRE (I am several seasons behind on both of them) or BUFFY (I lost interest in the show after a season or two), though I hear that all three of them were great. And there are a number of other finales I never saw simply because they were series I didn't watch. All that said, I am sure am leaving out a bunch. That said, in my opinion most episodic series aren't really designed to have final episodes and don't really need them. It's shows like GALACTICA, LOST, QUANTUM LEAP, MASH, GILLIGAN'S ISLAND, THE FUGITIVE, THE PRISONER, LOST IN SPACE, etc. that are built around a quest, a pursuit, a war or the solution of a central mystery that merit, if not demand, the closure if a final episode. But I think that for the majority of dramas and sitcoms, it's not necessary to concoct a finale…and perhaps even a mistake. 

On the Tube

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I gave in to my curiosity and watched the much-hyped, game-changing, earth-shattering, awe-inspiring sixth episode of DOLLHOUSE written by Joss Whedon. Yes, it was much better than the first two episodes of the series…but it still wasn't very compelling, believable or entertaining. I won't be tuning in to episode seven…and I suspect not many others will, either. MY OWN WORST ENEMY, which was similar thematically, was a lot more clever and engaging than this…and what happened to that show? It didn't survive the season. I suspect the same fate is coming for DOLLHOUSE. 

TERMINATOR: THE SARAH CONNOR CHRONICLES is winding down for the season…and, if my guess is right, forever. The show has been on a downward spiral creatively this season..it never picked up from the high set by the season one finale (and never again matched the clever moment early this season when a urinal morphed into a Terminator). This episode, besides being dull, struck me as a big F-you to loyal viewers like me. SPOILER ALERT: Supposedly, John Connor knew for the last few episodes that Reilly was from the future and that Reese was sneaking around with the Asian chick, who he also knew was from the future. Yeah, right. If that's true, then none of his behavior this season makes any sense at all. It felt to me like a totally manufactured twist that the showrunners came up with on the spur of the moment. If it wasn't, it sure felt that way, which means they did a lousy job of setting it up. The payoff certainly didn't work. This series deserves to die…and it will.

The final episode of BATTLESTAR GALACTICA was a very satisfying conclusion to the series, even if it didn't quite tie up all the loose ends (who or what was Kara Thrace anyway? They didn't explain how she stumbled upon her corpse on Ancient Earth). No matter. While it wasn't the greatest final episode of all time, as some critics were over-enthusing,  it did the job it set out to do and did it well. They even gave a nod to the original BATTLESTAR theme at the end. This is a series that, as a whole, will go down one of the best scifi shows ever.

DOLLHOUSE UPDATE: New Jersey Star-Ledger critic Alan Sepinwall sums things up nicely.

So, does "Man on the Street" change the way I think about "Dollhouse," about series television, about the classical tenets of storytelling and the merits of Aristophanes versus Brecht? Did it, in fact, cure my lactose intolerance? Well, no[…]But "Man on the Street" was a marked improvement over what's come before.

But he is curious enough now to stick with it. Not me.


BATTLESTAR UPDATE: Sepinwall has a lengthy analysis of the BATTLESTAR finale and the entire series that, on the whole, I agree with. I also agree with much of Jamie Poniewozik's take on it at the Time Magazine blog.