Vox’s posts tagged the closer

Mulling Over TV Shows, Opening Credits and Theme Songs

nobody@vox.com(handtalker) — Sun, 21 Sep 2008 19:24:57 +0000

Ya know, my summer shows were/are great this year.

The Closer delivered good stories and great performances, as always. Mad Men has just been a joy to watch; it's truly a masterpiece of its medium. Both of the shows deserve award recognition for their terrific ensemble casts.

As I was mulling all this over, I started thinking about which TV shows have opening credits and theme songs I enjoy the most. Previously, I had irrational love affairs with the opening credits of several shows:

Alias Opening Credits Season 1-3

I had a fun-to-do-but-painful-to-watch dance that accompanied the opening credits and EVERYTHING! My sister still requests my Alias dance (mostly to mock me), but it can only be performed while the credits roll.

I still vocalize (or attempt to) the theme songs from these beloved shows:

Buffy The Vampire Slayer Opening Credits Season 3

Angel Opening Credits Season 1

And I had a bouncing-in-my-seat kinda dance for this show:

Veronica Mars Opening Credits Season 1

Of the current shows that I watch, these are my faves:

Bones Opening Credits

The Crystal Method plays the theme song. I think this the hottest theme song on TV right now; I never fast forward past the credits on this one!

True Blood Opening Credits

Oh, wait! This is tied with Bones for hottest theme song. The credits are gritty and fabulous and grimy and FABULOUS!

Musically and aestetically, this one is great as well. Just a sharp, stylish look:

Mad Men Opening Credits

And I could NOT leave this jewel out:

CSI: Las Vegas Opening Credits

"Who are you? Who? Who? Who? Who?"

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Lazy, Hazy Days of Summer Telly

nobody@vox.com(leelee) — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 19:03:41 +0000

What's so great about summer TV schedules? True there are slim pickings for new quality programming. But that also means when something good is on, chances are nothing is competing against it. And many are on cable so they are also repeated often if you miss them the first time. Here are a few of my summer favorites:

- Generation Kill owns me. I watched the first episode multiple times to catch everything. Like a current Band of Brothers written by David Simon and Ed Burns, so yet another Simon show I can obsess over. I haven't read Evan Wright's book (usually don't go for war/combat-related books, fiction or non-fiction, except for The Things They Carried, a personal favorite), but it's on my list. Especially after reading Jacob's recap on TWoP. Yeah, the first episode's is thirty pages (knew it had to be Jacob with that page count), but as always with his recaps, it's well worth the read.

- Mad Men returns this Sunday. And this past Sunday, we were blessed with a marathon of season one, which was perfect timing for me while I worked on a project. Oh, Joan Holloway, how I covet your sense of fashion and fabulous red hair. She's the perfect combination of bitch and sass.

- Burn Notice is back and such damn fun. I decided to give it a try last summer because I became a fan of Jeffery Donovan's with Touching Evil. He's pretty magnetic, that one. And you can't go wrong with Bruce Campbell in the supporting cast. I've never cared one way or the other for Gabrielle Anwar as an actress, but her kick-ass Fiona won me over, and I now forgive her for ice skating into Brandon Walsh's heart in one of the lamest 90210 Old School episodes ever (and that's saying a lot).

- Psych is back too. I don't catch every episode, but never fail to laugh a lot when I do. It may not be tops in terms of story, but it makes up for it with character. And I love seeing Dule Hill be goofy.

- The Closer returned and is as charming as ever. Although I find the mysteries to be incredibly predictable, the show makes up for it in character and B-plots. Plus, I wasn't joking when I said I'd follow J.K. Simmons anywhere. Kyra Sedgwick may rock, wonky unrealistic southern accent aside, but after Oz, I watch in awe and fascination every time he erases the strong stench of Schillinger clouding my perception.

- Project Runway, sigh. All hail Tim Gunn, but the show just doesn't grab me the way it once did. I still enjoy it, but maybe I'm just over it? And mentally preparing for next season when it makes the possibly disastrous move to Lifetime and L.A. (no Nina Garcia!). Watching it just makes me miss Top Chef. As does Shear Genius, which I watched a few weeks ago while on the elliptical and I cannot handle the whiny, diva attitudes. I don't think styling hair is easy, and does take skill and talent, but they don't even break a sweat and act like they deserve the Nobel Peace Prize for creating an updo. So annoying.

- Okay, so I can't ignore the giant elephant that is the Emmy nods. Yeah, yeah, they did recognize more outstanding cable shows this year (might that be because so many were already complete due to their production schedules or at least in the can before the strike?) and Mad Men was graced with sixteen nods, a show voters would have been stupid to ignore, what with the critical praise, ratings, and utter awesome that it is every single week. But giving The Wire one nom for its farewell season, possibly the best of all five amazing seasons? Well, once again the Emmys miss the mark, and not just when it comes to The Wire (maybe third show's a charm, Simon will get notice for Generation Kill). As always, it will be interesting to see who wins (kind of) but in the end, it doesn't really matter to anyone who watches shows that do.

- So, the TCA press tour wrapped up. Um, I didn't really follow it this year. With the end of last season, I contracted a bout of TV burn-out, I think. And I am so tired of hearing about the new 90210 (blah, blah, successful stage actress Brenda returns to West Bev in an over-convoluted plot to direct the high school musical. Freaks & Geeks pedigree aside, I question the sanity of a producer who says, "The audience has become more sophisticated...from following celebrity gossip." Thanks to The Hills? Sophisticated is not really the word I would choose). Jessica Walters rocks though. Diane Ruggiero does too. And I was intrigued to hear about what's up for Friday Night Lights. I love its premise, how the story organically can evolve, skipping ahead eight months and picking up with our favorite characters' lives, and the need to bring in new characters as others naturally leave the story; if it gets better ratings, it could last many seasons and remain fresh. As for Dollhouse and Fringe, I'd rather wait to hear what comes out of ComicCon.

- How cool is it to see so many tributes to the fabulous Estelle Getty? She made Sophia Petrillo truly unforgettable, snarky yet lovingly sincere when the time was right. I vividly remember watching Golden Girls with my Nana (as well as Dallas, Falcon Crest, The Love Boat, and Fantasy Island). She's currently in her own Shady Pines and although her short term memory wasn't great before cancer, her senility and dementia was accelerated thanks to "chemo brain." She can solve Wheel of Fortune's puzzles before a vowel is bought but can't tell you what she had for dinner an hour earlier. My heart goes out to Estelle Getty's family and friends who supported and cared for her.

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Summer Television: The Closer

nobody@vox.com(Maura) — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 03:05:48 +0000

Brenda Leigh Johnson (Kyra Sedgwick) is a Georgia transplant working as Deputy Chief of the Priority Homicide Division in the LA police department. Assistant Chief of Police Will Pope (J.K. Simmons) is her boss, with whom Brenda was previously involved. Adultery! He's still in love with her. Yes, big surprise. To my relief, she's not quite so enamored of him.

Brenda is temperamental, petulant, demanding and pushy. Departmental cuts and layoffs are for other divisions. Her parents, her boyfriend Fritz (Jon Tenney), and the general happiness of her employees are third to the job. Her cat Kitty, is an unsteady second.

She often refuses to admit she's wrong, and seldom apologizes. What makes her so special as a cop is her unrivaled ability to close a case. (I'd say that Pembleton from Homicide: Life on the Street was a much more riveting interrogator, but that show and The Closer are miles apart. Brenda is unrivaled on the show, not in all of television history.) When she interrogates a suspect, she's a velvet steamroller, using southern charm and fake sympathy to nail the bastard. Her trademark "thank you" is withering, making anyone from a suspect to a superior feel like they've just been chastised by the school principal.

What makes Brenda so special as a woman is how real she is. She has a mind like a steel trap at work, but her house and her hair are a mess, her purse is a disaster, and she has questionable taste in clothing. She has a weakness for sweets that borders on crazy, she can't cook and she lacks certain social skills. But when Kitty disappeared she actually considered leaving the office to look for her. She's independent but also a daddy's girl. She had an affair with her married boss, coming out the other end scarred but not ruined.

I don't always like Brenda. She's unreasonable and often treats the people around her like underlings. She doesn't understand that other people have a different view or different needs. She forgets that Fritz is possibly the best boyfriend ever. But when she's on a case, her heart is always with the victim and the family. That's why she's so intractable when solving a murder.

And she loves Fritz. Hell, how could she not? He knows her inside and out and still thinks she's the cat's ass. And, Great Holy Mary Mother of God, look at him. What's not to love?

It's no surprised that things didn't start off well for Brenda when she showed up in LA. Her six-member team is made up of five men and one woman. The men didn't like her because she was an outsider and a woman. Daniels, the only woman, didn't have much to say (she still doesn't, which bugs me to no end. Why is it that the only other female character on the show is never given anything to do?), but her ambivalence was pretty clear, both about the way the men felt about Brenda and about Brenda even being there. (and I give Gina Ravera big props for being able to convey that ambivalence with nothing but a glance). The men on the team put her through the wringer, but by the end of the first season, even Brenda's biggest tormentor, Lt. Flynn, who tried more than once to get embarrass her and get he fired, was ready to take a bullet for her.

The guys on the team are well characterized, much more so than one would expect from these descriptions: Provenza (G.W. Bailey, who I've loved since I first saw him on MASH.), the not-too-far-from-retirement Lt. Detective who has forgotten more than most cops will ever know, and who I think my mother wants to marry; Detective Andy Flynn, who, despite his change in attitude about Brenda, is still a loudmouth and a jackass; Mike Tao, the highly educated and brilliant Lt. Detective who will take 100 words to explain something when 10 will do; Detective Julio Sanchez, a dark horse (as a friend recently described him) who you'd want with you if you were in an alley at night; and Sgt. David Gabriel, an ambitious young cop who has been Brenda's right arm from the start.

Anyone familiar with J.K. Simmons' work should already know that he always get it right as Assistant Chief Pope. Has he ever gotten it wrong in any role? I won't say that Simmons is under-appreciated, because he's certainly established himself as a respected actor; but I will say that he should be a much bigger star than he is. Pope (the guys call his office The Vatican) is man both frustrated and taken with Brenda. His affection for her as a former girlfriend and respect for her as a cop are apparent, and he's always caught between the requirements of a bureaucracy and what Brenda demands. Fritz knows her better, but Pope knows how to handle her. And more than anyone else on the show, he's his own person, not just a reflection of Brenda.

As with In Plain Sight, and most summer procedurals, The Closer's Story of the Week is minor compared to the characters. Because it's always about murder, there's a lot of drama, but it can also be hilarious (last year Brenda got into a physical fight with an angry bride, and ended up the "most downloaded woman on the internet").

I've seen the first and third seasons of The Closer, and a few episodes from the second season which, for some unknown reason, none of the rental stores in Durham carry. It's fun, it can be a little gruesome, and it has a great cast of actors and characters.

Watch it. Mondays, TNT, 9:00PM, with repeats throughout the week.

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