Weekly reviews

I've decided to start a new project for myself. As part of an effort to hone my storytelling skills I've decided to do a weekly "reviews" post. I feel that by evaluating and critiquing other storylines I can perhaps better grasp what needs to happen in my own. And if not, it's still probably worth doing for some reason or another that I can't come up with right now. I'll probably focus primarily on the multitude of books I read (new and previously read) and movies (ditto), but I'm quite sure that TV shows/episodes will be included, as well as meals that I make. So it should be varied. There will also be spoilers, and I'm not going to try and see if I can tag them, so if you don't want to be surprised, don't read the reviews that I (hopefully remember) to mark at the top as "spoilers". Normally I'll be writing these on Sunday, but I wanted to touch on these two right now

House (Spoilers if you haven't watched through Season 5, Episode 20)

Although I'm planning on doing my reviews once a week on Sundays, I'm currently trying to get caught up on my backlog of House episodes. I haven't watched it in a few weeks, so imagine my surprise when Kutner (that's "Kumar" to my father) committed suicide. I watched Episode 18 a few weeks ago, and today decided to watch 19 and 20, and possibly 21 (haven't watched that yet). Episode 19 was good, standard House. The nice thing about House is that it can be different every week, yet the show still follows a fairly standard formula. This doesn't bother me much, and actually, when they tried to break away from the formula I got irritated--this specifically bothered me when they dealt with House's ex and their past, and again when they had the police officer trying to get House arrested. For those not familiar with the episode formula, it pretty closely follows this:

1. Show weekly patient in personal life

2. Show weekly patient falling suddenly ill

3. Have case somehow presented to House and team

4. Light touch on personal life of {fill in the blank}

5. Diagnose and treat multiple times, discovering that the diagnosis is wrong.

6. During #5, continuing second, minor story arc on {same as #4}

7. Eventually discover correct diagnosis (probably not lupus)

8. Weekly patient either lives (usually) or dies (rarely, and this is more likely if it's a recurring character).

Because people like routine, this works out really well; viewers get new, interesting plots on a weekly basis, in a format they are comfortable and happy with. Periodically the writers try to shake things up (giving House a new team, fixing his leg--or not, putting him in treatment, etc.) but mostly they stick with this format, and everyone is more or less happy. Medical drama--always popular--takes center stage, with enough "personal life" plot notes to help us know and/or care about the recurring characters. On a sidenote, Yahoo! reports that people really hate Thirteen, but I like her well enough, so whatever.

But I digress. Kutner committed suicide in episode 20. Where this worked is also where it failed for me. Ahh...dichotomy. It failed because neither the writers nor Kal Penn, the actor, gave any indication in the leadups that he was suicidal. That said, that's why the episode worked. They did a good job dealing with the possibilities for why he killed himself, and gave House a mystery to solve beyond the weekly patient. The plot formula actually reversed a bit this week, making the personal lives the main story arc, and the weekly patient the secondary (which was all to the good since it was a lame medical issue). The subplot usually has some echoing or similarities to the main plot, and this week was no exception to that rule, but it also isn't realy important to my point. No one could see why Kutner would want to kill himself, and so House, who prides himself on seeing everything and solving mysteries, wants to know both why Kutner did it, and how he (House) missed the signs. As always, it is all about House.

I think what I liked best about this episode was the inclusion of a suicide hotline number at the end of the episode. It was an ok send-off for a main character (I though Amber's was much, much better), but because I watched this one back-to-back with the previous episode, it worked for me better. Kutner was the star in the previous episode, solving the vast majority of the case and having the best ideas, and House even offered a bit of praise. I felt like suddenly (and perhaps a bit abruptly) Kutner grew into his own.

While I'm a bit sad Kutner is gone, I'm pleased to find out why Kal Penn left the show. It turns out that he asked to be released from the show so as to "go work for the Barack Obama Administration as the Associate Director in the White House Office of Public Liaison" (I quote from his bio on IMDb. Wicked. I also found out his real name and his issues with his role on 24 which shows him in a totally different light than the slight goobery character he is in House. It also casts his roles as "Kumar" in a slightly different light (note, I have not seen any of the "Harold and Kumar" movies). His bio can be found here.

And a short review on Desperate Housewives (Spoilers if you haven't watched through Season 5, Episode 19)

This is, to be fair, less of a review and more of a thank you to Marc Cherry and the other writers for giving Edie a proper sendoff. While I wasn't thrilled that they decided to eliminate her character (they were forced by the studio to cut a cast member for budgetary reasons), she was the most logical of the highest-paid cast members to axe. Additionally, I imagine they'll be able to cut at least one other cast member by the end of this season because of her death (granted, the plotline of her husband Dave will most likely end this season anyway).

What was so nice about this particular episode was--again--that it was moderately formulaic. But as I said, people do crave consistancy and routine most of the time--it's comforting. But when it's well done, it really is nice. In her final (I presume, haven't seen episode 20 yet) episode, Nicollette Sheridan narrated instead of the usual Brenda Strong, and we got to see Edie in some new lights. She was still the moderately bitchy, selfish woman she always was, but we could also see the other sides of her, through flashbacks. Each of the main "housewives" (except for Katherine) and Mrs. McCluskey went on a roadtrip with Edie's ashes to present her to her son (and tell him she died...this wasn't well thought out, minus the mention of why her ex-husband didn't know, but enh). On the trip, they decided to tell stories about Edie. This is a well-used plot device in some form or another, but it worked well. They kept Edie's character balanced between how we usually saw her, and some acts of kindess she committed--if in her own, slightly brutal, way. And the final story, told by Mrs. McCluskey (Kathryn Joosten, whom I dearly love as an actress--she was on The West Wing as well), explained part of Edie's past and her reasoning with effectively abandoning her son.

So to sum up, it wasn't the best episode of anything I've ever seen. But that said, it was really well done. I know that Nicollette Sheridan was angry with the decision to cut her from the show, and I would be too. But at least they gave her character a nice send-off, and I do hope she appreciates that. I also hope she lands something really big and can thumb her nose at the studio for it.