Life: Crushed
By fred | October 18, 2008
(S02E05) It’s a very strange thing, maybe a dangerous thing in fact, to fall in love with a show so much that you forget it is a TV show, and as so might be bound to obey some of the stupid rules that apply in TV land, to deal with networks’ demands and all those kinds of things. There’s some shows, because they are so good, you just don’t think about that, it’s all about art, it’s about what the creative team behind the show wants to do, to say, to make you feel.
You don’t expect Lost to suddenly become very light on mysteries and to have one self-contained story each week in a very procedural manner because to you, me, all of us, it wouldn’t make any sense, because Lost isn’t just a TV show, it’s Lost, and it somehow must obey by certain rules. And the drama has the chance to be on ABC, a network that was smart enough to get that, and allow the creative minds in control to do what they wanted to do with this show, to give them the ability to do just that, because the Alphabet knew that this was what the fans wanted to see, and what was making and would continue to make the show such a great show.
Life is a piece of art more than it is a TV show, I’ve always felt that way, but Life has the misfortune to be on NBC, and it seems to me that this season, the show is less about what the creative minds wanted to do with the show, and more adjusting to the pressure of the network.
Which sucks, and there’s not even a guarantee it will help getting a full-season pickup, so it time might be running out for the best thing on television right now, it might be a good idea to say ‘fuck you’ to NBC and get back to the basis of the show.
I know that last week I really loved the episode, and though it’s not all that accurate, I’ll sum it up in one word : intensity. It was intense, you could see it on Charlie’s face as well as on how everyone was behaving, all that wonderfully highlighted by a music always perfectly chosen. It was real, it was intense, and you didn’t just watch this episode while doing something else, you didn’t just watch this episode and then went on to do something else.
No, it stuck with you, the intensity of it, the beauty of it, the life of it. Watching the show didn’t leave you indifferent to what you were watching. Last week, last week the show was heading back down that road, last week it felt like the good old days of the first season because of the setting, and Charlie back in prison – or close enough. But that’s not the only reason it worked, of course the writing had to be there, the music, everything. It’s not one single thing, but all of them, after all everything is connected.
But this week, I watched the episode and it’s not that I didn’t like it, but I didn’t feel that intensity, I didn’t feel that special thing that made this show so unique and so special last year. And I feel, it’s because the show is lighter than is used to be. The show was always light at times and it was always filled with humor, of course, but there was also at the same time this constant intensity in Charlie, in Reese, in their relationship, in everything.
I’ve said it before, but I’ve always loved so much to see the two of them, Charlie & Dani, work together. To me that was always the best thing on the show, see them working together, accommodating to each other, and I especially loved to see Charlie being his unusual Zen self, and watch Dani react to it. There was nothing better for me, than to see Charlie do something you wouldn’t have expected him to do, something no one else could or would have done but him, and see the look on Dani’s face at that moment.
I do want more crews/reese moments. They need to talk. I mean REALLY talk! Seems to me that the writers/producers/NBC or whoever are afraid that a full, real interaction between Charlie and Dani will inevitably lead them together and they don’t want it (at this moment?). So here we have Tidwell and Jen. Distracting them, pushing them away.
I don’t mind a Tidwell/Dani thing. It has to be a LITTLE thing though, because oh yes, I’m a big Creese’s fan. I can’t help it. I want Charlie hit on Dani.
Jack Reese. Mah. I don’t understand his relationship with Rachel, it seems that he has with her the bond he has never had with Dani. Or perhaps she ‘means’ something for him.
I only hope there’ll be more and more ‘life’ seasons…I keep the faith.
(PS: Creese 4ever!)