The Big Bang Theory (Season 11)

I'm more or less putting this up not because I really have strong thoughts on The Big Bang Theory, but because I'm trying to make an effort to at least have a log of the seasons of shows I finish this year. For awhile now, this show hasn't shown much special; it's mostly empty calories that we'll put on during dinner when we don't need to worry about having a full attention span. The show takes a lot of crap because it's far more popular than its quality, but if it weren't for its Nielsen rating, it'd be just another big-network sitcom you don't know anything about and there'd be no reason for you to throw rocks at it. Also, it would have been cancelled a long time ago.

This deep into its run, the story for all of these people is largely played out and they're more or less pushing these characters' lives forward because CBS is paying top dollar for it. 11 years in, four of the five original main characters are married (two of them to each other), and the remaining one, Raj, has been a relatively consistent weak spot throughout the show's run. The humanizing of Sheldon and Howard has given the show good material in the past, but by this point, they've become self-aware enough that it doesn't register as a "big" moment when they do something selfless. Leonard is a nothingburger who's basically been unchanged over the course of the show, is often annoying, and these days takes a back seat to the stronger characters.

Penny, who has somehow gone 11 seasons without being assigned a last name, has become a bright spot for the series, particularly because she's come so far from being treated as the naive "dumb one" by the show. Amy has also changed quite a bit between the robotesque character that met Sheldon in the coffee shop at the end of Season Three, so much so that it's hard to believe the current iteration is even the same person, but Mayim Bialik has been a consistently great presence on the show. Bernadette has been thoroughly unlikable for a long time.

While the show usually gets in some good jokes in an episode, the real reason this show became interesting in the first place was because it had strong characters like Sheldon (most obviously), Howard, Penny, and Amy. By now, everyone's become pretty stagnant and the show spent Season 11 churning out mostly forgettable plot lines. The exception was Sheldon and Amy's wedding, but they goofed that up by turning it onto an excuse to have Mark Hamill on the show for some reason, which distracted from what could have been a good tribute to the former pair's lengthy relationship.

We'll probably keep watching this show until the end, if for no other reason that it's light, digestible, and somehow has avoided completely jumping the shark (if the history of sitcoms has taught us anything, it's that shows containing uber-brilliant scientists have a tough time keeping things grounded in reality). There's just no reason to expect much from it.

Season Grade: C+

The Bridge on the River Kwai

I have an irrational and unfortunate prejudice against old movies. I don't know why, but if you hand me any element of pop culture, be it movies, TV, or music, that was created before 1980, my knee jerk reaction is, "No thanks." Athletes have become progressively better at sports over time, and my theory is that the same goes for the ceiling of other aspects of pop culture. Modern actors are better, modern cinematics are better, modern writers are better, modern instrumentals and sound systems are better, and today's creators are able to build on a rich history of what works and what doesn't. Don't get me wrong, there's plenty of people butchering all three of those forms of entertainment today (particularly music....damn kids), but I think that at their peak, all three are superior to anything that existed forty years ago.

That's why I'm damn surprised that I actually decided to sit down and watch a consensus all-time classic in Bridge on the River Kwai. It's further surprising because I am not big into war films, and it I think it's honestly because I tried to memorize the AFI Top 100 a long time ago and it had a cool title that was always easy to remember. I looked up a plot summary years ago and it seemed interesting enough. It happened to be airing early on Father's Day, so I recorded it and watched it over the course of the following five days (this is how watching a movie operates when you have two children and a spouse who is not directly invested in the film).

Bridge on the River Kwai is the story of British prisoners in a World War II era Japanese prison camp. The Japanese commandant, Colonel Saito (Sessue Hayakawa), is under great pressure to construct the titular bridge over the titular river to connect Bangkok and Rangoon, as this is will be of great military benefit to Japan. The British prisoners are under the command of the respected Lt. Colonel Nicholson (Alec Guiness). Nicholson is principled to a fault (key word) and bravely insists that high-ranking officers will not perform manual labor on the bridge. At first, Saito reprimands him for this refusal, but his desperation to complete the project on time eventually leads him to concede this demand, as there are skilled engineers among the British officers.

Nicholson is appalled to see the British soldiers are intentionally doing poor work to sabotage the bridge (and thus abet the Allies' war effort). He takes command of the operation and insists that the British army should take pride in their work, both for morale reasons and to maintain their identity as soldiers. Meanwhile, an American in the prison camp, Commander Shears (William Holden), escapes from captivity. He eventually winds up as part of a four-man expedition under the command of the British army to plant explosives on the bridge and destroy it when a train carrying soldiers attempts to cross it.

The most important relationship in the film is between Saito and Nicholson. Nicholson's a prisoner, but Saito will be forced to commit ritual suicide if he can't complete the bridge on time, and he can't do it without Nicholson's help. The fact that Nicholson has superior leadership skills gives Saito great grief, but there's a palpable deepening respect that the two have for one another over the course of the movie. In the events leading up to the film's climax, they're practically one another's closest allies. That begs the question of whether Nicholson's attempts to maintain a sense of pride in the British soldiers actually bleeds into treasonous activity, as a proper bridge is of critical importance to their Japanese enemies. There's rich irony built into this story every step of the way.

The Saito/Nicholson plot is very strong, and Guinness wound up taking home Best Actor hardware for his efforts, which kind of surprises me after seeing the film. He was decent in the role, but I wasn't blown away. I thought Holden gave a better performance, even though Shears' arc was probably the most problematic thing about the film from a plot perspective. His team's journey to blow up the bridge was unnecessarily drawn-out and rather boring, despite Holden's charisma. Bridge on the River Kwai is a very long film, at 2 hours and 41 minutes, but there is certainly not 2 hours and 41 minutes worth of story here. They could have cut a good amount of Shears' scenes and been no worse for the wear.

I'm glad I watched this movie, but I don't think it did much to dispel my stubborn beliefs about things made more than a half-century ago. Bridge on the River Kwai is regarded as an all-time classic and a culturally relevant film. I can certainly understand that, as I could believe it was much better than anything that came out at the time. However, I just don't think it holds up against modern filmmaking, and the excessively long Shears storyline dings it, because it got just as much screen time as the good stuff. Rake me over the coals for this if you must.

Grade: B-

The Americans (Season One)

Modern TV is replete with antihero sagas and The Americans is yet another show to contribute to that ever-growing pool. Season One aired back in 2013 and the show has just completed its run. Naturally, given my proclivity to pick up things 5-10 years after they gain a foothold in the culture, 2018 was the perfect time for me to check out this show.

The Americans is a period drama set in the early 1980s during the Cold War. Elizabeth (Keri Russell) and Philip (Matthew Rhys) Jennings are the mother and father of two kids and own a cozy house in the suburbs. The catch? They're both KGB spies that have managed to hide this fact from their teenage daughter Paige and younger son Henry. The series juxtaposes their KGB activity (which involves murder, intimidation, deceit, extreme violence, sex, torture, and a whole lot of hand-to-hand combat) and mundane activities around their house and hanging out with their neighbors, who are none the wiser.

That last bit is particularly important, because their new next-door neighbors, the Beemans, include an FBI agent. Stan Beeman (Noah Emmerich) reveals his occupation when the families first meet, and the look on Philip's face is absolutely priceless. Despite Stan's initial suspicions, he and Philip become good friends, as do Elizabeth and Sandra later on in the season. Stan's a key man at the Bureau in charge of trying to track down Directorate 'S' KGB spies, and little does he know that the Jennings next door are exactly the man and woman that he's trying to catch.

Over the course of the season, Philip and Elizabeth meet their new handler, Claudia (a.k.a. "Grannie"), played by Esteemed Character Actress Margo Martindale. Their relationship with her is very complex, as she's extremely mysterious and they're never sure whether she gives a damn about either of them, whether she's just following orders, or whether she's got an agenda of her own independent of what's coming from Moscow. For Philip, Claudia may as well be a proxy for Moscow itself, as it's revealed as early as the first episode that he's not as beholden to the motherland as Elizabeth and he questions much of what they're doing over the course of Season One.

At it's core, The Americans is a show about relationships and how our lives -- whether we're spies in a foreign land or not -- relentlessly test how we feel about one another. As one might expect from an espionage show, the theme of trust is examined constantly, and it's not tied to the highs and lows of typical human relationships. Elizabeth and Philip were an arranged couple, so part of that relationship is going to be fake to some degree, but at the same time, their love for their children is completely real and everything they've been through on their mission forges a strong bond between them. Their marriage is a facade, but it has plenty in common with a real one.

There's a ton of action in Season One of The Americans and the compelling plot moves at a very brisk pace. There's some nits to pick in there (in particular, the murder of a minor character motivates another to reconsider their loyalties, but the relationship between the two was woefully underdeveloped, so much so that the change-of-heart barely makes sense), but it's certainly a very good show, and everything I have heard makes me pretty stoked to plow ahead with the rest of the series. At six seasons, it's going to be a bit of a marathon, but most likely a fun one.

Season One Grade: A-*

*if you're curious as to why nearly every show I've reviewed this year has a very high grade, I've made very little progress on lesser ones, and those I've finished (e.g. Top Chef) often don't merit a writeup. I promise that reviews of worse shows are coming, so get excited!