September 2, 2010 – 9:00 pm
For months, the masses have cried out, “Tell us, Ryan: where will you be writing this Fall?” And by “masses” I mean “my mom,” who doesn’t even really know about this blog. So announcing it here might be kinda pointless. On the other hand, it gets me out of a phone call. So you take the good with the bad and produce something not unlike the facts of life.
Most people know my writing through my old “Lost” blog, so it’s not always apparent to everyone that I’ve been writing about other shows for the past few years as well. A quick glance down the “Categories” column on the main page here should give you an idea of how many shows I’ve covered, to one extent or another, since I started writing about television. With “Lost” now over, I have a chance to not only watch more shows, but spend more time and energy writing about them as well.
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September 1, 2010 – 8:07 pm
To wildly paraphrase Big Bill Shakespeare: I come to praise “Better Off Ted,” not to bury it. For those of us that loved this all-too-prematurely cancelled show, we got to see the final two episodes thanks to its release on various platforms today, such as iTunes and Netflix’s Streaming Service. It was both fantastic and depressing to see the final two episodes of this fantastic show beam across my TV. It’s all the more depressing now, since as I write this, “Minute to Win It” is currently on the screen that just recently housed the antics at Veridian Dynamics one last time.
Excuse me while I dip my privates in bird seed and go streaking at the local hawk compound.
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August 31, 2010 – 10:38 pm
In this latest installment of the podcast, Maureen “Mo” Ryan and I discuss the launch of her new site over at AOL, briefly recap The Emmys, and then delve headlong into previewing the return of some of our most eagerly awaited shows.
The mission was simple: we each had to come up with five shows and present them to the other. We overlapped on two, which means we preview a total of eight shows in this podcast. Next week: we’ll be sharing thoughts on our most anticipated new shows premiering this Fall.
So what did we discuss? Well, that would be cheating, now wouldn’t it? You’ll have to listen to find out all of our choices. Some will be predictable, but several may surprise you.
As per usual, you can subscribe to the podcast here. Soon, you’ll be able to download all podcasts directly from Mo’s new digs over at AOL, but for now, subscribing is your best option to ensure you get all episodes of “Talking TV with Ryan and Ryan.” If you absolutely hate iTunes on the same level at which SAMCRO hates having its freedom limited, here’s another link for downloading MP3s.
August 30, 2010 – 7:33 pm
We’re back with another podcast, boys and girls. This time, Maureen “Mo” Ryan and I were lucky enough to have our good friend James Poniewozik from Time Magazine along for the ride. We talked Don’s descent, Peggy’s ascent, and the possible arc of the rest of Season 4.
As per usual, you can subscribe to the podcast here. Soon, you’ll be able to download all podcasts directly from Mo’s new digs over at AOL, but for now, subscribing is your best option to ensure you get all episodes of “Talking TV with Ryan and Ryan.” If you absolutely hate iTunes on the same level at which Don Draper apparently hates sobriety, here’s another link for downloading MP3s.
If you’re not a “Mad Men” fan, don’t worry: Mo and I will be recording another podcast tomorrow previewing the Fall TV landscape.
Enjoy!
August 29, 2010 – 11:23 pm
If you’re ever stuck looking for a theme for a particular episode of “Mad Men,” you could do worse than to listen to the song that plays over the show’s closing credits. It’s not that it’s impossible to guess said theme without a musical clue, but it’s nice to have tonally pleasing confirmation as each hour winds down. This week’s episode, “Waldorf Stories,” is not exception to the rule: every character was concerned with their particular rung up the “Ladder of Success,” to quote the Skeet Davis song that closed out another fantastic 4th season episode of the show.
Let’s look at each rung, shall we? Let’s go from the bottom up.
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August 23, 2010 – 7:10 pm
In some ways, a DVD review of the final season of “Lost” isn’t altogether necessary. Any review, whether it by me or someone else, will not sway a single person into buying a copy. Minds have already been made up. “Lost” isn’t the type of show that allows you to buy merely your favorite season: you’re either all in or all out. If you already own the first five seasons, you’re gonna buy the sixth. Even if you weren’t the biggest fan of the final season, you’re still going to want the final set on your shelf. If you were waiting to buy all seasons at once, and HATED the resolution to the show, then you’re probably not even reading this recap, never mind heading to your nearest store to pick it up.
So think of this less as a review of Season 6 of “Lost” and more a review of the actual product itself. ABC was kind enough to send me a review copy of the Blu-Ray version of the set. Note that other than the picture/sound quality, only one thing stands between this set and the regular DVD set: the extra “Lost University,” which I describe below. Other than that, you can consider this recap to serve both sets with equal aplomb. Also, it goes without saying that I will go into great detail about the extras contained on this set, so I guess I need to put up a big *SPOILER* sign for the specific content on these discs. We good? Good. Here we go.
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August 22, 2010 – 11:06 pm
The title of tonight’s episode of “Mad Men” is, in its own way, a form of advertisement. Commissioned by the U.S. Office of War Information in order to glean a better insight into Japanese culture, the resulting work “The Chrysanthemum and the Sword: Patterns of Japanese Culture” did as much to inform American culture as well as Japanese culture itself. In other words: Ruth Benedict’s analysis altered the self-perception of the Japanese populace. Don Draper would have been damn proud.
The title refers to the inherent contradictions in Japanese culture, contradictions that made the culture seem essentially unknowable through outside eyes. Luckily, “Mad Men” itself is filled with characters full of contradictions, so it makes sense to look at tonight’s episode through the various contradictions embodied by its major players. Most of these contradictions rested in the outside perception versus the internal one, with several key characters struggling to rectify the gap between the two.
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August 18, 2010 – 7:36 pm
It’s been a lot of “Mad Men” these past few weeks here on the blog, but I’ve been watching plenty of other shows. Some have been part of the great “Catch Up Now That ‘Lost’ Ended and I Actually Have the Time to Watch Them” project: shows such as “The Wire,” “Deadwood,” “Party Down,” “Spartacus: Blood and Sand,” and “Sons of Anarchy.” But others are simply summer shows airing new episodes. Here are some shortened thoughts on those that get a Weekly Pass in my household. In no particular order…
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August 16, 2010 – 11:53 pm
We’re back with not one but two installments of “Talking TV with Ryan and Ryan.” One is dedicated solely to the last two episodes of “Mad Men,” but the other is a treasure trove of talk about other shows.
In the other podcast, Mo Ryan and I talk “The Big C,” “Weeds,” “Rubicon,” “Doctor Who,” and “Spartacus: Blood and Sand.” Both are over 50 minutes long.
Make sure to subscribe to our podcasts on iTunes, or subscribe to the RSS feed.
Enjoy!
August 15, 2010 – 11:13 pm
About ten years ago, I directed a production of “Romeo and Juliet.” The central conceit of my interpretation was that the Capulets and Montagues didn’t grow up as enemies; rather, they evolved into opposing sides in a type of ritual coming-of-age ceremony. They fights between the younger generation were spectacle, masked to hide the true kinship under the surface. But as they grew older, as responsibility and adulthood approached, people turned from individuals into archetypes. While the children wore clothes of all shapes, sizes, and colors, all of the adults in the world wore identical grey robes and white masks, essentially indistinguishable from one another. In short: people turned into the role they were supposed to play, rather than evolving into the person they might have become. Bright yellows, reds, and oranges turned monochromatic throughout the play, until a sea of colorless people stood over the corpses of the titular couple. Romeo and Juliet were a chance to break the cycle, only to have that chance tragically undercut.
I bring all this up not because I think it was a particularly ground-breaking production of the Shakespearean classic, but because the impulses behind that production overwhelmed me as I watched tonight’s episode of “Mad Men.” I’m starting to wonder if we should be shifting out attentions fully from Don Draper and Roger Sterling to Pete Campbell and Peggy Olson. While not quite Romeo and Juliet, the fourth season of “Mad Men” seems very much about the war for their souls. Both started off the series desperate for inclusion in the world of the elder statesmen of advertising, and found a mutual, if unexpected and albeit brief, companion in that journey. But “The Rejected” showed just how far these two have strayed from the formerly singular path, to the point where they are now traveling down two entirely different roads.
Since, as always, the title of tonight’s “Mad Men” is so loaded with meaning, let’s break down this recap by looking at everything rejected in this episode, along with those rejecting it.
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