"Deep Throat"

The X-Files - Season One

Aired: September 17, 1993
Starring: David Duchovny, Gillian Anderson
Written by Chris Carter
Directed by Daniel Sackheim

It's a commendable feat when a television series, by default constrained by budgetary and punctual limitations, can produce a successful pilot.  When the second episode proves to be equally as engaging, it can be considered a milestone.  Such is the case with "Deep Throat," the first episode of the series proper and one widely regarded as an X-Files classic.  Taking the man vs. the man construct from the pilot and delving a tad deeper into its mythology, "Deep Throat" touches on a number of different concepts that would serve as a cornerstone for a number of threads to follow.

As with the previous episode, the plot here is relatively simple.  Pilots at an Ellens Air Base in Idaho are being abducted for months at a time and subsequently returned to their homes with faulty memories and altered personalities.  Despite a warning from a mysterious figure (Jerry Hardin, whose daughter Melora may be more renowned for her role as Jan on the American version of The Office), Mulder decides to jump on the case.  Of no certain coincidence, Ellens Air Base is described as a "Mecca" for UFO nuts.

One notable thing about these early episodes is the almost-overwhelming aura of nineties that came to define the seminal first season.  From Scully's haircut (altered in hue and style from the previous episode, indicating some time had passed between the abductions in Oregon and this case), to the homely Oldsmobiles, to the very-dated grunge garb of the two drug-addled teenagers (one played by a hirsute Seth Green), to Mark Snow's electronic soundscapes, revisiting these episodes always gives me a weird nostalgia.

Another nostalgic quality about these first season mythology episodes is how far removed they are from the core plot threads that would carry later seasons.  While those will surely be covered in later reviews (provided I continue this blog), episodes like "Deep Throat" barely graze the surface.  We get the idea that experimental aircraft is being used at the air base but only once do we get a fleeting look at it.  Mulder, in an imbecilic but appropriately consistent move, slips into the base at night to get a front-row view, only to be detained, wheeled into a curtained hangar, then deposited to the front gate the following morning with no recollection of the preceding events.  This effectively ends the episode on the same bleak, unpromising note as the pilot, in that the same secrecy and government cover-ups prevail, once again leaving Mulder and Scully empty-handed.  A cryptic, if frustrating, informant may prove to be a beacon for the two, but it is clear from this episode that the journey to the truth will not be a matter of plain sailing.

MULDER: "They're here, aren't they?"
DEEP THROAT: "Mr. Mulder, they've been here for a long, long time." 

Grade:  A-

"Pilot: Part 2"

Lost - Season One
Aired: September 29, 2004
Starring: Naveen Andrews, Emilie de Ravin, Matthew Fox, Jorge Garcia, Maggie Grace, Josh Holloway, Malcolm David Kelley, Daniel Dae Kim, Yunjin Kim, Evangeline Lilly, Dominic Monhagan, Terry O'Quinn, Harold Perrineau, Ian Somerhalder
Written by Jeffrey Lieber, J.J. Abrams, Damon Lindelof
Directed by J.J. Abrams

One consequence of dividing a 2-hour premiere into halves is the inevitable trimming of plot and character introduction.  If the first half can't engage the audience while at the same time providing a baseline for the events to follow, the ramifications can prove to be of a capsizing nature (refer to Joss Whedon's cult favorite Firefly, whose pilot episode wasn't even aired until well after the series had launched, and was one of a number of poor executive decisions that resulted in the series's untimely cancellation).  By dividing the pilot of Lost in two, ABC could have easily heralded the death knell for Abrams's latest project, and while I still maintain that this would have been more effective as a unified whole, the quality of the show's writing up to this point has averted this pitfall.

(To summarize the final couple acts of the previous episode, Jack Shephard, Kate Austen and Charlie Pace set off to find the plane's cockpit, which had landed in the middle of the waterlogged jungle.  There the three find the plane's transceiver and a barely-living pilot (played by Abrams regular Greg Grunberg), who is subsequently vacuumed out of the ruins presumably by whatever entity was responsible for the thunderous noises heard the previous night.  Charlie has some odd preoccupation with the plane's bathroom, a detail worthy of note.  With transceiver in hand, the three dash back to camp.)

Part 1 introduced us to a wide array of characters, most notably Shephard, the stouthearted if slightly nervous spinal surgeon from Los Angeles, and Austen, whose character is a little more fleshed out here.  In flashbacks it is revealed that she was a prisoner handcuffed to a US Marshal (Fredric Lane) for as-yet-unknown circumstances.  The Marshal fared less fortunately in the crash and has wound up on the beach with a sizable chunk of plane shrapnel in his stomach.  How this drama is going to unfold will likely be answered within the next stretch of episodes.  What is quite evident for the time being is how at ease Kate is with handling a gun (after Sawyer shoots and kills a wild polar bear) despite her claim that she's never used one. 

Speaking of which...there's a freaking polar bear!  As a group consisting of Kate, Sawyer, Charlie, Shannon Rutherford, Sayid Jarrah and Boone Carlyle branches off to find higher ground for the transceiver, they are attacked by none other than an Arctic bear who appears to be thirsting for more than just Coca-Cola.  As Shannon so cleverly notes, "Polar bears don't usually live in the jungle."

Of course the show can't maintain viewer interest without internal friction within the camp, and the wide racial palette of the cast allows for conflict.  Sayid, being an Iraqi, is perhaps the most obvious scapegoat, and Sawyer won't stop to grant him quarter.  When the Marshal's handcuffs turn up in the jungle, Sawyer turns the spotlight onto Sayid, and the results aren't so pretty.  While Sawyer's nicknames (especially "Al-Jazeera") strike a humorous tone, there is also something very unsettling in knowing that his chauvinistic inclination isn't too far removed from that of the American public.  By portraying Sayid as a comparatively more sagacious, rational character, he is also one that elicits sympathy, a rare and rather daring depiction of a Middle Eastern man.  Sawyer on the other hand is probably the least likable person on the island up to this point.  In addition, we get a few immediate pre-crash flashbacks of Charlie, who (surprise) had a stash of heroin stored in the lavatory, explaining his desire to accompany Jack and Kate to the missing third of the plane. 

This episode effectively maintains the momentum of Part 1, and gives us a more magnified view of several of the castaways.  One concern I would imagine may have been in the minds of some viewers is the extent of the season's budget that went into this monolith.  As mentioned in the previous review, the cost of building (and subsequently disassembling) and transporting the wreckage set was not cheap.  Had the producers invested too much funding into the pilot, the only logical result would have been resorting to bottleneck episodes for the remainder of the season, episodes that would have been filmed on relatively inexpensive sets and would have likely done little to advance the plot.  Fortunately, as someone who has already seen the entire series, I can put these fears to rest.  There is still a smorgasbord of great things to come, polar bears and all, and I look forward to hitting them all in successive reviews.

Grade: A

"Pilot"

The X-Files - Season One
Aired: September 10, 1993
Starring: David Duchovny, Gillian Anderson
Written by Chris Carter
Directed by Robert Mandel

"The following story is inspired by actual documented accounts," reads a title card as the debut episode of The X-Files begins.  I always find this tidbit interesting because never again to my recollection did the show try to pass itself off as true-to-life.  But that is just one thing that sets the pilot episode ever so slightly apart from the remainder of the nine seasons that would follow it.

The X-Files is a show I treasured and revered in my childhood, and even though (especially in retrospect), the series was never the most consistent, either narratively or qualitatively, the level of detail and depth that went into the characterization of its two protagonists was - and arguably still is - unrivaled.  David Duchovny (Twin Peaks, Kalifornia) played FBI pariah Fox "Spooky" Mulder for the show's first seven seasons, returning as a recurring character in the final two.  His deadpan manner and inclination toward the bizarre rendered him an iconic personality, balanced only by the collected, self-possessed rationale of parter Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson). Throughout the majority of the show Scully's scientific persuasion would complement Mulder's unrestrained pursuits of the unknown.

MULDER: Do you believe in the existence of extraterrestrials?
SCULLY: Logically, I would have to say "no."

Such is the template that the pilot episode follows.  Yeah, we get a bunch of omnium-gatherum about aliens and metallic implants and abductions of teenagers in the woods in Oregon, things that would become revenant staples of the series throughout its run, but these were all MacGuffins - plot devices that strengthened and, at times, disarmed the agents' relationship.  While this episode establishes a baseline for a very convoluted mythology arc that would unwind over the course of several years, at its heart it's a character study.  Looking through the back-catalog, the episodes that rank highest in the minds of fans typically were.

Although Scully is assigned to the Oregon case as a means of debunking Mulder as part of a sinister conspiracy, her steadfast loyalty and probable attraction to him render this effort not only futile, but dangerous (this fact would be reflected in a high-stakes plot line that would unravel in season two).  Taken aback by what she considers pure bullshit, Scully counters his contentions.  She adamantly dismisses the involvement of extraterrestrial presence in the case, yet perhaps in the episode's best scene, frightfully runs to Mulder's motel room after coming across two red pustules on her back, closely resembling the symptoms of the purported alien abductees.  Underneath that hard exterior lies a permeant fear of the unknown:  why admit the possibilities of such ethereal terrors when it is so much easier to deny?  This is a concept the writers would play with at intervals throughout the show's lifespan.

At the episode's end it is revealed all the evidence and paperwork filed for the case has mysteriously vanished.  In the final scene a shadowy cigarette-smoking man is seen stashing the implants away in a warehouse.  Perhaps this is the show's scariest particular - that in spite of the enormity of the stakes of all involved, in the end there is still nothing to show.  That a government can maintain such a citadel of unbridled power and use it against its own people without forbearance.  The details of this episode aren't particularly essential, but the set-up it establishes would be a continuing factor in the years to follow.

Grade:  A-

"Pilot: Part 1"

Lost - Season One
Aired: September 22, 2004
Starring: Naveen Andrews, Emilie de Ravin, Matthew Fox, Jorge Garcia, Maggie Grace, Josh Holloway, Malcolm David Kelley, Daniel Dae Kim, Yunjin Kim, Evangeline Lilly, Dominic Monhagan, Terry O'Quinn, Harold Perrineau, Ian Somerhalder
Written by Jeffrey Lieber, J.J. Abrams, Damon Lindelof
Directed by J.J. Abrams



If we've learned anything about islands in historical fiction, it's that they're a hoarded wealth of intrigue, danger, suspense, spirituality and sensuality.  From the economically-concerned survivalism of Robinson Crusoe to the web of love and retribution in Shakespeare's The Tempest, they are one of the commonest but most captivating plot devices.  They are apart from civilized society.  They are home to exotic fauna and foliage.  Not all of that fauna and foliage is happy to have visitors.  Murder and crime are more easily accomplished without the constraints of civilized society.  I think you can connect the dots.

Lost is the brainchild of J.J. Abrams, who created the espionage thriller Alias and college drama Felicity before that.  Based on his resume we can already predict character development and long-term plot arcs will be the standard.  Add in that this two-part pilot was the most expensive ever produced for ABC (resulting in the truly ironic firing of former chairman Lloyd Braun, who had greenlighted the project in the face of dwindling network ratings), reportedly costing anywhere between $10 and $14 million.  That this show was even given a second thought speaks volumes about the amount of faith the network put into it, as it easily could have been a colossal disaster.

Fortunately that faith was well-invested, because not only is the premiere of Lost viscerally and sensorially astounding, but it's also compelling, chronicling the plane crash and miraculous survival of 48 passengers (with fourteen being regular cast members).  As if in real life, the individuals remain innominate until the situation demands their introduction.

We meet Jack Shephard (Matthew Fox, Party of Five), a spinal surgeon from Los Angeles who gets dropped in the middle of a serious crisis, risking himself to save the lives of others wounded in the crash.  A more enigmatic but equally important character is Kate Austen (Evangeline Lilly), who despite being out of her element is driven by a strong will and versatility.  The scene where an anxious Kate stitches up Jack's wound is one of the most iconic of the series' run.

Few of the other characters are given little more than a fugitive introduction.  There's the washed-up rock star Charlie Pace (Dominic Monhagan, The Lord of the Rings), whose shadowed eyes belie his comic disposition.  There's a very pregnant woman named Claire Littleton (Emilie de Ravin, The Hills Have Eyes), who seems oddly cheery in spite of all the turmoil.  There's an older man played by Terry O'Quinn (Millennium, The X-Files) who seems to be of importance but has little to do in this episode.  More curious is an Asian couple (Daniel Dae Kim and Yunjin Kim) alienated not only by their lack of English but also antiquated gender roles.  A Middle Eastern man named Sayid (Naveen Andrews, The English Patient), a hardened redneck (Josh Holloway), and a larger-than-life guy you can't help but want to hug (Jorge Garcia) both beg stories to be told, while a pair of bickering siblings, the unnerved Boone (Ian Somerhalder, The Vampire Diaries) and the comparatively bitchy Shannon (Maggie Grace, Taken) are decidedly less inspiring.  Rounding out the cast are the overprotective father Michael (Harold Perrineau, The Matrix trilogy) and son Walt (Malcolm David Kelley), and a soundless but sharp woman (L. Scott Caldwell) who Jack brings from the cusp of death.

It's awfully odd that all of these survivors would be so cushioned in the fall so as not to wind up with more than mere flesh wounds, but odder still are the grotesque noises heard in the jungle at night.  From the get-go it is clear that there is something not quite right with the island, and while ABC's decision to split the pilot into two halves may not do its story total justice, it certainly serves as an engaging doorway into a storyline bound to be riddled with mysteries.  A more comprehensive outline of the plot will follow in my review of Part 2.

Grade: A

My Top 5 Quentin Tarantino Characters

So I'm having my first intermission between finals, which might as well be a one-way trip to the Caribbean, if for no other reason than the fact I was actually able to fit in a nap today.  Behold the magic of slumber.  I actually feel like I can make it through the hour without a cup of caffeine to nurse for the first time this week.  Between finals, work, maintenance issues, et shitera, et shitera, December has been overkill.  (For future and completely unrelated reference, aspirin blocks the synthesis of prostoglandins, and not the release.  I studied this hard and fudged it like Betty Crocker on the final.  As I said on Facebook, I will be kissing the stars for a curve the size of an orca this quarter).

I've been thinking of things I'd like to do over break, and of course making a road trip, getting my short story written and dispatched, enjoying the company of too-seldom-seen friends and indulging in the usual fattening pastimes are all vying for precedence.  Then my attention drifted over to a stack of movies I had been wanting to watch and re-watch for months.  Anyone who knows me knows that I am a huge - as in the loserly sense - fan of Tarantino, with Pulp Fiction, Kill Bill and others being some of my most endearing films of the last millennia.  They're simply untouchable, rife with elephantine personalities, soundtracks that stick like molasses, humor that strays between the darkly comedic and the comically black, and interwoven plot threads more fun than those cradles of string I never learned how to make in the third grade.  They are movies that know they are movies.  Too often I walk out of a movie theater with a sour taste in my mouth because of some ham-handed social commentary or underlying agenda as subtle as a brick through a window.  These often range from the corny, to the maudlin, to the grotesque.  In Kill Bill, you don't have to worry about these issues.  Tarantino doesn't give a fuck.  His films are self-contained monoliths of pop culture, and since I have nothing better else to do, I thought I'd give a try at pinning down a few of my favorite personalities.


5.  Shoshanna Dreyfus (Mélanie Laurent, Inglorious Basterds)
"You either do what the fuck we tell you, or I'll bury this axe in your collaborating skull."

One of the more prominent plot arcs from Basterds is simply a well-paced revenge drama.  Dreyfus's family is killed in a dairy farm raid in France conducted by Christoph Waltz's frighteningly awesome Jew-Hunter in the film's opening scene.  Shoshanna is the sole survivor of the raid, and years later, upon fleeing to Paris, assumes the identity of Emmanuelle Mimieux, the operator of a cinema that by some stroke of serendipity is scheduled to host the premiere of a Nazi propaganda film honoring the German sniper Fredrick Zoller (played by Daniel Brühl, who starred
in the excellent German film Goodbye Lenin!). Zoller, funnily enough, fails to recognize Dreyfus as a Jew, and to her annoyance, romantically pursues her for most of the film. Dreyfus, however, has a diabolical agenda of her own, and I won't give it away to those who haven't yet seen Basterds, but here's a hint:  it involves an exceptionally large amount of flammable nitrate film.

4.  Vincent Vega (John Travolta, Pulp Fiction)
"Boy, I wish I could've caught him doing it. I'd have given anything to catch that asshole doing it.  It'd
been worth him doing it just so I could've caught him doing it."

I can't get over how gross John Travolta looks in this film.  Which means he's perfect as Vincent Vega, an abrasive, sardonic thug-in-a-suit and one of the most trusted henchmen of LA crime boss Marcellus Wallace.  Whether it's the molasses-gelled hair or the fact that he spends virtually every pivotal scene of the movie in the bathroom, I've just always found him unsettling.  Alongside Samuel L. Jackson's Jules Winnfield, Vincent is one of the most memorable characters of Pulp, but unlike Jules he does not undergo any notable character transformations, proving himself a conceited asshole until the very (anti-climactic) end.  For his stagnancy I can't rank him number one, but because he's such an awesome character he still hits the top five.

3.  The Bride a.k.a. Beatrix Kiddo (Uma Thurman, Kill Bill)
"When fortune smiles on something as violent and ugly as revenge, it seems proof like no other, that not only does God exists, but that you're doing His will."

If Inglorious Basterds was only part-revenge drama, Kill Bill is revenge that doesn't stop to tango with drama, but rather slices it with a Hattori Hanzo sword.  Kiddo, whose name is curiously bleeped out of the film's audio for the first two thirds or so, is the sole survivor of a violent massacre conducted by none other than her former mentor and leader of the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad, the titular Bill (played by the late David Carradine).  Well it turns out she was also pregnant with Bill's child upon her attempted murder (which just happened to coincide with her wedding day), so naturally after waking up from a four-year coma, she sets out to dispense five nice, bloody punishments to the dickheads responsible, in only the most fitting of methods: bloodshed, bloodshed and more bloodshed.  The only thing sharper than the end of a Hanzo sword is the piercing look Thurman maintains throughout both installments, with a third slated to be released within the decade.

2.  Jackie Brown (Pam Grier, Jackie Brown)
"If I lose my job I gotta start all over again, but I got nothing to start over with. I'll be stuck with whatever I can get. And that shit is scarier than Ordell."

Like Pulp Fiction and Reservoir Dogs before it, Jackie Brown is a web of crime, intrigue, deception and allure, but unlike those films, Jackie is less concerned with plot than it is with texture.  Which is totally fine given the context:  Brown, portrayed impeccably by 1970s Blaxploitation film star Grier, is a struggling airline stewardess who makes ends meet by smuggling cocaine into the country for gun runner Ordell (Samuel L. Jackson).  When Brown is intercepted and sent to jail, Ordell arranges her bail with the intent of murdering her before she can rat him out to the police.  The bulk of the film finds Jackie playing both Ordell and the cops; she knows she will have to pull off a flawless scam or she will end up dead.  I find that I like this film more with each successive viewing:  Jackie is tired and desperate; not only is the deck stacked against her in terms of racial politics, but it is the fear of growing old, of having to start over, that gives her the desperation to continue.  The film in its entirety is a rich character study, with each figure playing a significant role in Jackie's game, but none of them can keep up with Jackie herself.  She is intelligent, but practical; forcible, but unspoken, and easily makes this oft-overlooked film a contender for Tarantino's best.

1.  Jules Winnfield (Samuel L. Jackson, Pulp Fiction)
"And I will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger those who would attempt to poison and destroy my brothers!  And you will know my name is the Lord when I lay my vengeance upon thee."
Well, why tell when I can just show?

Jules is the epitome of debonair.  Every line that rolls out of his mouth can be found on any list of greatest Pulp quotes in existence.  This is still my favorite role of Jackson's.  He's pietistic, thunderous, the quintessential hatchet-man and a sharp dresser; the ultimate badass and easily the most memorable character from the film.  If in doubt, look no further than his wallet - inscribed on the front is "Bad Mother Fucker" in bold black lettering.  Suddenly watching someone eat a cheeseburger and quote the Bible before pumping a round of lead into your face has never seemed more intimidating.  Just one look at this man and you'd know he wouldn't hesitate for two seconds before turning your ass into "fried chicken."  Piss him off in his "transitional period" and the results may be a little more interesting.  At the film's end he decides to give up his life of asskickery to roam the Earth in pursuit of adventure.  Suddenly vagabondage has never seemed more cool.