Note: Once I started writing this, I quickly realized that it was going to be quite long, and that I needed more time than I have today. So this post will continue tomorrow, which will have the added benefit of being able to actually use the 100^th episode of Bones rather than just try to talk about in a stupid spoiler-free way.

The 100^th episode of Bones is airing tonight, and as often happens on the momentous milestones of long-running shows, there will be some extra-special events that I’m sure will get fans all riled up about Booth and Brennan.

Temperance Brennan (Bones) and Seeley Booth on Bones

I don’t usually write about shows like Bones, partly because they’re not the types of shows that are considered great fiction worthy of extensive critical attention. Bones’ creator Hart Hanson has described the process of writing Bones as being more like craftsmanship than artistry, and it’s easy to see where that argument comes from. Unlike art, which we usually associate with words like “new,” “innovative,” “unique,” “unusual,” “genius,” – words defined by singularity and novelty – procedural dramas like Bones are carefully built around constant, predictable repetition. That certainly doesn’t mean they’re easy to make. There are good procedurals and bad procedurals, and I promise, if you think about it, you’ll be able to tell the difference. But the process of creating them is about thoughtful re-combinations of familiar elements; it’s a craft of arranging things you already recognize into slightly altered, unexpected patterns, so that even if you’ve never seen an episode before, you already sort of know what’s going on. They’re partners with opposite personalities. They solve murders. They have a team of wacky sidekicks who help them. They are perfect for each other, but they will never get together. This happens over, and over again – in fact, on Bones, it’s happened 100 times already.

In this sense, it’s pretty obvious why I don’t devote a weekly blog post to the new episode of Bones, or any procedural. Every post would be essentially the same, and once every few months, there’d be an “oooh, Booth said something sexy to Brennan. I wonder if this is finally going to make something happen between them!” paragraph. Nevertheless, these shows are worth talking about, because it’s clear they’re doing some kind of important cultural work. Procedurals have an audience, often much bigger than the number of people who watch Mad Men or even Lost. It’s not unusual for the ratings on a repeat of CSI to beat up anything else airing in that timeslot. One way of attacking the problem is thinking about the standard content of a procedural, which is certainly compelling. They’re almost always about crimes, so you can look at Law and Order and talk about how comforting it must be to watch a show cram the senselessness of violence into a pat, conclusive, hour-long drama and force it to fit inside some kind of logic once a week. Procedurals usually take place from the perspective of a cop or lawyer, so there’s probably something pleasurable about seeing things from the side of People Who Can Do Things About It rather than the typical, mundane Other People Are Supposed To Do Things About It viewpoint.

When thinking about procedurals, though, I’m much less interested in the content than in the perpetual, unvarying repetition. Maybe it’s fun to watch a fiction that draws black and white lines around tricky, subtle, frustratingly ambiguous problems, but how can it be fun to watch a television show that does that in the same way, in the same timeframe, with the same main characters, every single week? One of the oft-repeated criticisms about crime procedurals is their total lack of realism. Detective work or forensic science requires massive amounts of tedious, unexciting work that never gets depicted on television – it’s squashed into a montage of banging on doors and peering fixedly at test tubes. And yet oddly, the form of a procedural makes it so that even though these shows may not be depicting tedious repetition, they are actually reenacting it, carefully and without variance, every single episode.

What to make of this weird contradiction? Why do we find it pleasurable to watch something that, in its repetition and predictability, seems more like work than entertainment?

Yeah, this picture is sort of a spoiler. But, spoiler!, it's a flashback, so don't get too antsy. And plus, this episode will be airing in *three hours* on the East Coast. C'mon now.

Tonight’s 100^th episode of Bones is part of the solution. As I said when I described what my weekly blog post would look like, every few months there’d be an added line about how Booth said something suggestive to Bones, or about how they held hands. The show is entertaining because in the midst of the work (in the case of Bones, the murder investigation), occasionally there are glimpses of other, bigger, personal things. At the end of last season, Booth had brain surgery, and it has forced him to deal with his feelings for his partner and re-think his own character. These life-changing moments don’t happen in every episode, so most of the time, you’re just going to get the same old murder investigations, with some co-worker jokes thrown in. But every once in a while, gestures toward change and development pop up. They are suspenseful, or scary, or exciting, or hopeful – they are pleasurable. And they’re as pleasurable as they are because they take place against a largely unchanging backdrop.

Procedurals have a hard time balancing this stuff; if you introduce too many new elements, the formula changes. Either you figure out a way to start repeating the new formula, or you refuse to let any of your changes have long-term implications for the show. Bones does the former – when Bones’ favorite intern was found to be guilty of a particularly gruesome (and cannibalistic!) crime, the show introduced several new quirky interns, and built a repeating cycle of reappearing interns into the show’s everyday routine. House uses the later system, which I find to be far more frustrating. At the end of last season, House undergoes a significant character shift, has a mental break, and spends a long time in a mental institution, where he figures out how to cope with his Vicodin addiction. While he vows to become a better person, this season has allowed him to slip back into all the old obnoxious foibles, and rebuild the show’s initial formula.

This, by itself, cannot be sufficient explanation for the strength of the procedural form. For one thing, while the Very Special Episode where they kiss is always everyone’s favorite part, it happens so rarely that you have to wonder how a show could hold an audience’s attention while they wait for those events. More importantly, claiming that the special 100^th episode comprises the dominant appeal of the show is to ignore the thing that actually takes up 98% (okay, maybe 95%) of the show’s running time – the repetitive, formulaic aspects. Any argument about why these shows are so appealing has to include the impact of the shows’ most distinctive element: the procedural.

Stay tuned tomorrow for the thrilling conclusion of On Procedurals!

Well, finally. Why couldn’t you do this sort of thing a long time ago, Lost?! Or at least, a little sooner than this!

“Happily Ever After” was not a perfect episode, but it did at least suggest that we’re moving toward some answers about the flash-sideways, and it suggested that those answers have the potential to be quite interesting. Thank goodness Desmond has finally come back, and even better, he’s brought with him all his special outside-the-timeline powers and his merry band of cryptic oracles. The resonances between the two timelines have begun to accumulate meaning rather than continue as an endless succession of surprising but empty coincidences. Charlie’s death in one timeline seems to trigger his suicidal or hallucination-seeking episodes in the other, leading to that mirroring, hand-on-the-glass drowning scene. In earlier episodes from this season, that uncanny coincidence would have only existed in the minds of the audience – hey! It’s just like last time, with the outstretched hand! – and it would have been just another cute but meaningless symmetry. At last, finally, Desmond has a flash of Charlie’s hand with the message on it from the original time line, and we have confirmation that those bizarre similarities exist inside the fiction, not just inside the audience’s memory.

Things escalate from there, with the help of the ever-enigmatic Widmore clan. Just as she always has, Eloise seems to understand much more about the meta-narrative than anyone else, and Daniel Faraday/Widmore has somehow gained access to his alternate lifetime’s worth of advanced physics research. Widmore puts Desmond in the middle of a catastrophic electromagnetic event (er, okay), which corresponds with the moment Alt-Desmond makes contact with his Constant and collapses from the ineffable space-timey thingness of it all. Both versions of Desmond wake up, having glimpsed some enormous piece of the puzzle. Desmond’s now a bridge between the two timelines. I was so excited that we’re finally seeing some links between those threads that I didn’t even care when Widmore pulled a classic Lost “Let me explain all of this!” and Desmond was all, “Naw, I’m cool.” I would have loved for this storyline to show up earlier in the season.

I'm encouraged by the look of resolve and certainty on Desmond's face.

This is definitely up there now with “Ab Aeterno” for the best episodes of the season so far, and it’s useful to think of these two episodes together. In many ways, “Ab Aeterno” and “Happily Ever After” represent two dominant, often opposing forces in the Lost mythology. “Ab Aeterno” is totally centered on the island, its major power players are Jacob and Smokey, and it represents a strain in Lost that is about good versus evil, human nature, allegory, timelessness, and fantasy. This aspect of the show has always dealt with problems like choice, free will, and temptation, and has been reliably disdainful of more concrete questions like “What is Smokey made of?” Conversely, “Happily Ever After” is the time travel, science fiction, “catastrophic electromagnetic events” portion of Lost. This is the part of the show where Desmond and Penny, Faraday, Widmore, and Eloise Hawking have always been dominant, and instead of centering on issues like whether human beings can change, these stories are about space time, seeing the future, searching for your soulmate, and experimental rabbits named Angstrom. The “Happily Ever After” stories tend to take place in the world outside the island, and the means for telling these stories has always had a stronger explanatory bent. Faraday’s physics obsession is a great example of this: on the island, Smokey’s just hanging around, being a crazy smoke monster, and thinking about human corruptibility, and I doubt we’ll get ever get much more than that. Back at Oxford, the explanations for time travel and having a Constant aren’t any more plausible, but they’re introduced with equations, blackboards, mazes for the time-traveling mice, and giant magnets.

Always with the giant magnets

These are not completely unrelated story lines, of course. Ben has had some extensive contact with both the Jacob/Man in Black material and the Desmond/Eloise Hawking stories, and Desmond himself has always been the means of linking the two together. For the most part, though, the two plot groups and their related thematic contents have pretty much stayed in their own corners, and it’s about time that Lost began to resolve the two. I said after “Ab Aeterno” that I needed to drop my question about whether or not Lost is science fiction, because that episode seemed to be answering with a resounding, “No.” I think “Happily Ever After” revives that question, and demonstrates how important it’s going to be for Lost to find some way to connect the dot between the two opposing forces.

I really hope you watched Chuck last night, and not just because it was an incredibly entertaining episode that fulfilled the deepest desires of most Chuck fans. I hope you watched it, because I really hope the ratings will be decent enough to bring Chuck back for a fourth season. Because I want to see more television like that.

As I indicated in my post about Chuck from late Sunday night, I watched the episode in the big hall at WonderCon, which was about as entertaining as you could imagine. If you were choosing an episode to premiere for a giant room full of screaming Chuck fans, last night’s “Chuck vs. the Other Guy” would be a hard choice to beat. It’s just so fun to sit in the middle of a thousand people as they lose their minds when Chuck and Sarah finally get together, and it was only made better when the episode was followed by Zachary Levi walking out and announcing to the cheering masses: “It’s about time. You’re not wrong…We did it. In Paris.” The panel continued with Chris Fedak and Josh Schwartz discussing the difficulties of finishing a season only to discover they needed to tack six more episodes onto the end, Adam Baldwin confirming that there would of course be some resolution to the discovery that he has a daughter, and a suggestion that in addition to watching the show live, audience members attempt to hack the Nielsen ratings. For more about the panel, I’ll refer you to Daniel Fienberg’s coverage of it, which includes Zachary Levi’s pleasure in the obvious choice of background scenery for Chuck and Sarah’s final scene.

“So yeah, man. It all worked out good,” crowed Levi. “And what better place to consummate their relationship. With the Eiffel Tower standing tall. How’s that for symbolism.”

Part of what made “Chuck vs. the Other Guy” such an effective episode to watch immediately before a question and answer session was that the episode answered so many of what would have been the obvious questions about the third season of Chuck. How will Morgan’s character change now that he knows about Chuck? Will Casey return to Team Bartowski? When are we getting ride of that mopey Shaw? Will Chuck ever be able to become a “real spy” by killing someone, or will that always be a line between him and Sarah? Speaking of Chuck and Sarah…I mean come on already! And the subsequent audience response would have been markedly different if “Chuck vs. the Other Guy” hadn’t been such a satisfying response to all of those concerns. Shaw’s gone for good, and gone in a way that managed to both fulfill Chuck’s trajectory toward full spy status while solidifying his newfound honesty with Sarah. Casey’s back, thank goodness, and he thoughtfully brings Morgan into the fold along with him.

The episode did an impressive job of moving swiftly but thoroughly through all these necessary developments, hitting all the perfect audience pleasure buttons along the way. It was chock full of reference, as the best Chuck always is, sliding through several John Hughes references and building up to Josh Gomez’s hilarious reading of “…there is another,” before concluding with a warm homage to James Bond. The episode was also quite funny – my favorite was the lovely cut from Chuck’s drunken ninja flash to Morgan on the floor, incapacitated by video controllers. (This scene did elicit some concern from the panel’s moderator, IGN’s Eric Goldman, who was worried that Sarah cut through all of the controller cables, which would mean they all would need to be replaced.)

No question, the episode was a deeply satisfying season finale, but I’m now fascinated by the problems it presents for the show’s future. It’s going to be tough to shift down from this giddy conclusion-induced high in order to ramp Chuck back up for its actual season finale. I could easily see these being a tricky, uneven next few episodes – they’ve got to move forward and set a lot of plot in place that will need to be resolved much faster than the usual thirteen-episode timetable. Still, even if they are uneven, these next six episodes are such a cool opportunity for this show. Television rarely ties all of its loose strings into a lovely little bow, and it certainly never builds a blockbuster ending like this, only to return a few weeks later and have to cope with the consequences of that resolution. The questions that “Chuck vs. the Other Guy” answered were satisfying, but pretty easy to predict. Yes, Chuck and Sarah get together; yes, Casey comes back; yes, Shaw dies. The next questions are much harder, and potentially more rewarding. What will Morgan’s role actually be in Team Bartowski? How will this relationship work, now that Chuck and Sarah are a couple?

I’m so looking forward to finding out, and I really hope that the answers will be able to continue beyond the next six episodes.

P.S. Sepinwall often includes a “Plot Hole of the Week” in his Chuck reviews, and I was bugged enough by one thing about this episode that I can’t resist. So, Shaw leads Sarah into a giant empty warehouse set up with an elaborate monitor system and a thoughtfully remixed version of the video of his wife and Sarah’s red test. Chuck comes crashing in with the tanks and the air support and what have you, and it turns out Shaw was just trying to tell Sarah he understands? Come on. What’s with the elaborate monitor set-up? The emo surveillance footage remix? The enormous white stage with a camera on it?

The first appearance of the Eleventh Doctor premiered in the UK this weekend, as well as several showings at San Francisco’s WonderCon. It doesn’t technically premiere in the US until April 17^th, but I saw it and was just blown away, so to heck with the US release date. As Doctor Who is also on my List of Giant Things, I’m taking this opportunity to write up an unscheduled LoGT entry.

Doctor Who has actually undergone several significant shifts since its last Christmas special episode. David Tennant’s reign has come to an end, so a lot of “The Eleventh Hour” was about introducing the new Doctor, played by Matt Smith, and trying to cross the tricky transition from one protagonist into another. Doctor Who is such an odd, unique form of storytelling in this respect – every once in a while, a new actor shows up to take over the main character’s role, and the whole fiction has to continue in the same universe with this new player in its midst. Switching actors happens a fair amount on long-running film mediums, but it’s almost always on the James Bond model: exit Sean Connery, enter Roger Moore, with little comment and very little difference in the essential character. Instead, Doctor Who fictionalizes the new actor’s entrance, usually with great moment and aplomb, and takes each version of the Doctor as an opportunity to start all over again.

Matt Smith and Karen Gillan as the new Doctor Who and his companion, Amy Pond

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I usually don’t post on weekends, but today, I was here:

And I just want to take this opportunity to say – tomorrow’s episode is going to be amazing. You should watch it.

It’s List of Giant Things Day!

Today, one of my favorite shows of recent memory, and one that unlike all the previous shows I’ve done on List of Giant Things, I watched as it was originally airing. I did stumble on Battlestar Galactica after the fact of its first premiere and then inhaled the first season on DVD, but after that initial discovery, I was stuck with waiting months and years to find out the end of that story.

I think it’s appropriate and important to talk about endings when thinking about Battlestar Galactica, because its relationship with finality is quite different than a lot of other long shows. This isn’t the case for all genre fiction, but when a show is oriented around a plot that deals with mystery and discovery, the imagined end point forms a crucial and often difficult horizon line from the very beginning. Unlike fiction that uses multiple generations as its device for creating length, it would have been impossible for Battlestar Galactica to continue indefinitely. There are certain questions that the show built into its premise – What do all of the Cylon models look like? Is there such a thing as Earth, and if so, how do we find it? Will humanity survive? Will Cylons survive? – which required an ending in a markedly different sense than a romance plotline. Shows built on generations can continue forever by simply adding new characters, and in the sense of generations, I don’t just mean a family that has children, but any renewable cast of characters: a new senior class at high school, a new administration in the White House, a new bunch of interns in the hospital. Unlike those open, changeable settings, the world of Battlestar is a closed set. These are the humans who survived the apocalypse. These are the thirteen models of humanoid Cylons. Sure, you can discover another ship that managed to survive, or you can learn that there are more models of Cylon than you thought, and the show uses both of those strategies. But you can’t go on like that forever, and at some point, the show has to answer its central questions rather than continue the drama by forever stumbling across an implausible new set of characters. As soon as those questions are resolved, the show is over.

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Modern Family has continued to be an intelligent, consistent, effective leading light in the recent return of the sitcom form. When it’s on point, Modern Family feels universal without being condescending or making generalizations, and it’s wacky and insightful enough to dodge most of the more annoying half-hour clichés. Plus, it’s reliably funny, which is enough to forgive most sitcom sins. It feels like an old-school family comedy that somehow manages to be fresh rather than tired.

I say this all in spite of what happened on Modern Family last night, which was one of the least funny product placement bits I’ve seen. It was Phil’s birthday, and in a coincidence which led him to believe that God and Steve Jobs teamed up to prove how much they loved him, it was also the release date of the iPad. Phil’s totally psyched to go stand in line at five in the morning so he can get one, but his wife Claire says that because it’s his birthday, she’ll go wait in line for him. Classic sitcom obstacles ensue, involving Claire oversleeping and thus missing the window of iPad availability, subsequent frantic across-town calling to try to find one in stock, and an inevitable brawl outside an Apple store when a guy cuts in line. Finally, Phil and Claire’s son Luke scrounges one up by lying about Phil being on his deathbed, and the family gathers together around a glowing touchpad screen, basking in the warmth of early adopterhood.

Look at how much that crazy lady wants an iPad! Also note the cheerful cutouts of Apple store employees in the background.

Yes, there were two other subplots that did pull a little screen time away from the extended iPad commercial. The “your wife and son can beat you at chess” plotline was a rare instance on Modern Family of a story I feel like I’ve seen twenty times before, but Cam and Mitchell eavesdropping on the neighbors’ soap opera life through the baby monitor was pretty funny. It really doesn’t matter how many subplots you have, though, when Phil spends a great deal of time explaining just how awesome the iPad is, and then the heart-warming family unity moment at the end of the episode looks like this:

Did I mention the title of the episode, which is “Game Changer?” Yeah. And leading up to that Apple-inspired scene of family togetherness, Claire walks in carrying the iPad, which has a cake with wavering, realistic lit candles on the screen. Sure enough, Claire says “Happy Birthday!” and Phil walks over, bends down, and blows out the candles. The ones on the iPad screen. As if that’s not enough, he then yells to himself gleefully, “It did not JUST DO THAT!!”

Here’s what’s so amazing about the whole episode: according to this LA Times article, this wasn’t even paid product placement! Apple has stated that its only involvement in the episode was supplying an iPad for them to use. Sure, Steve Jobs is on the board of Walt Disney Co., which owns ABC, but it looks like this was all Modern Family’s idea. It’s a shame, because the show has the potential to be one of those shows that will age well, because its humor is usually so good at capturing this decade and connecting it to more universal themes. This seems to be Modern Family trying to cash in on current events, and sacrificing universality for topicality.

Or maybe one of the producers just could not wait to get an iPad, and devised the whole thing as an elaborate scheme to jump to the front of the line.