I keep trying to get Team Experience to tell you what they're watching but they're weirdly shy about the small screen. But with the lines continually more blurred between screens we're trying to give television more room here. Nevertheless most of us do watch TV when we can squeeze it in between movies.
Here's a few of our favorite things from the past week's viewing...
Patricia Field & Jacqueline Demetrio, Costume Design of Younger
Not since the glory days of Sex and the City has a show relied so beautifully on costumes (OK maybe Gossip Girl is up there, too) but in Younger they serve a purpose beyond aesthetics. Take for example the warrior-like costumes Miriam Shor's character wears, glittery armors, oversized jewelry and in one case a McQueen scarf that seemed to have the skulls of all her victims. That the very scarf was used by another character to reveal her weaknesses was pure brilliance.
-Jose Solis
Gillian Anderson in The X-Files
We may quibble with the overall quality of this protracted sequel season of The X-Files but we should never complain about having more Gillian Anderson in our lives. [More...]
In last week's "Home Again" episode, she was offered yet another acting showcase, revisiting and revitalizing the storylines that made Scully such an enduring pop culture fixture in the 90s. Scully's brushes with death and vexed feelings about familial units, so familiar for fans of the redheaded government agent, made "Home Again" — in which she faces the loss of a family member — vintage X-Files. Anderson's stoicism as Scully is most heartbreaking whenever it's pushed to its limits: a burgeoning whimper here, an irrepressible tear there. It's no so much that Anderson traces so carefully Scully's emotional breakdown (she's nothing if not the embodiment of understatement) but that she makes her FBI agent no less strong or brave in doing so. It's a wonder of a performance, layered and nuanced, familiar and yet strikingly fresh.
-Manuel Betancourt
Quentin's magic bursts out via playing cards
The Beast unleashed in a terrifying moment when time stops
[Tie] Writing Team & Visual FX Craftsmen, The Magicians
From my limited sampling I'd call SyFy's The Magicians, easily their best original series since Battlestar Galactica. The story is about grad students recruited for a magic school called Brakebills. I binge-watched the first four episodes this week and was continually surprised at the narrative twists, shifts in allegiances (for the viewer at least) and clever echoes from episode to episode. There's visual wit, too: Note in the images above how the playing cards that Quentin levitates in a moment of true wonder in S1.E1 "Unauthorized Magic" are echoed visually later on to quite different dramatic effect in a terrifying attack on the school from The Beast, who is covered in swirling moths. "The World in the Walls" borrows a little from Buffy the Vampire Slayer (but then what supernatural series doesn't?) but its elaborate story within the story which takes place in a spell construct wherein Quentin wakes up in an insane asylum not realizing that none of it is real, is gripping. Better still, the magic is far more visually expressive and varied than in any other screen treatment I've seen. It's not just colored CGI swirls. Sometimes there's nothing much to see at all. Other times, there's CGI color. And best of all is the elaborate hand choreography that goes with many of the spells, instantly setting this apart from generic "magic" onscreen. Marvel's Doctor Strange is on alert -- just try and top this!
All that said, it's not perfect: Some of the characterizations are broadstrokes only (thus far) and the diverse supporting cast (gay characters, black characters, Indian characters, and even a total balance of genders -- just like, you know, the world) need more attention since the straight white guy lead is not any more inherently compelling than the other characters; The Magicians feels like a show that would thrive if it thought of itself as an Ensemble character thriller first and foremostand the storytelling should probably slow down because too much has happened in just 4 hours. But all the elements - Nathaniel R
Denzel Washington for Directing Grey's Anatomy
I know what you're thinking: Him? Directing? THAT? But even with all the terrible things that happen on a weekly basis to the staff of Grey-Sloan Memorial (formerly Seattle Grace) Hospital, none of them have ever felt to visceral as they did this week in S12:E9 "The Sound of Silence" thanks to Washington's inspired direction. First, in a scene straight out of a horror movie, a comatose patient wakes up as Meredith Grey enters information onto his chart, and violently assaults her. We see just enough of the attack before Washington cuts to outside the shuttered windows of the trauma room, showing just how easily this could go unnoticed in the busy environment. Then, Meredith loses her hearing, and suddenly we are inside the patient's head as opposed to the doctors'. It's the most frightening act of television I've seen in quite some time, as Washington cuts out nearly all the sound, leaving us unable to figure out what is going on as Meredith is treated, wheeled into surgery, and convalesces. It's some of the most arresting, adventurous directing on TV, on a twelve-season-old network television show to boot. GET THAT EGOT, DENZEL!
-Denny
Grandfathered (Overall)
I took a chance on the new John Stamos vehicle Grandfathered when it debuted, drawn in mostly by the presence of the divine Paget Brewster, who really boosted the final season of Community. The fact I’ve stuck with it through to last week’s 15th episode speaks less to any revelatory comedic quality than to the comfortable groove the characters quickly settled into - it’s completely unchallenging and only gently amusing for the most part. My choice to highlight it this particular week provides a perfect example of the kind of easy targets Grandfathered cozily hits; Josh Peck’s ex-screen partner Drake Bell guested and the pair basically relived their Drake & Josh dynamic in the form of adult strangers. I think this kind of TV, which normalises different kinds of families and relationships and people while being generically unchallenging and emotionally undemanding, can be just as valuable as cable’s more stimulating adventures. But maybe I’m just getting old.
-David Upton
"No Way Out" TWD's mid season premiere
Avi Youabian, Editing, The Walking Dead
This week, The Walking Dead had its mid-season premiere. It was an excellent episode, taut and exciting, directed by Nicotero. Near the end, there was a massive fight scene, that built and built, as more and more people joined the fight against an impossibly massive horde of undead. This is supposed to be a turning point, you see, where it stops being Rick’s small crew and a bunch of Alexandria wimps, and becomes a true community. Knowing this show, there’s no way you can ask the writing to carry that burden (puh-leeze!). Instead, the editing did it, building the size of the fighting force until this one gorgeous scene of rapid cuts, fighter to fighter, straight into the camera. Beautiful. Fierce. Everything a show like this should be.
-Deborah Lipp