We're accidentally having nearly a full television day today at our mostly movies site so this is as good a time as any to try to reboot that idea about a weekly glance at what we're loving on TV. So I asked members of the team to name a MVP of their television week and here's what they said...
MVP: "If it doesn't fit...," Scene
Show: The People Vs. OJ Simpson
This show gets better and better. In an episode chock-full of riveting moments, there was never any real doubt that THE moment would be the presentation of the iconic gloves, the gloves the prosecution was so convinced would win the case for them. After tracing what led to the fatal error of asking Simpson to try them on—Chris Darden’s desire for a “big moment” to beat the defense at their own game, and perhaps to make up for a missed opportunity with Marcia Clark—the show builds up to the climax like a horror movie. Once Bob Shapiro convinces the defense the gloves won’t fit, F. Lee Bailey and Johnnie Cochran cunningly spring the trap for the prosecution, playing Darden’s ego like a violin. Then Simpson gives the performance of his life as he struggles with the gloves while the jury looks on, agog, and Darden realizes he may just have single-handedly blown the entire case. But it’s the great Sarah Paulson's face as Marcia Clark that says it all: you can see her soul being slowly crushed during the whole demonstration, and it’s devastating.
-Lynn Lee
five more MVPs after the jump...
MVP: Miranda Richardson, Actress
Show: And Then There Was None
Miranda Richardson is absolutely killing it in the new BBC adaptation of Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None—and that’s not a spoiler. Richardson is known for excelling in supporting roles on the big screen, most obviously as Virginia Woolf’s cousin in The Hours, and she’s just as wonderful in her vivacious comic turns in TV fare like Absolutely Fabulous and The Life and Times of Vivienne Vyle. In And Then There Were None, Richardson brings that dramatic depth and playful irony together, playing a pious harridan with repressed lesbian desires. Think a blend of Eileen Brennan’s Mrs. Peacock in Clue and Geraldine McEwan’s Sister Bridget in The Magdalene Sisters. She’s so very good, and so very delightful.
-Kyle Stevens
MVP: Rachel Maddow, Talking Head
Shows: Various
My television MVP this week is Rachel Maddow. I have no choice—we’re glued to election returns, and I’m missing my various shows. In a sea of noise, Maddow’s dulcet voice is sane, erudite, delightfully amused, and informative. She’s eager to dig into political process, to interview serious people, to engage with wackiness. She makes most of her colleagues look like idiots. And yes, as a matter of fact, it does matter to me that the smartest person on television is a butch lesbian. Yay team gay!
-Deborah Lipp
MVP: Jemima Kirke, Actress
Show: Girls
Often sidelined in previous seasons, Jemima Kirke's Jessa moves closer to center stage in Girls' fifth season as she and Adam have gotten ever-closer after bonding during Hannah's disastrous time in Iowa last season. At first, she takes a hard-line stance against getting together, as she is trying to be a better person and, you know, girl code. But Adam is persistent, and after a rom-com worthy trip to the boardwalk together, Jessa finds herself in a complicated situation. Kirke dives deep into Jessa's psyche, and in S5:E4, she nails the posturing, angry, preemptive defensiveness that comes from hating someone for reasons that you can't tell them. And then, after pushing Hannah out, she shows up at Adam's place and Kirke shows a kind of vulnerability that we haven't really seen from Jessa before, scared and unsure if she even wants to do this bad thing when she's trying very hard to make something good out of her life. Jessa has been a pretty terrible person up to this point, so that Kirke is able to make you feel so much for her as she tries to turn her life around is quite a feat, and she gets to show us more depth as an actress, to boot.
-Dancin' Dan
MVP: Krister Johnson, writer
Show: Children’s Hospital
Children’s Hospital is the best-kept comedy secret of the decade so far. The Adult Swim show’s freewheeling absurdism has turned it into one of the most fascinatingly silly yet inventive comedies on TV. Its 7th season, set to be its last, has been excellent, if not the show’s best; this is thanks in part to Krister Johnson, whose episodes “One Million Saved” and “Doctor Beth” have been the season’s highlights thus far. In this week’s episode, “By the Throat”, Rob Huebel’s Dr. Owen Maestro follows a tongue depressor conspiracy all the way to the top. Johnson’s script is a conspiracy thriller compressed into a 10-minute episode, complete with Deep Throat-style informing via Dr. Lola Spratt (Erinn Hayes). But Johnson’s best joke is the simplest: “Give me 30CCs of fentanyl, STRAT!” And Rob Corddry’s Dr. Blake Downs nails a power chord on a Stratocaster guitar.
- Laurence Barber
MVP: Abstain!
Show: Abstain!
Listen up people. I loved writing about Charlie's Angels earlier today but if you don't comment it kills the desire to throw in surprise topics or detours like Nathaniel on an old camp show. So I'm going on strike until you comment.
-Love, Nathaniel's hurt feelings.