Transparent Season 3. Part 2 - Heading for Disaster

by Chris Feil

Transparent thrives on impending personal cataclysm and the middle portion of its third season is no exception. Per usual, the Pfeffermans are on track for explosions big and small coming not soon enough for their own good or too fast that they can't see it as its happening. When Eric left us off, Maura (Jeffrey Tambor) had made the decision to fully transition, Sarah (Amy Landecker) was still struggling to get spiritually arrested, and Alli's (Gabby Hoffman) was continuing her relationship with the shifty Leslie (Cherry Jones). In this next section, Judith Light's Shelly takes a backseat, while Josh (Jay Duplass) begins a series of oncoming crises.

Episode 4 - "Just the Facts"

Maura opens the episode with a visit to her plastic surgeon to see the potential outcome from her planned facial reconstruction. She's beginning to see the belabored process of intrusive and endless therapy visits required to fully transition, but the projection of her future self staring back at her is all too promising to get discouraged...

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Drag Race All Stars E6: 'Pants. Pants I Say...'

RuPaul's Drag Race All Stars Season 2 didn't need a runway theme to remind us that Alaska is wearing the pants this time around. RuPaul's joke about goofing off during deliberations, which is genius as we've discussed, only further emphasizes who's the boss this season. And it ain't Ru, okay gurl?

I can't wait to see how this turns out.

That binocular miming bit from Katya was cute but there's no suspense. I think we all know who's turning it out at the finale...

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Feeling the "Effects" (One Mississippi, Episode 2)

by Stephen Fenton

When a loved one dies, there’s a flurry of activity; all manner of tasks to be done and arrangements to be made. It’s those first few days after the funeral that are the hardest, when reality starts to kick in, and you realize you to make sense of this new normal. And that’s where we find Tig and family in the second episode of One Mississippi.  

“How was your stay at the hospital? Were you satisfied? Or did things not go so well?...Because you died.”

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Transparent Season 3. Part One

TV’s best comedy/drama/tragedy, Transparent, is back for Season 3 in all of its sexual/pansexual/transsexual glory as creator Jill Soloway brings us back into the tumultuous lives of the fallible Pfefferman family.  Here’s a look at Episodes 1-3…

Episode One:  Elizah
It’s a bummer that the first show out of the gate is probably the weakest episode of Transparent we’ve seen.  While the show starts promisingly with Rabbi Raquel (the magical Kathryn Hahn, promoted to full-time cast member this season) jogging through misty woods to a soundtrack of Jacques Brel’s “Ne Me Quitte Pas”…this episode is devoted almost entirely to one storyline.  While Maura (Jeffrey Tambor) works one of her first shifts at the LGBT community center hotline, she receives a call from a confused young trans girl named Elizah.  When Elizah hangs up on her, Maura is so moved and involved that she spends the day tracking her down...  

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Exhuming Hitchcock's Grave... Again

Alfred Hitchcock was not above a remake. Or adaptations. Or self referencing. But this latest news is taking things too far in posthumous Hitchcock mania. A new show called Welcome to Hitchcock is going to "reimagine" Hitchcock stories one season-long mystery/crime at a time. The news gets worse: Chris Columbus will direct the pilot. Because, you know, Columbus has always excelled at taut psychologically provocative suspense (wtf?).

Sigh. After all the Hitchcock rip-offs and "sequels" and homages and "recreations" over the years, we do not need a ten episode reimagining of Psycho or Rear Window or Notorious; they're perfect the way they are. With the TV-making community scrambling to jump on the hot hot hot anthology train we all should have assumed that remakes were next. But if they must do this, let's hope they find a young director with an actual voice and gift for suspense to flesh out some of Hitchcock's less successful efforts instead. Any suggestions?