I had a whole post cued up about modern detectives, but then I realized that what I really needed to talk about with this crop of new shows was the phenomenon of the Angry Genius. The angry genius gets a pass on antisocial behavior and can treat people terribly with impunity. The bigger the genius, the more anger. What’s the genius angry about? It’s seldom very well explained, but we can make some hazy assumptions: sometimes it’s cosmic unfairness. Sometimes it’s being underappreciated. Sometimes it’s the fact that the angry genius’s genius is so great that there’s no one who can wholly understand it.
One thing is
clear, though: the Angry Genius is a
man. In fact, he’s often a man who believes (often rightly, in the show's configuration) that he’s being
held back by the women around him.
Female lieutenants, desk partners, and hospital administrators who for some reason think the rules are more important than the genius’s genius. Girlfriends who dote on them, stars in their
eyes, and still somehow stand in the way of their genius. Occasionally the women actually help more
than they hinder…and then get grumped-at for their troubles. Either way, the women are supposed to shrug,
shake their heads, and accept it. That’s
just the price of working near a genius.
Sometimes the
Angry Genius formula works, even for me:
when the anger is framed as grumpiness and tinged with kind, human
likeability (House; Lie To Me; Elementary), I can really quite enjoy it. But when it’s just anger—or worse, the sort
of cruel anger that feels sad around the edges—it’s just plain hard to
watch. And even when it’s enjoyable, it
still highlights a fascinating gender disparity. Women are allowed to be angry, but only under
certain circumstances—when they or their families have been violated; when they’re
standing up for the rights of others.
Being underappreciated or misunderstood may make women angry, but about
the most they’re allowed to do about it is complain to their girlfriends or
sulk on the couch with a glass of chardonnay and a tub of ice cream. Women who lash out in anger are crazy and
histrionic, or calculating and cruel, or monstrous. Whatever they are, they’re not loveable
geniuses. For men, being “emotional” is framed
an inevitable and sympathetic trait.
They can’t help it; they just have all those feelings and they don’t
know how to manage them. For women,
“emotional” is framed as a criticism.
Why can’t those women be more reasonable?
Backstrom (Fox, new. Law enforcement procedural.)
Watched: first 5 episodes
Premise: World’s most unlikeable detective leads a
diversely competent squad.
Promise: Hart Hanson has a type: the detective savant who lacks the ability to
read or follow social cues, and the people who support and/or care for
them. But while Bones and The Finder feature
loveable savants, Backstrom is generally mean and relies on a disturbing
combination of bias and whim to solve crime.
In an interview, Hanson explained that they changed the character from
the (book) source material to make Backstrom actually a good detective, which
the original version apparently isn’t.
In the process, Hanson (et al) perhaps inadvertently created an Angry
Genius, who we are supposed to sort of root for instead of reviling. He has some redeeming human warmth, but he
hides it well, and we are, I think, supposed to find his competence redeeming
too. But—like those football players
(Vick, Roethlisberger, et al) who are so good at throwing or running that the
public prematurely forgives for their heinous behavior—I don’t want to find his
competence redeeming. The supporting
characters are a very wide-ranging bunch—so much so that they feel like they’re
on about three different shows—and while they have the potential to become
interesting, the show also works so hard at making them quirky that it feels
artificial. Part of the problem is that
the network is airing the episodes out of order, which means we can’t follow
the growth of chemistry among the characters or see Backstrom’s gradual
personal growth. But even if they were
in order, I don’t think I’d find myself caring that much.
Verdict: Not without redeeming qualities, but not
enough of them to keep me watching.
Babylon (Sundance, UK show, new to
U.S. Drama/Satire.)
Watched: Episode 1
Premise: Black comedy about the Metropolitan Police (Scotland Yard)
and its PR department.
Promise: British satire of a particular vein that’s
quite popular right now: very angry,
lots of swearing. (Think The Thick of It.).
It lacks the affectionate touch of, say, Twenty Twelve or Getting On. It’s full of very colorful metaphors and
strong performances, but not likeable people.
Is fatalism and pessimism run deep—the system is utterly broken and
can’t be fixed, because people are unable to be anything other than callous and
selfish, and as a result, will never rise to the dignity of their
positions. Here, too, there’s an angry
man (well, lots of them, but particularly the chief) and a woman (the American
PR specialist) who’s tremendously competent but seen as holding the man
back. And she can’t pull herself
together on a personal level, because apparently that’s true of all professionally competent
women.
As a story, it’s fast-moving and
disjointed, with quick cuts between action, politics, and workplace drama that
create tonal whiplash. I understand
why: a show that were just bleak and
cruel would be too hard to watch, but a show that was just satirical humor
wouldn’t present commentary as biting.
But there has to be a way to make it feel like the anger and the humor
fit together better. And—at least for my
taste—there has to be a way to introduce something
encouraging. And I don’t see that.
Verdict: Edgy enough to draw critical acclaim, but
edge alone isn’t enough to carry it for me.
Fortitude (Pivot, UK show, new to
U.S. Slow-motion Thriller, Quality
Television).
Watched: first 7 episodes
Premise: The swirl of intrigue surrounding a murder in
an arctic settlement that previously had almost no crime.
Promise: Visually, it’s gorgeous. The setting is the
arctic island settlement of Fortitude (presumably modeled on Svalbard), where people
from around the world have come to settle.
It’s hard to get over how beautiful and bleak the setting (filmed in
Iceland) is, and it sets the tone for the series, which is like the
slowest-motion episode of the X-Files ever, but without Mulder or Scully. OK, that doesn’t make much sense, but here’s
what I mean: the premise—two deaths in
an environment of intrigue that mixes interpersonal drama with business; the
foreboding “trust no one” mood; and the intrusion of a Scotland Yard investigator
(played with subtlety and intentional incongruity by Stanley Tucci) into a tightly-knit and secretive
community—was just barely enough to
keep me watching. I didn’t know why I
was watching, I was just curious. And as
the story continues at the rate of one or two clues per hour, it’s getting weirder
and weirder, and gradually turning from a Drama to a Mystery to a Thriller to a
Supernatural Thriller. All at the pace
of frozen molasses.
Verdict: 7 hours in, and against all odds, I’m still
curious.
Battle Creek (CBS, new. Law enforcement procedural.)
Watched: Pilot
Premise: Odd-couple partners solve crime after being thrust
together in Battle Creek, Michigan.
Promise: This show is tonally all over the place. I think it thinks it’s funny, wringing
odd-couple humor from its pairing an angry sad-sack yet talented police
detective (and his Bad News Bears-style department) with a slick, handsome,
modern, effective, smug FBI agent. But
the tone is often one of anger and sadness as the lead cop’s occasional flashes
of competence are overshadowed by the
consistent abilities of the younger, more handsome FBI agent. I think we’re supposed to hate the FBI agent,
whose studious naiivete comes off as smug.
(Also, an interesting casting note:
While they do a fine job of contrasting Josh Duhamel’s sleek
handsomeness with Dean Winters’ grit, I find it jarring to see Winters in the
aging sad-sack role; I’m used to him being the smug bastard.) The show sets up a Battle of the Methods, pitting
the old legwork-and-bluff approach against the high-tech-and-suave. High tech and suave wins almost every time,
but there’s still room for a little bit of guile and instinct to save the
day. To make a racquet-sports
analogy (my, I'm sporty today!): this is about a hot shot young
athlete who runs his ass off and plays a great game and then gets beaten at the
net by a drop shot. And
we’re supposed to root for the guy who hit the drop shot. And the whole show marinates in so much anger
that it’s hard to enjoy the humor.
Verdict: Neither funny enough nor dramatic
enough to work, at least for me.
On the DVR/Unreviewed: Agent Carter; Empire; 12 Monkeys; Allegiance; Better Call Saul; Secrets & Lies; CSI: Cyber; American Crime.
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