Salon.com > Willa Paskin http://www.salon.com Tue, 02 Jul 2013 16:19:58 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.2.1 On fake reality show “Siberia,” the biggest villain might be the camera http://www.salon.com/2013/07/02/on_fake_reality_show_siberia_the_biggest_villain_might_be_the_camera/ http://www.salon.com/2013/07/02/on_fake_reality_show_siberia_the_biggest_villain_might_be_the_camera/#comments Tue, 02 Jul 2013 15:38:00 +0000 http://www.railrode.net/?p=13349570 “Siberia,” which premiered last night on NBC, looks and sounds like a reality TV show, but is not a reality TV show. Rather, it’s a fiction, a scripted series about a reality TV show that gets a little too real, having deposited 16 contestants in a dangerous, supernatural wilderness. In the first episode, the participants are flown by helicopter to remote Siberia. A hale Australian host— who looks, perfectly, like a mashup of Chris Harrison and Ryan Seacrest— informs them that they will win part of $500,000— if they can make it through a Siberian winter. As if making it through a Siberian winter with just the clothes on their backs was not difficult enough, they will be living in an exact replica of the village of Tunguska, which was mysteriously abandoned in 1908: Spooooky. It’s like “The Blair Witch Project,” but instead of being made of “found footage,” it's made of footage taped by a reality TV crew and edited by professionals, good news for people with motion-sickness. Judging from the first episode, the herky-jerky hand-held only comes out when someone is about to die.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2013/07/02/on_fake_reality_show_siberia_the_biggest_villain_might_be_the_camera/feed/ 3 “The Killing’s” breakout character is a butch teenage girl http://www.salon.com/2013/07/01/the_killings_breakout_character_is_a_butch_teenage_girl/ http://www.salon.com/2013/07/01/the_killings_breakout_character_is_a_butch_teenage_girl/#comments Mon, 01 Jul 2013 15:54:00 +0000 http://www.railrode.net/?p=13347199 AMC’s “The Killing” is halfway through its third season, and so improved that I find myself in the unfamiliar position of wanting to give it a compliment. (It’s not so improved that I only want to give it compliments: On last night’s episode, detective Sarah Linden made a major breakthrough in a case she had worked three years ago— a case she had cared so deeply about it had driven her crazy, but one in which she'd apparently neglected to identify the one eyewitness.) This season’s case has detectives Linden and Holder trying to catch a serial killer who preys on street girls and has already sliced the throats of more than a dozen of them. This crime has given “The Killing” entrée into the lives of Seattle street kids, homeless teenagers and runaways who are moving from shelter to squat, but are not — and this is the great part — just trying to survive, they are also navigating the robust social world they have created for themselves. These kids have lives, feelings, generous and selfish instincts, an entire social web. They are not just cautionary tales, though they are that too. Their world is bleak, but it’s not just bleak.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2013/07/01/the_killings_breakout_character_is_a_butch_teenage_girl/feed/ 11 “Ray Donovan” creator Ann Biderman: “I’m not interested in weddings and dresses and dating” http://www.salon.com/2013/06/30/ray_donovan_creator_ann_biderman_im_not_interested_in_weddings_and_dresses_and_dating/ http://www.salon.com/2013/06/30/ray_donovan_creator_ann_biderman_im_not_interested_in_weddings_and_dresses_and_dating/#comments Sun, 30 Jun 2013 20:00:00 +0000 http://www.railrode.net/?p=13339826 "Ray Donovan," which premieres Sunday night on Showtime, is another antihero drama. It stars Liev Schreiber as the titular character, a Boston-born man whose entire family — his wife, kids and two brothers — has been transplanted to Los Angeles, where he works as a fixer, solving problems  — dead bodies in bed, blackmail, stalkers— for the rich and sometimes famous. In the first episode, Donovan's father, Mickey (Jon Voight, with a raging Boston accent), is released from prison, immediately goes and shoots the priest who molested one of his sons, and then heads out to L.A., where his son wants nothing to do with him. "Ray Donovan" is the creation of Ann Biderman, a lively, blunt-talking woman who also created and ran the great, recently ended, TNT cop show "Southland." I spoke with Biderman about "Ray Donovan," "macho" subject matter, and writing whatever the hell she wants.

With “Southland,” you made a cop show, and, obviously, there have been a lot of cop shows before. With “Ray Donovan,” there are lots of elements and tropes — Boston, boxing, gangsterism — that we’ve also seen before. Do you think about how to use these elements and address these genres in original ways? 

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2013/06/30/ray_donovan_creator_ann_biderman_im_not_interested_in_weddings_and_dresses_and_dating/feed/ 13 Anna Nicole Smith gets the Lifetime movie you did not know she needed http://www.salon.com/2013/06/28/anna_nicole_smith_gets_the_lifetime_movie_you_did_not_know_she_needed/ http://www.salon.com/2013/06/28/anna_nicole_smith_gets_the_lifetime_movie_you_did_not_know_she_needed/#comments Fri, 28 Jun 2013 17:00:00 +0000 http://www.railrode.net/?p=13339165 “Anna Nicole,” a biopic of the massive-chested, Playboy-modeling, Guess-jeans-selling, Marilyn Monroe-looking, short-lived, drug-addled tabloid fixture, premieres Sunday night on Lifetime. The movie is directed by Mary Harron, who has previously made such films as “American Psycho,” “I Shot Andy Warhol” and “The Notorious Life of Bettie Page,” an unexpectedly polished résumé for someone slumming it in Lifetime movie land. Disappointingly, but perhaps not surprisingly, the lowbrow juju of the Lifetime movie — one of the strongest forces in all of television – triumphs over whatever highbrow aspirations Harron had for the project, if, in fact, she had any. “Anna Nicole” has an extraordinarily hazy point of view, tonally sympathetic to Smith but unwilling to explore any of the details, sloppy but particularizing, that might mitigate and humanize her increasingly terrible behavior. If Anna Nicole Smith was in some way emblematic of our celebrity moment— and she was, a decade before Paris Hilton, famous for being some version of herself — “Anna Nicole” does not make that case: She seems as much an unfortunate joke as ever.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2013/06/28/anna_nicole_smith_gets_the_lifetime_movie_you_did_not_know_she_needed/feed/ 5 Why are TV serial killers so sexy? http://www.salon.com/2013/06/28/why_are_tv_serial_killers_so_sexy/ http://www.salon.com/2013/06/28/why_are_tv_serial_killers_so_sexy/#comments Fri, 28 Jun 2013 14:36:00 +0000 http://www.railrode.net/?p=13337416 Handsome, dangerous, mysterious men with an unquenchable thirst for blood have never been more common on television, and I am not talking about vampires. Serial killers are having a moment.  “Hannibal,” “The Following” and “The Fall” star a trio of genius dreamboats who easily elude the more frail humans trying to catch them. “Dexter,” featuring the semi-sympathetic serial killer par excellence, returns to TV on Sunday night. On “The Killing” a pair of detectives are looking for a man who has murdered over a dozen teenage girls, slicing their throats and chopping off a finger, while on FX’s forthcoming “The Bridge,” another pair of detectives will look for a killer who has meticulously planned murders that also speak to pressing social issues. “American Horror Story” featured a guy who skinned people and wore their faces. NBC just premiered “Crossing Lines,” about a team assembled to catch the worst international serial killers, while on CBS, the FBI profilers on “Criminal Minds” do the same for domestic maniacs. And procedurals like ‘The Mentalist,” “Criminal Intent, SVU,” “NCIS,” “CSI” and “Bones” collectively offer up multiple murderers on a nearly weekly basis.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2013/06/28/why_are_tv_serial_killers_so_sexy/feed/ 20 Stephen King’s “Under the Dome” is just the right amount of naughty http://www.salon.com/2013/06/24/stephen_kings_under_the_dome_is_just_the_right_amount_of_naughty/ http://www.salon.com/2013/06/24/stephen_kings_under_the_dome_is_just_the_right_amount_of_naughty/#comments Mon, 24 Jun 2013 17:48:00 +0000 http://www.railrode.net/?p=13335468 When I was a teenager, in the '90s, Stephen King miniseries were even more of a TV staple than they are today. Between 1990 and 1997, event adaptations of “It,” “The Tommy Knockers,” “The Stand,” “The Langoliers” and “The Shining,” among others, appeared on the major networks. Though I don’t remember all the plot details, I do remember how watching them, even just parts of them, felt: like the exact right amount of naughty.

For a teenager, these adaptations were perfectly illicit. Perverse, seedy and creepy, they had enough sex and violence to feel like something you didn’t want to watch with your parents in the room, but weren't so mature as to be totally overwhelming. (King’s books hit this balance too, which is why they are such a frequent entry point into adult fiction for teenagers.) This all flooded back to me with the power of a sense memory when I started watching CBS’s 13-episode adaptation of King’s “Under the Dome,” which premieres tonight and is absolutely going to make some 15-year-old’s summer. It's hard to say about the rest of us.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2013/06/24/stephen_kings_under_the_dome_is_just_the_right_amount_of_naughty/feed/ 18 The suprisingly hopeful “Mad Men” finale http://www.salon.com/2013/06/24/the_suprisingly_hopeful_mad_men_finale/ http://www.salon.com/2013/06/24/the_suprisingly_hopeful_mad_men_finale/#comments Mon, 24 Jun 2013 03:59:00 +0000 http://www.railrode.net/?p=13334945 This season of “Mad Men” made 1968 palpable. It filled viewers with a tremendous sense of uneasy mood, made us paranoid, encouraged us to expect the worst, and, most of all, had us awaiting some climactic, horrifying event — that never arrived, or at least not in the form we expected. 1968 was a year of extraordinary upheaval, but sitting here, more than four decades removed, we know what the people living through it could not: The revolution did not arrive. The center held. The chaos was, ultimately, bound. Sally Draper will be 26 years old in 1980: she is more likely to be a yuppie than a radical — though maybe a feminist too. Change comes, fast and fierce, but not fast or fierce enough to wash everything away. Not fast or fierce enough to wash away a man's past. When the huge, show-changing event the season had been leading up to finally arrived, it was all psychological, not physical. It was not menacing, it was promising. The heavy weight hanging over this season was not 1968, it was Don Draper, and now he's free — or freer than we've ever seen him.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2013/06/24/the_suprisingly_hopeful_mad_men_finale/feed/ 18 “Naked and Afraid” producer: “We didn’t develop the show to be exploitative, ever” http://www.salon.com/2013/06/23/naked_and_afraid_producer_we_didn%e2%80%99t_develop_the_show_to_be_exploitative_ever/ http://www.salon.com/2013/06/23/naked_and_afraid_producer_we_didn%e2%80%99t_develop_the_show_to_be_exploitative_ever/#comments Sun, 23 Jun 2013 21:00:00 +0000 http://www.railrode.net/?p=13333442 "Naked and Afraid," Discovery's new reality show premiering Friday, follows two different people each week as they are deposited in a taxing, remote wilderness environment where they have to survive for three weeks without food, water, shelter or clothes. When the first clips of "Naked and Afraid" hit the internet, the show got a lot of attention, as shows with naked people tend to do. It seemed like the latest series to push the bad taste envelope: "Survivor," but nakeder.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2013/06/23/naked_and_afraid_producer_we_didn%e2%80%99t_develop_the_show_to_be_exploitative_ever/feed/ 30 “Devious Maids” skewers the one percent http://www.salon.com/2013/06/21/devious_maids_skewers_the_one_percent/ http://www.salon.com/2013/06/21/devious_maids_skewers_the_one_percent/#comments Fri, 21 Jun 2013 19:41:00 +0000 http://www.railrode.net/?p=13333265 I was recently having a conversation about working class people and television, and how it has become nearly impossible to find the former on the latter. Sitcoms used to have a blue-collar tradition, from “All in the Family” to “Roseanne,” but in recent years that's been all but abandoned. People on television are usually rich, nearly so, or becoming so. They are typically untroubled by financial practicalities or only marginally bothered by them. Into this desert of class diversity comes Lifetime’s cheeky new melodrama “Devious Maids,” premiering Sunday, which features five working class Latina women, but still just flickers in and out of class consciousness.

“Devious Maids” comes from Marc Cherry, the creator of “Desperate Housewives” and a man who clearly believes in sticking to certain naming conventions. Tonally, the shows are very similar: comedic super-soaps about a group of women with a central murder mystery, crazy plot turns, and a knowing, winking tone. The stars of “Devious Maids” are not housewives but Latina domestic servants, all working for crazy rich people in Beverly Hills. In the first minutes of the pilot, a maid, Flora, is murdered by a person unknown. When her employer, a camp character on the order of Cruella De Vil, breaks down, it’s not because of the death, but the mess: “My maid was murdered! Who is going to clean all this up?” she screeches.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2013/06/21/devious_maids_skewers_the_one_percent/feed/ 7 “Naked and Afraid” not nearly as sexy as it promises http://www.salon.com/2013/06/21/naked_and_afraid_not_nearly_as_sexy_as_it_promises/ http://www.salon.com/2013/06/21/naked_and_afraid_not_nearly_as_sexy_as_it_promises/#comments Fri, 21 Jun 2013 15:52:00 +0000 http://www.railrode.net/?p=13333005 “Naked and Afraid,” the new reality show that premieres Sunday night on Discovery, would more honestly be titled “Cynical and Earnest.” The show takes two trained survivalists, a man and a woman, drops them into an extreme, unpopulated environment without food, water or shelter, and leaves them there for 21 days. The twist — or rather the reveal, pun intended — is that the participants are also naked.

“Naked and Afraid” is not, however, some Playboy bunny version of “Castaway.” It’s more like an extreme version of the parts of “Survivor” in which Richard Hatch took off all his clothes. On-screen nudity has rarely been less sexual, but it’s also rarely been used as brazenly to sell a show. Anyone coming to “Naked and Afraid" for titillation — or camp or absurdity or over-the-topness, all things suggested by the title and premise — will find, instead, a focus on the difficulty and spirituality of the experience. "Naked and Afraid" decidedly does not belong in the Hugely Exploitative Reality Show Hall of Fame, and I’ll admit, that with my lizard brain, I found this a little disappointing.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2013/06/21/naked_and_afraid_not_nearly_as_sexy_as_it_promises/feed/ 7 Dan Harmon just can’t shut up http://www.salon.com/2013/06/21/dan_harmon_just_cant_shut_up/ http://www.salon.com/2013/06/21/dan_harmon_just_cant_shut_up/#comments Fri, 21 Jun 2013 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.railrode.net/?p=13330947 When it was announced a few weeks ago that Dan Harmon would be returning to “Community,” the show he created and had been fired from, it looked like a feel-good story. A wronged auteur has his creation stolen away from him by forces that care more about money, ratings and professionalism than art, only to be vindicated when that creation flounders in his absence, and the same forces have to return his work, admitting it is nothing without him. The genius triumphed over the suits, talent over money, fans over ratings. It’s a happy ending, right? Absolutely — except for the part where, as this story unfolded, the genius auteur got more and more insufferable, a man using his self-proclaimed emotional neediness to behave like an exhausting, smug prat. Is Dan Harmon really great at making “Community”? He sure is, but boy is he getting tiresome.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2013/06/21/dan_harmon_just_cant_shut_up/feed/ 27 James Gandolfini, gone too soon http://www.salon.com/2013/06/20/james_gandolfini_gone_too_soon/ http://www.salon.com/2013/06/20/james_gandolfini_gone_too_soon/#comments Thu, 20 Jun 2013 01:58:00 +0000 http://www.railrode.net/?p=13331488 ‘The Sopranos” changed television forever, alerting everyone with eyes to what the medium, so often thought of as the movies' cheeseball little brother, could do. But if David Chase was the mastermind, James Gandolfini, who died of a heart attack tonight at 51, was the executor, the guy who took the challenging idea of making a show about a morally corrupt character, and made it seem like common sense. Since his performance, creating a show around a character sort of like Tony Soprano has been the ambition of nearly every person trying to make serious television.

There have been great performances on TV since Gandolfini’s mafioso king Tony, but none have been as powerful or as original: It's a performance so good it’s almost impossible to exaggerate its greatness. Gandolfini created from scratch an entire, now bedrock-seeming archetype, the character who, through the skill of his portrayer, is simultaneously charismatic and menacing, threatening and charming, winning and terrifying. His Tony was scary and pained, hulking and sometimes shockingly lithe, so brutal but so funny. Playing him, Gandolfini masterfully manipulated audiences' sympathy, held their attention, and kept their interest, sometimes against their better judgment and even, toward the end of the series, against their will. He was like a pickpocket so good you ended up just handing him your wallet, abdicating before his insane skill.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2013/06/20/james_gandolfini_gone_too_soon/feed/ 24 On “The Bridge,” normal is dangerous http://www.salon.com/2013/06/18/on_the_bridge_normal_is_dangerous/ http://www.salon.com/2013/06/18/on_the_bridge_normal_is_dangerous/#comments Tue, 18 Jun 2013 19:53:00 +0000 http://www.railrode.net/?p=13329845 Beginning next month, FX will start airing its new original series “The Bridge,” a remake of a Swedish/Danish crime show called “Bron/Broen,” the words for "bridge" in those respective languages. With the premiere just a few weeks off, it seemed like a good time to check out the much-praised original. My interest was also piqued by instincts both generous and snarky: My last experience with a Danish drama was so euphoric-fantastic (go watch “Borgen” right now!) I was hoping for a similar contact high. Barring that, I was eager to be forearmed with enough knowledge to hate on the new version of “The Bridge” in a scholarly fashion, should it prove to be as disappointing a remake as “The Killing” has been of the Danish “Forbrydelsen.” (I have no reason to think FX’s “The Bridge” will be anything but good, but be prepared is the hater’s mantra as much as the Girl Scout’s.)  And so I dove in and binge-watched the 10 episodes of “Bron/Broen.” This turned out to be just the way to watch it, since it took nine episodes before I was won over — at which point I was irrevocably won. (Light spoilers to follow.)

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2013/06/18/on_the_bridge_normal_is_dangerous/feed/ 5 Jon Stewart who?: John Oliver’s “Daily Show” is almost too good http://www.salon.com/2013/06/14/john_oliver_on_the_daily_show_is_almost_too_good/ http://www.salon.com/2013/06/14/john_oliver_on_the_daily_show_is_almost_too_good/#comments Fri, 14 Jun 2013 23:25:00 +0000 http://www.railrode.net/?p=13327060 Starting this past week, and for the next three months, “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart” will be “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart” with John Oliver. Oliver, the show’s longtime foppish-haired British correspondent, had no time to ease into his new desk chair -- the unfolding NSA and PRISM scandals made sure of that. On his first day on the job, Oliver had to tackle a prototypically perfect and meaty “Daily Show” story, one full of hypocrisy, absurdity and real stakes. Sitting in his boss’s seat, he delivered a classic “Daily Show” rant that ended, as the best ones do, with a gut punch: “We’re not saying anyone broke any laws, we’re just saying it’s a little bit weird that you didn’t have to.”

A week into his tenure, Oliver is, if anything, doing too good a job. On Thursday, when regular guest Fareed Zakaria sat down for an interview he told Oliver he was “staging a brilliant slow-motion coup against Jon Stewart,” which is true not because there’s any chance Oliver won’t give the gig back in three months, but because his stint makes it clear that ‘The Daily Show with Jon Stewart” would be more accurately called “The Daily Show with a Bunch of Very Talented and Clever Writers.” (I'm still in awe of this gun phone bit.) Oliver won’t end up with his name in the title, but it will be hard to forget that it’s the writers who are the power behind the “Daily Show” throne.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2013/06/14/john_oliver_on_the_daily_show_is_almost_too_good/feed/ 126 “Vice” makes North Korea seem silly, not scary http://www.salon.com/2013/06/14/vice_makes_north_korea_seem_silly_not_scary/ http://www.salon.com/2013/06/14/vice_makes_north_korea_seem_silly_not_scary/#comments Fri, 14 Jun 2013 15:54:00 +0000 http://www.railrode.net/?p=13326424 “Vice,” HBO’s adventure-focused newsmagazine show for dudes who regularly deny that they are hipsters, premiered two and a half months ago, amid a brouhaha of its own creation. Hoping to tape an episode of the show in North Korea and aware of new dictator Kim Jong-un’s love of the Chicago Bulls (a passion inherited from his father), Vice Media offered to bring Dennis Rodman and three Harlem Globetrotters over for a “foreign sports exchange.” Surprisingly, North Korea accepted, and soon images of Dennis Rodman and Vice employees cozying up to Kim Jong-un appeared in the media — just as the DPRK was making new threats to nuke America (while continuing with its standard repression and starvation techniques).  Rodman described Kim Jong-un as “awesome,” while Vice bragged about their access and the great meal they’d been treated to there. In the words of the New Yorker’s Lizzie Widdicombe, “What had seemed like a bold P.R. stunt by Vice now looked like cozying up to a dangerous dictator.”

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2013/06/14/vice_makes_north_korea_seem_silly_not_scary/feed/ 4 On “True Blood,” silliness and Holocaust allegories abound http://www.salon.com/2013/06/13/on_true_blood_silliness_and_holocaust_allegories_abound/ http://www.salon.com/2013/06/13/on_true_blood_silliness_and_holocaust_allegories_abound/#comments Thu, 13 Jun 2013 19:52:00 +0000 http://www.railrode.net/?p=13325607 “True Blood” begins its sixth season on Sunday night in medias res, in the middle of a vampire fight that started in last season’s finale. It’s dark, the earth is shaking and Sookie Stackhouse (Anna Paquin), Eric Northman (Alexander Skarsgard) and a quartet of their allies are running from a newly powerful Bill Compton (Stephen Moyer), who looks like he recently washed in Carrie’s post-prom pig’s-blood bathwater. The sequence is hard to follow and over the top -- vampires keep disappearing in puffs of blood -- but titillation, not coherence, is “True Blood’s" mission. Getting exasperated at it for being as silly, faux-sexy and dim as Jason Stackhouse (Ryan Kwanten) is like hating on a swimsuit calendar for not containing helpful bits of wisdom. Don’t go shopping for sense at the nonsense store.

Each season, “True Blood” picks up an allegory, tosses it around for a few episodes, and then tosses it aside. In the past, vampirism has been used to gesture at homophobia, racism, religious fundamentalism, terrorism, and addictions of all kind. This season, “True Blood” takes a desultory stab at the Holocaust -- and has a B-story that references the Freedom Rides for good measure.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2013/06/13/on_true_blood_silliness_and_holocaust_allegories_abound/feed/ 8 “Bling Ring” reality show is “Keeping Up With the Kardashians” on Adderall http://www.salon.com/2013/06/12/bling_ring_reality_show_is_keeping_up_with_the_kardashians_on_adderall/ http://www.salon.com/2013/06/12/bling_ring_reality_show_is_keeping_up_with_the_kardashians_on_adderall/#comments Wed, 12 Jun 2013 17:00:00 +0000 http://www.railrode.net/?p=13324139 Sofia Coppola’s “The Bling Ring,” which opens Friday, is a fictional film based on the real-life exploits of a group of teenage burglars who in 2008 and '09 robbed a string of celebrities' houses, relieving them of millions of dollars of name-brand accessories, cash and, in one instance, Paris Hilton’s cocaine. The story of the Bling Ring is both timeless and timely: a group of wannabes amorally striving to level up a class -- or, in this case, a list -- are the law-breaking, vacuous relatives of such highbrow social climbers as Becky Sharp and Pip Pirrip, but these ones come with highly specific 21st century signifiers (and horrifiers): their phones, their prescriptions, their sunglasses, their googling abilities, their spaced-out California-inflected ennui and, most of all, their burning desire to be not rich, but famous.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2013/06/12/bling_ring_reality_show_is_keeping_up_with_the_kardashians_on_adderall/feed/ 2 “Game of Thrones” finale recap: “I suppose it will go on for quite some time” http://www.salon.com/2013/06/10/game_of_thrones_finale_recap_i_suppose_it_will_go_on_for_quite_some_time/ http://www.salon.com/2013/06/10/game_of_thrones_finale_recap_i_suppose_it_will_go_on_for_quite_some_time/#comments Mon, 10 Jun 2013 04:10:00 +0000 http://www.railrode.net/?p=13321486 “Game of Thrones” finished its third season tonight, a pretty great season that, like the two that have come before, makes a hash of the idea of  TV “seasons” at all. Thematically bound, discrete units of television— episodes and seasons— are not of particular interest to the creators of “Game of Thrones,” and though they can, as with last week’s Red Wedding, whip out a doozie of an episode when they must, they tend to let stories develop at exactly their own pace, standard structures be damned.

This season, the slow, slow saga of Bran making his way to the wall or Davos learning to read took place alongside much more kinetic arcs, like the loss of Jaime’s Lannister’s hand, his friendship with Brienne, or the fate of Robb Stark and his army. Arya has been in nearly every episode, but has been more or less moved by grown men with agendas from place to place, waiting for her own story to truly begin. This particular weave of slack and taut storylines gives “Game of Thrones” its all encompassing, larger-than-the-viewer feel. But it also means, looking back on the last 10 episodes, what stand out to me are not episodes or some mesh of story lines but specific moments: Catelyn begging for Robb’s life, Jaime’s stump in the mud, Daenerys walking through the unsullied asking them to follow her, Brienne in the bear pit, Margaery fingering that cross bow.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2013/06/10/game_of_thrones_finale_recap_i_suppose_it_will_go_on_for_quite_some_time/feed/ 16 “Game of Thrones”‘ Nikolaj Coster-Waldau: Jaime’s “not a bad guy” http://www.salon.com/2013/06/09/game_of_thrones_nikolaj_coster_waldau_jaimes_not_a_bad_guy/ http://www.salon.com/2013/06/09/game_of_thrones_nikolaj_coster_waldau_jaimes_not_a_bad_guy/#comments Sun, 09 Jun 2013 16:00:00 +0000 http://www.railrode.net/?p=13319893 This season on "Game of Thrones," Jaime Lannister has a lost hand, fought a bear, and made a friend, all while taking a long, filthy journey, usually in captivity, across Westeros. Tonight, the third season of the show ends, with Jaime poised to finally make it back to King's Landing -- a King's Landing sure to be buzzing with the the brutal events of last week's Red Wedding. On the occasion of the finale, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, the Danish actor who plays him, spoke with me about Jaime's friendship with Brienne, the character's "core values," all the places mud can hide on the human body, and acting with a bear.

How has it been to act without a hand?

It’s a little complicated, actually. I have three to four versions [of no hand]. The one in really wide shots, I can use my own hand. We can just hide that. That’s the easiest. But as soon as we get in closer, we can’t do that, so then they have a couple of fake arms that I put on just above my elbow. And then I have to hide my own arm down my pants, in my crack, and that’s a little uncomfortable. And then of course there was the scene we did in the bath, and that was a third version where I spent two hours having this arm attached, again above my elbow, but as a real second limb. And then a few times -- there’s a shot where I walk from the back and they have to use CGI to remove my real arm, so I was wearing this green glove.  I hope they come up with something smart for the next season.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2013/06/09/game_of_thrones_nikolaj_coster_waldau_jaimes_not_a_bad_guy/feed/ 8 “In the Flesh”: A suicidal, gay, post-zombie story http://www.salon.com/2013/06/06/in_the_flesh_a_suicidal_gay_post_zombie_story/ http://www.salon.com/2013/06/06/in_the_flesh_a_suicidal_gay_post_zombie_story/#comments Thu, 06 Jun 2013 19:11:00 +0000 http://www.railrode.net/?p=13319009 I don’t know how close you are to zombie-saturation point, but I have pretty much had my fill of staggering, mindless monsters trying to get their fill of braaaiiins. So it was with some reluctance I started watching “In the Flesh,” a three-episode series about zombies that begins airing on BBC America tonight. After the first scene -- the undead pasting a girl's brain into their mouths in the aisle of a supermarket -- I was feeling pretty smug about my zombie dismissal. Then came the second scene. Kieren Walker (Luke Newberry), pale as actual death and with freaky zombie eyes, talks to a doctor about his horrible flashbacks -- of pasting a girl’s brain into his mouth in a supermarket. Kieren is a zombie who has been cured.

“In the Flesh,” which starts strong and gets even stronger, is set in England after the zombie apocalypse. In its particular mythology, everyone who died in the year 2008 rose from the dead one day. They terrorized and ate people but could not multiply: Their bite had no bite. A cure was eventually found, and thanks to everyday shots, the former brain eaters have their brains back. They are “Partially Deceased Syndrome” sufferers, still in their janky bodies, but otherwise coherent, and they are slowly returning to the families and communities they once terrorized.

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