Zero Dark Thirty doesn't endorse torture, and neither did 24.

Zero Dark Thirty finally opened wide last weekend, which means that the general movie-going crowd finally got to see what all the fuss was about.  But while I don't want to rehash the various 'No, it doesn't endorse torture!!' arguments that I've made here and elsewhere yet again (review, essay 01, essay 02), I would like to take a moment to address a side issue.  In many of the discussions about Zero Dark Thirty, be it pro or con, we've seen the television show 24 being used as a shorthand for being a mainstream entertainment that did all of the things that Zero Dark Thirty is accused of.  I intended to write something of this nature back when the show left the air in May 2010, but life got in the way.  24 premiered in November of 2001, not directly inspired by the 9/11 attacks but unfortunately in their shadow.  I wrote extensively about that first season when it ended (read it HERE), but looking back, it's clear that the show wasn't intended to be a lightning rod of controversy and/or the go-to talking point when discussing the post 9/11 'war on terror'.  Throughout its eight seasons, 24 was never 'the torture show', nor was it intended to represent one political ideology (or political party) over another.

Guest Essay: Merrill Barr explains why a Canadian television show, Flashpoint, was an American television game-changer.

The Canadian Cop Show That Broke American Television

by Merrill Barr

I don’t hold it against you if you've never heard of Flashpoint. It’s a show that has flown under the radar to American audiences since its beginning. Constantly being shifted around in time slots and networks for the last five years makes it difficult to maintain a regular audience. But there’s a reason the show should matter to you. While its end draws near (the series finale airs in only a few weeks on American television), its legacy to the American television business model will stand the test of time.

Brandon Peters says: Watch the Dirty Harry franchise during G4's all-day marathon this Saturday!

Hey Mendelnites (can we use that, Scott?), in the even you've never seen the Dirty Harry series or would like to in order to keep with my dissection, but are unable to find the films or don't want to shell out $$ - you're in luck.

This Saturday (December 1st), the G4 Network (the one that pretty much airs Cops like its 1992) is marathoning the Dirty Harry series all day and probably 2 or 3 times through. So, either plop down and marathon it yourself or set your DVR!

Brandon Peters

God help me, I'm actually enjoying Elementary...

Despite my best efforts to stay above the fray, I must now admit that I'm actually becoming a fan of CBS's new 'Sherlock Holmes in New York' crime drama Elementary.  I know I'm supposed to take pot-shots at the show and blab about how it's a shameless attempt to cash in on the success of BBC's Sherlock.  But the show has, if anything, gone out of its way to differentiate itself from the brooding series that turned Benedict Cumberbatch into a mega-star/sex-symbol.  I remarked back when the first extended trailer appeared that the show felt less like a riff on Sherlock and more like a rip-off of Tony Shalhoub's Monk.  That's still the case, but it's quickly become an arguably superior version of the briefly great but mostly terrible USA comedy.  Loyal viewers will recall that the show's first two seasons were delightful until the writers/producers amped up the farce and started treating Monk like a man-child who was completely unfamiliar with how the outside world actually functions.  The key to the show's appeal is two things it shares with the title character: a genuine intelligence and a general lack of unnecessary sentiment.

Guest Essay- Merrill Barr asks: Is The CW about to take control of the television landscape?

The year was 1987 and the television landscape was dominated by three major broadcasting networks, CBS, ABC and NBC. Seeing an opportunity to take hold of a specific niche of the viewing public, young viewers to be precise, media mogul Rupert Murdoch took an investment $325 million to launch what is now known simply as FOX.  Through forward thinking innovation in programming like edgy sitcoms (Married… With Children), barrier breaking sketch shows (In Living Color), animated sitcoms in prime time (The Simpsons), young lead characters (21 Jump Street), reality television (COPS), prime time soap-operas (Beverly Hills 90210, Melrose Place), dark science fiction (The X-Files) and a first down line during NFL games, FOX has since become the biggest name on the Nielsen charts every season (American Idol).  

Guest Essay: Merrill Barr explains why Comic-Con is a better marketing tool for television than it is for movies.

From time to time, Mendelson's Memos is able to present reviews and/or essays from guest writers, as is the case this afternoon. Merrill Barr is a frequent analyzer and reviewer of television for both blogs and podcasts. A former contributor to FilmSchoolRejects.com, he currently runs the television podcasts The Idiot Boxers and Operation: Nikita for FatGuysAtTheMovies.com and occasionally provides written reviews for DarkMediaOnline.com. He can be found on twitter (@sonic43), Facebook (facebook.com/merrilljbarr) and Tumblr (TheIdiotsBox.com). He can also be contacted via email at TheIdiotBoxers@gmail.com. Please enjoy, share, and comment.

Four years ago, when it came to movie hype, there was no greater combination of studio marketing and rabid fandom than Comic-Con. Iron Man, The Dark Knight, Green Lantern, Twilight, Captain America, Piranha 3D, Avatar, Scott Pilgrim, Cowboys & Aliens, The Avengers, if your movie had even a sliver of nerdy potential (and sometimes not at all [Salt]) you went to the annual San Diego Comic Book Convention, better known as just 'Comic-Con'.  But that mentality is shifting in movie land.  The downside to a massive marketing push like Comic-Con is – and let’s not beat around the bush, that it is all marketing. Really cool, sometimes clever and intelligent marketing, but marketing none the less – is that there needs to be results. The problem is that it’s hard to differentiate the impact of Comic-Con vs. every other piece of marketing inside the box office because of one thing… Time.  

Informal critical thoughts on The Newsroom pilot.

Yes, there is comic value in this 7-minute super-cut of oft-repeated phrases in the work of Aaron Sorkin.  But it also highlights just how damn entertaining his shows are and how much credit should go to the various actors of The West Wing, Sports Night, and the disappointing but not awful Studio 60 On the Sunset Strip.  And come what may, The Newsroom is 'okay Sorkin'.  It's not great, but it is relentlessly entertaining.    On just viewing the pilot, I wish the supporting cast didn't seem so heavily made up (thus far) of somewhat similar-looking young white men.  And the undercurrent of Sorkin's passive-aggressive sexism rears its ugly head in several unnecessary ways, be it Jeff Daniel's opening speech opining about the good old days when 'Men were men!' or an entire first half where most of the female characters almost exclusively talk about relationship issues.  And while the show once again taps into the excitement of seeing professionals excelling and putting quality of work over other concerns, it reminds us again that Sorkin's world is a fantasy, a utopia, which makes it hard to watch in times such as these.

Weeds to conclude after eight seasons. And yet another three-act narrative closes shop one season early...

I like Weeds, having watched it first for work-related reasons and then having caught it on my own slowly over the last year or so via Netflix.  I'm not a die-hard fan, so news of its upcoming cancellation following the upcoming eighth season would otherwise be untroubling save for one key factor. Weeds, like any number of ongoing episodic series was clearly structured into a three-act structure, with three seasons for each act.  Like 24, Mad Men, and (so far) Sons of Anarchy among others, the show's long-form storytelling clearly established a set structure.  The first three seasons established the core premise (Nancy sells dope to neighbors in upscale Agrestic after her husband dies) and literally burns down the primary story, while the second three seasons upended Nancy's world and left her at what amounts to rock-bottom (her family abandoned her and she basically surrendered herself to police custody at the conclusion of season six).  That leaves three seasons to rebuild to some kind of third-act finale.  But just like 24, the logical narrative has been cut short by a season.

A situation oddly similar to the current Community debacle.

After this weekend, with show creator Dan Harmon fired from Community by Sony Television and with much of writing staff exiting, one wonders why NBC bothered to renew the show at all.  The abbreviated 13-episode renewal was clearly meant to be a sort of 'we'll give you time to wrap up' olive branch extended towards 30 Rock and Fringe, but the last episode of this season served as such a fitting series finale that the show as we know it could arguably be done.  And that's a good thing in light of this news.  Come what may, the things that made Community special generally came from the mind of Mr. Harmon and at least some of the departing writers, of course aided by what appears to be a fully-returning cast.  So if the fourth and presumably final season of Community, without the behind-the-scenes people who made it worthwhile, ends up being lackluster and/or a shell of its former self, then we should be grateful that the Greendale gang saw fit to so explicitly tie up the show several days ago.  Point being, if the fourth season of Community is terrible, we can just pretend it never happened, or at least that it existed in some alternate timeline ("darkest timeline" perhaps?).  If this all seems familiar, it's because the pattern followed by Community was also set forth in the late 1990s by, of all things, an afternoon animated action drama.  Whatever Dan Harmon is feeling right now, I'm sure Greg Weisman is quite sympathetic.

CBS's Elementary gets a trailer. It's not Sherlock, it's Monk!

By familiar, I don't mean that it looks like a carbon-copy of the BBC modern day Sherlock Holmes drama Sherlock.  The good news is that this looks and feels quite different from the currently airing series.  The bad news is that everything about this feels like a concerted effort to water-down the original and make it 'more palpable' to alleged audience sensibilities.  The tinkering seems primarily intended to make Johnny Lee Miller's Holmes more 'sympathetic'.  This Holmes actually gives a damn about the dastardly doings that villains do, rather than treating the 'great game' as just that.  He lashes out at suspects and expresses regret at having to witness violence.  And of course, because Watson is now played by a woman, Lucy Lu is seen looking away at the gore, because all women are inherently squeamish.  The core difference between the two shows appears to be an attempt to make Jonny Lee Miller's Holmes less cold, clinical, and stand off-ish than Benedict Cumberbatch.  In short, CBS is trying for a more 'relatable' Sherlock Holmes.