Please, "Inception," Save My Summer

Next Friday, July 16^th, a little movie comes out that I’ve been anticipating for a long time. Christopher Nolan’s Inception stars Leonardo DiCaprio, Ellen Page, Michael Caine and several other big-time stars. The film, a moody, psychological action/drama that is about espionage within the world of dreams, has been kept under wraps of secrecy for two years, ever since it was announced as director Nolan’s next movie. Nolan (who will turn 40 at the end of this month), is a formidable director who, for my money, has never made a bad film. Just look at his resume: Following, Memento, Insomnia, Batman Begins, The Prestige, The Dark Knight. Already, he has established himself as one of Hollywood top directing talents, and that certainly is helped by the fact that two years ago he delivered a film so critically acclaimed and so audience-beloved (the aforementioned Dark Knight) that Warner Brothers Pictures must still be sending him fruit baskets and “we love you” cards. Nolan decided not to immediately follow up his most recent Batman picture with another sequel: unlike other directors tied to superhero franchises, Nolan makes exactly what he wants, when he wants to. He’s a virtuoso at staggering big productions with his own passion projects. And Inception is indeed a passion; a movie he has wanted to make for several years, and now finally has the collateral to make it. This film isn’t just his. In some ways, it’s him.

So. There’s a lot riding on Inception, and so far the reviews trickling in have been sensational. But there’s another angle here, and it’s this: I really want this summer to be saved, and the only one that can do it is Christopher Nolan.

Now, I’m aware of the “eggs in one basket” cliché, so I say that knowing full well that Inception could be a massive disappointment (given it’s pedigree, that’d be quite an achievement by itself, but I digress). I wished I hadn’t been pushed to such extremes. But I have to say that this summer movie season has been one of the most disappointing, by-the-numbers, straight-up uninspired summer film seasons I can remember in ages.

Either I have outgrown summer movies or they have outgrown me. It’s rare that I feel excitement for a big picture that arrives within the May-August corridor these days; most of them have gotten worse at hiding the fact that they are pure product pushed on hopeful moviegoers. The days of classic summer entertainments seem long-forgotten, and many truly talented directors, who could perfectly deliver a big-time summer entertainment seem cowed or broken by the new Hollywood system. Steven Spielberg proved two years with Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull that his heart was not in big action pictures anymore. George Lucas was once the hero of our childhood, but for over ten years now he’s been making films that break that trust. Ridley Scott used to make brainy, visually stunning fantasies, and now he makes dross like his who-cares reinterpretation of Robin Hood. That one was this year, and is absolutely symptomatic of the problem at hand: this year’s summer films have not been up to code.

Iron Man 2. Well, it wasn’t awful, but it was too busy, convoluted, contrived, and lacked the fizzy pop of the first. Prince of Persia was a big Jerry Bruckheimer production that seemed ready-made for franchise fame…except it actually wasn’t very good, and even audiences caught that very quickly. The Karate Kid apparently wasn’t too bad, except for the fact that it really wasn’t necessary in any way, shape, or form. Nor was The A-Team, which seemed built out of shallow nostalgia for a TV show that wasn’t very good to begin with. We had an unneeded pseudo-sequel to Forgetting Sarah Marshall in Get Him to the Greek. I’m (thank God) no expert on Sex and the City, but I do know its sequel greatly disappointed many of its hardcore fans, and it wasn’t made for anyone else. I would offer an opinion on Killers, but no one saw it, since anyone who was mildly curious probably realized they could save the fifteen bucks and just watch True Lies again on blu-ray. Shrek 4 was the best of the Shrek sequels, but it was also kind of depressing, like watching an exhausted runner take one last good sprint before collapsing into a heap. Eclipse? I’ll refrain from spewing what I truly feel about Twilight as a franchise. In short? Not a fan.

The one exception? Disney/Pixar’s Toy Story 3, which I need not tell anyone is a masterpiece. But, of course, it’s Pixar. They’re always good, and they only underline the problem that the techies at Pixar seem to be the few in America today who have their fingers accurately on the pulse of good storytelling.

And then it gets much worse. You have Jonah Hex and The Last Airbender, both of which seem to be trying to compete for the “worst film of the summer” title (which reminds me of when G.I. Joe and Transformers 2 fought for the same crown in 2009). Unlike Jonah, Airbender is making some cash, but both movies are identical in the amount of loathing they are generating within audience members. At best, you’ll find one person out of 100 who fall into the “it wasn’t…that bad…” line, which is always a warning bell. It’s not even August and we already have the bar set for how bad the summer is going to be. That’s never encouraging.

The future looks grim: DreamWorks Animation scored a big hit in the spring with How to Train Your Dragon, but Despicable Me looks like a return to form for them: lots of funny voice actors, nothing really funny going on. Salt has a premise I’ve only seen a few times before (as opposed to one I’ve seen 100) but it has action-Angelina and a lousy title. Dinner for Schmucks looks absolutely dreadful, The Other Guys is the kind of Will Ferrell vehicle that has outlived its usefulness, and I’m already tired of The Expendables’ gimmick: “let’s get every action star in the world in this movie.” And? Oh, and there’s a Step Up coming up. In 3d. Step Up 3D. Yes.

There are some bright spots: I actually think Jon Turtletaub’s The Sorcerer’s Apprentice looks mildly amusing, although a bit far from its source material (it is loosely based on the same-named sequence from Fantasia). Edgar Wright’s Scott Pilgrim vs. the World looks hilarious, as it should be, coming from the man who directed Hot Fuzz and Shaun of the Dead. Predators might be decent, even though it is, at heart, an unneeded remake of a classic 80’s action film. And Piranha 3-D is…oh, right.

So, for the most part, the pressure is on for Inception. Here’s what we know: it’s about dreams and dreamscapes, and it involves a spy (DiCaprio) who burrows into people’s dream state in order to find out their secrets and sell them to the highest bidder. And then things get…well, I don’t know. But since the trailer shows gunfights, explosions, and further proof that the DiCaprio character should get hazard pay for looking into people’s sub consciousness, I can only assume things don’t exactly go according to plan. It looks brainy and atmospheric; a big-budget sci-fi film with smarts. I can’t even recall the last time that happened. It has the odds stacked against it: will people “get” it? Will they be in the mood for it? How much capital does “the director of The Dark Knight” really hold anyway? A lot of questions. But I’ll say this. Just as I was writing this, an ad for Inception came on the television, and everything stopped for me, my head snapped up, and I watched it. It’s such a wonderful feeling to be actually excited about something.

I missed that feeling. Maybe I’ll get it more often next year. Till now, Inception will have to suffice. I think it will. I hope it will.

The "Lost" Finale (Because We're Just Not Sick Of Talking About It Just Yet)

Spoilers to follow.

Last night, ABC’s “Lost” closed its doors. For six years, “Lost” has delighted and frustrated viewers with its utilization of philosophy, psychology, and ever-dense mythology. There have been brain teasers and impenetrable mysteries,  murky motivations, metaphysical musings and usually more twists than several pretzel factories. It had a praiseworthy sense of ensemble-style character development, and compelling thematic underpinnings. Last night it took its final bow, wrapped up its characters and ultimately gave the last word on what “Lost” was all about.

So, what was “Lost” all about? For many, it was always about its heady (even labored) mysteries involving time-travel, ancient artifacts, modern technology, and in the end, the very essence of the elemental battle between good and evil. For them, I would imagine in no uncertain terms that last night’s series finale was a colossal disappointment: we got very few tangible answers to this season’s pressing “questions,” to say nothing of ones that have been backlogged in previous seasons. Last night, I’m sure there were a lot of people who wanted definitive statements about Jacob, The Man in Black, The Island, The statue, the mysterious light, the lighthouse, Jacob, Charles Widmore, the spirit of the island, and maybe more information on, say, Walt, the Dharma Initiative, the Others, etc. They never came. Yes, the finale was preciously low on spoon-fed, iron-clad irrefutable answers.

So what?

That may sound overly dismissive, and I don’t mean to belittle the efforts of viewers who became convinced over the six seasons of “Lost” that everything would tie together in a nice little ending complete with gift wrap and a fancy bow. I will say, however, that I see the lack of resolution in last night’s episode in regard to the “mysteries” of “Lost” to be quite a plus. I simply do not care too much about the questions left unanswered, because solved mysteries are inherently uninteresting. When they’re finally resolved, they become little more than finished crossword puzzles. At some point in the history of the show, I stopped caring too much about the vague riddles of “Lost,” because they were simply a way to get to the real meat-and-potatoes of any TV show: the character development and storytelling. It may seem a bit contradictory to champion a show’s sense of story while being content with scratching my head about elements of backstory. But backstory, however mysterious, is a vehicle to get to drama, and not the other way around.

To illustrate everything that the “Lost” finale got right, let’s look at a similar show’s closer, and think about everything it did wrong. When the final episode of “The X-Files” aired in 2002, the show’s producers resolved once and for all to settle the series’ convoluted mythology for its demanding (if dwindling) audience. And so the final installment, titled “The Truth” (to answer the series’ long-running tagline “the truth is out there”) was framed as a long-winded courtroom drama that explained, in excruciating detail, every little mysterious element that had plagued the series from the start. The result was a tedious exercise in showing your work: it was clear their intent was to prove how well the series’ mythology hung together when (a) it really didn’t and (b) it’s alright that it didn’t, but it’s not alright to waste viewers’ time with minutae. In an attempt to fill out its backstory, they had forgotten to tell A story. It was deeply unsatisfying, because it did not feel like an ending, but rather a bibliography directed by footnotes. By keeping its eye on the ball and focusing on character, “Lost” stepped right where “The X-Files” stumbled and died.

It is time we face something about serialized television. As a proponent of the medium, please understand that I mean the upmost respect when I state that quite plainly, it is always the result of improvisation. Plans change, people leave, ideas are re-drafted, things are refined. In the second season of “Lost” alone, several actors (who were undoubtedly going to play important parts of the mythology) had to be cut because they quit or were fired. It happens. Even the first season of the show, upon study, will probably be filled with elements that illustrate a lack of preparedness. And that’s okay. The job of any TV producer while working on a budding series is not to think out a backdrop to the smallest detail, or map out through character arcs, or a devise an inflexible five-year plan. Their job is to produce a compelling show that will get a second season. And then, after the longevity is secured, their job is to create something that finally hangs kinda together, while still providing room for spontaneity, character growth, and audience interest while running for six years, rather than moving lockstep in a rigid formula. Anyone who complains that “they made it up as they went,” is right. And that’s what they should have done anyway. That's the way TV works. Sorry.

In the end, the mythology of "Lost" does hang together, I think, although you have to accept a lot of things on faith, especially faith in the concept that ungiven information does not automatically equal “cop-out.” Of all the unanswered questions, I guess my biggest disappointment was truly the one that we kinda did get an answer for. “The light whirpool/cave: was that just a MacGuffin?” Yes, it was. Oh well. And I can live with that. It doesn’t matter, all that matters is the characters. If you disagree, then I’m sorry, but I feel “Lost’s” intentions to focus on character first were stated very fluently in the first season, where every episode featured character-centric flashbacks that showed what made them tick. Take it or leave it.

So, the characters. The great thing about television is its advantage over film, especially when it comes to long-form storytelling: when the writing is good, the characters, in some small way, become our friends. We care, and we want to know what happens. Few ensembles on the air right now are were as rich and well-drawn as “Lost,” so it’s probably only fitting that seeing where they all ended up was a draining experience. I had to wait and decompress before I decided what I truly thought. But the thinking is over, and I have to come down on the side of those that loved it. The running “flash-sideways” storyline was finally resolved, as every main character was reunited and became aware of the other timeline, and their own past histories. Much of the show's six-year thematic trajectory eventually boiled down to the battle between good and evil inside men’s souls; to see love redeem these characters in the next life once and for all was cathartic and moving.

Yes, the next life. As it turns out, the “flash-sideways” was not a parallel timeline, not an alternate universe, but a place outside of time, a place “made” by the Losties, once they had all died, to find each other again and move on together. [Important note: anyone who reports that, in the end, “they were dead the whole time” is w-r-o-n-g, plain and simple.]  This idea, a neat twist that I did not see coming, could very easily have fallen into maudlin nonsense, or worse, a final turn of the screw to upset the fans. But the final scene, showing Jack fully aware and finally reunited with his friends was exceptionally done. It was nonsense, yes, but very persuasively executed.

At this point, I can’t write a final Lost wrap-up without discussing one man who has truly been the heart and soul of the series for six years: Michael Giacchino. The Oscar-winning composer, scoring every episode, has weaved over the past half-decade a fantastic tapestry of theme and leitmotiv that rivals the works of Williams’ “Star Wars” and Howard Shore’s “Lord of the Rings.” Working in concert with the terrific acting (especially of Matthew Fox and Michael Emerson) and writing, it helped make the finale not just a TV event, but an EVENT. The final scene, which brought home so many musical themes from the history of the show in incredible fashion, was downright magical. As Giacchino's "Oceanic 6" music slowly snaked into his "death and rebirth" theme, I got severe chills. The man's a genius.

I did have my issues with the way last night went: it felt a little padded at times, a little uncertain, and I regret the fact that season 6 ended the way it began: still a little unclear on the motivations of certain key characters. The final confrontation between the Man in Black and Jack was somehow both epic and a little anti-climactic. The drama of Kate, Sawyer and Ben perhaps not being able to make the last lift-off of the Ajira Airlanes planed piloted by Lapidus felt like a non-starter. And to be perfectly honest, I could have done with a taste more of what happened to the survivors. Before they died, of course.

But, like the best finales, it had so many perfect small moments that I can pretty much forgive anything. When I think of the “Lost” finale, I’ll remember the smile on John Locke’s face (the real Locke), his life finally fulfilled, and his final act of forgiveness. I’ll think of the quiet sadness of Ben, sitting on that little bench outside the church, somewhere in a special Purgatory, knowing he cannot join anyone until he is ready for redemption. The joy of Hurley, the most good-hearted person on the island, being entrusted with the wellspring of all that was good in the world. The sadness as Jack said goodbye to his friends, and the elation as she met them again. Richard’s discovery of his first grey hair, knowing that he can finally die. The sweetness of Sawyer finding Juliet, of Sayid finally reconnecting with his beloved Shannon, or Eloise Hawking’s sorrow at her son moving on to the next life before her.  And, of course, the final conversation with Christian Shepherd, who throughout the series seemed to harbor dark secrets, and now finally reveals a bright one. All of these things will be downright polarizing to the viewership. But you know what? They worked for me.

At the end of all things, I want to say thank you. Thank you to ABC for green-lighting such a risky show, thank you to J.J. Abrams, Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse for creating it. Thank you to the viewers who gave it longevity, thank you to the tireless (and immensely talented) cast and crew that gave it life and purpose. It was bold and adventurous, and tried for big things. And I think it succeeded on its own terms, rather brilliantly.

Thank you, guys. I loved getting “Lost” with you.

See you in the next life, brotha.

Community Finally Gets the Crown - Best Comedy on TV.

It’s been building up to this all year.

For the past eight months, two shows have shouldered their way past the rest of the network TV comedies, in a fight to the death for top comedy. Those two shows have shown constant innovation, rapid-fire comedic sensibilities, and, above all, a firmly consistent style. These programs are ABC’s Modern Family, and NBC’s Community. This is the first season for both of these shows. I’ve watched every single episode since they have premiered, and I have yet to see a bad installment from either. And then last night’s Community happened. It wasn’t just a great episode, and it wasn’t just the best episode of the season. It was, without question, a virtuoso piece of comedy television—the strongest that I have seen in several years, perhaps since the days of Fox’s Arrested Development.

We should have known this was coming. Over the past season, Community has utterly hit its stride, creating a lovable ensemble, and week after week finding the right balance of heart, character, quips, and pop culture references. Loads and loads of pop culture references. I would have thought that the Goodfellas-inspired story they did a few weeks back would have been the pinnacle of how far they can take their game of parodying film and TV shows, but I was wrong. What’s nice about Community, however, is that this isn’t Family Guy. It’s not a barrage of bizarre callbacks to random things that don’t produce a plot—it’s always organic to the matters at hand (granted, it helps to have one character who never quits relating his life to TV and movies in cases like this). Most shows use shout-outs out of laziness, Community always does it to further a story that is about our lead characters. That’s more fun, and more rewarding.

The series also takes delight in pairing up members of the ensemble in different ways: Britta/Jeff, Pierce/Troy, Annie/Jeff, Shirley/Britta, Abed/Troy, Annie/Shirley, Britta/Pierce, etc. Approaching the end of the first season, I think it’s safe to say we’ve learned about the relationship that every member of the cast has with every other. It’s so nice to see a show that is always experimenting.

So. Last night. It all began innocently enough. There was petty bickering between series regulars Jeff (Joel McHale) and Britta (Gillian Jacobs). Banter amongst the rest of the cast, including media-savvy Abed (Danny Pudi), who delivered this gem: “To be blunt, Jeff and Britta are no Ross and Rachel. Your chemistry and sexual tension are putting us all on edge, which is ironically, and hear this on every level, keeping us from being friends.” Explanation of the school’s upcoming paintball competition, top prize TBD (Troy: “I want TBD!”). Objecting to the gang’s constant needling of his and Brita’s Unresolved Sexual Tension, Jeff goes to his car to a take a quick nap.

One hour later. Jeff wakes up to a deserted campus, papers and paint strewn everywhere. Far-off cries fill their air. Even the sky is foreboding. Before long he finds survivors, and soon begins a hilarious send-up of action movie and horror tropes, with specific references to: 28 Days Later, Mad Max, Die Hard, Predator, The Matrix, Rambo: First Blood II, Battle Royale, Scarface, The Warriors, Terminator (1 & 2), John Woo’s The Killer, and plenty more. Over the course of 20 minutes and change, the show mercilessly satirized dialogue clichés (“Come with me if you don't want paint on your clothes!”), action set-ups (the bullet-time firing of two paintball guns, or Jeff’s escape from the exploding library), suspense sequences (Abed’s shocking discovery in the men’s room), horror movie locales (the school that has now become a dilapidated battleground), and general genre conventions (like the black kid who dies first). It was exhausting, and exhilarating; the kind of comedy where you laugh once at the jokes and then again at the zeal with which it was paced. The direction, by filmmaker Justin Lin (Fast & Furious, Better Luck Tomorrow) was so nimble and expansive that I defy anyone to show me a more ambitiously filmed piece of TV comedy this year. The scoring was spot-on, the stunt work was first-rate, and they managed to sneak in some wicked potshots at a certain Fox show in the process: when the school deteriorates into tribes, the glee club taunts the study group with “Hit Me With Your Best Shot.” Sweet little Annie (Allison Brie) makes herself a target simply so she can shout at them how uninspired their selections are.

And yet what made it a great episode was not just that it was chock-a-block full of pop culture. It might sound on the surface like a piece of intentional irrelevancy, but it actually brought to a head conflicts and themes that have been boiling throughout the entire season. To see the school, and then the group itself, turn on each other over the grand prize (Priority Registration for next semester) brought into focus what much of Community season 1 has been about: the struggle between selfishness and the responsibility of being part of something larger. Several episodes have had characters teetering on the brink of throwing their friendships away in order to achieve something for themselves, and it was clever to see that idea brought to its most literal level yet.

And then there is Jeff and Britta. Their unresolved sexual tension has provided the backbone for much of this season’s narrative, as is writ in sitcom law. Last night was…well, let’s say it was a pivotal moment in their relationship. But it was more than that. It was an opportunity for two characters to come clean about themselves to each other, to provide a release for characterizations that have been building all season. The character of Britta Perry is not exactly my favorite on Community, and I used to just plain dislike her: her attempts at do-goodery (and rejection of Jeff’s selfishness) felt a lot less sweet when informed by her own shallow desire to be seen as such a nice person. I got the feeling she was being written inconsistently, accidentally exposing her hypocrisy. Only later did I start to theorize that this was intentional, and last night made that explicit. The third act of last night’s episode had only her and Jeff still standing (sort of), and their competition for who would get the prize, and what would be done (give it to the more-deserving Shirley or keep it?) brought each character into sharp relief. It’s rare to see a sitcom wiring in such characterization so subtly: to have fun with a person’s inconsistencies and yet make the character cohere.

There are still two more episodes to go in Community’s freshman season, but I think I can safely that last night’s installment will be considered the best episode of the season. I expect a season finale that ties up some loose ends, creates some more, and more importantly, has several mentions from Abed about the nature of season finales, and how it’s expected they tie up loose ends and create some more.  Of course, the joke about Abed is the fact that he is self-aware, because he knows he’s a character on a TV show. But, also, he isn’t, because he is a real person that only relates to everything like it’s a TV show, and his friends want him to open up. Study that balance, and the character who provides it, and you have a key to the multiple levels that Community operates on as a comedy. Every single week.

Happy Town - A (Late) Review

There will be some who suggest that ABC’s new series, “Happy Town,” which premiered this past Wednesday, is derivative of David Lynch’s flawed but still mesmerizing 1990 TV series “Twin Peaks,” in that both are about murder investigations in small towns with deep, scary secrets. They are right, but this didn’t bother me. Others might state that it owes more than a little to the works of novelist Stephen King, who specializes in horror elements bubbling beneath chilly, cornpone streets that ostensibly have sweet values. Again, this did not bother me. There’s also, of course, perhaps a touch of “The X-Files” in the show’s smooth mix of police procedurals and supernatural shenanigans. At the risk of sounding like a broken record, I was fine with all of this. Despite that, I still had problems with “Happy Town.” It has a lot of elements going for it (mainly a strong cast and superlative production values), but it was more than a little creaky in its plot and character introductions.

That’s maybe to be expected, in that “Happy Town” plays like a two-hour opening squeezed into 46 minutes: it feels like we meet a quarter of the entire town population (complete with hints of back story and portentous signs of trouble) by the time the episode is over. It’s kind of oppressive. Instead of brimming with tension, it felt more like a speed-read of a mystery novel, with important bits of exposition delivered in clunky, attention-calling ways, and subtlety all but removed for time. Early on, a father tells his daughter (verbatim): “Here we are, in the middle of the heartland. Daddy’s the son of a sheriff in a town with no crime, mommy has an important job at the bread factory, and daughter Emma is the brightest bulb in her first grade class.” And then he keeps going on some more about what a great life they have. I appreciate the fact that this a series about uncertainty, where the road will soon get very slippery in terms of what to believe, and so it is important to get ourselves oriented quickly. But surely there must be a way to do so while still living in the world of what human beings actually say to one another. One character even chuckles at another’s use of a paraphrased western cliché at one point, which is funny, but it seems rather unwise to call attention to dialogue issues when the script is so chock-full of them.

The father Tommy Conroy (Geoff Stults), who is indeed the son of a sheriff, soon gets his world turned upside down when his father brings him onto a murder investigation: a dead body found in a fishing shack in the middle of a frozen lake (the pilot takes place during a winter chill season, which is an effective choice). There is definitely a stab throughout this first episode at the theme of small-town innocence butting up with the harsh realities of the world, but it feels clumsily handled. In one scene, Tommy and his partner visit the widow of the murder victim, but this sequence that should be about a peaceful community’s resolve being shattered by unexpected murder feels curiously like it is trying for uneasy laughs as well. There’s a touching scene at the Conroy dinner table where Tommy tries to protect his daughter from discussion of these unspeakable horrors, and it is indeed a sympathetic moment. But when he has a gentle, extended argument with his wife Rachel (Amy Acker) about it, the whole scene begins to hammer the point way too hard.

There’s more, of course: including a smidgen of supernatural flavor to the goings-on in Haplin, and they are mildly intriguing. The murders may be linked to an abductor (and serial killer, perhaps) who preyed on the town years ago: the town memorializes their past with the presence of question marks, including one right on…well, you’ll see. This was the mark of “The Magic Man,” because he could make his victims completely disappear. Tommy’s father, Sheriff Conroy (M.C. Gainey) begins to babble incoherently about spooky goings-on. And then there’s the mysterious Merritt Grieves (Sam Neill), who runs a movie memorabilia shop and speaks ominously (in that Sam Neill-ish way) about human nature and movies and other things before finally getting around to talking about things going on with the plot—it’s all rather frustratingly coy. He lives upstairs in an eerie old boarding house and makes uneasy friends with the new girl right before the inhumanly cheerful landlady tells her to stay away from the third floor, or else. Maybe there’s a magic wardrobe up there. Who knows?

Oh, right, I forgot about the new girl. Well her name is Henley, played affably by Lauren German. She’s our eyes and ears as we get to experience this town, as she comes to it fresh-faced and bushy-tailed, trying to open a candle shop, with little more than a wick and a dream. As dark as this show is getting, it is charmingly optimistic in its faith in the current economy, suggesting that people will have no problem moving to small towns and setting up candle and movie collectible stores. Ah, the good old American Dream.

Anyway, Henley is completely unconnected to the strange occurrences that seem to pepper this place, except... Well, would I be spoiling anything major if I told you that Henley may not be what she appears to be? And that thing that she appears to be instead still might not even be what it appears to be? Future episodes, of course, will probably reveal that other things she appears to be won’t be true, either. It feels rather arbitrary, as if the show is delighting in proving to you that you can’t rely on anything or anyone. Everyone could be guilty! Or innocent! It’s oh so mysterious. Does anyone really know, including the producers? There’s a difference between creepy ambiguity and flagrant indecision, and I hope that problem is quickly figured out. Still other characters, such as the high school couple with parents that despise one another, or the white-trash losers, or the deputy who seems to be channeling Barney Fife, or the shifty owner of the town’s bread factory, seem to be just offstage, crossing their arms, waiting for their cue to actually get involved.

I am going to stick with “Happy Town,” just to see where it goes. Hopefully this 8-episode miniseries will end with at least a modicum of closure—given its ratings, a second season seems doubtful. The bigger worry is, of course, whether or not the rest of the episodes will be even aired. All due respect to the victims of the Magic Man, but I know one force of nature even more adept at making things disappear, and that is TV executives facing very low ad revenues.