"The Closer"

[BlueIris]

Did anyone watch this tonight? I liked it. I thought it deserved its own thread. My thoughts:

I liked it from a feminist's stand-point the most. Kyra Sedgwick's acting has been stronger, and I've seen better writing in the history of television, yet--her character was accomplished but not over-the-top-obsessively-don't-you-know-she's-a-FEMINIST accomplished, assertive but not unfair, distrusted by male subordinates and superiors but managed to earn their respect by (gasp!) doing her job and uh, was actually constructed to be believably and consistently skilled at said job, not just impressive in a number of contrived, high-stress situations. And I kind of hate myself for noticing this, but in terms of her appearance, her character was never dressed exploitively, wasn't naked in the episode, only mentioned being insecure about her appearance once (to her mother), wasn't anorexically thin and was actually, get this, eating throughout the entire pilot episode. It's been awhile since I've seen a female character eat that much in a single hour of a primetime series. The male characters were interesting, too. The self-esteem-challenged, role playing, near-personalityless assistant was played, surprisingly and surprisingly well, by a male actor. And Kyra's character subtly called him on his sycophant-like demeanor and told him to deal with that not by "toughening up," (as I would have expected on a series pandering to gender stereotypes) but by being himself. Interesting. So was the fact that two of the three male law-enforcement officer characters were acknowledged to have had failed marriages (haven't seen details like that, which emphasize the social and professional imperfections of the men in the plot, in a mainstream cop series in ages) although Kyra's character's divorce was also addressed. Finally, I've seen less intriguing mysteries lately. I was really shocked at how not horrible the opener to this show was. I thought anything advertised that aggressively would fail to live up to the hype. Anyway, it reruns in ninety minutes out West on TNT so maybe some of you can still catch it.

[geniph]

1. Haven't seen it, but I'm a big fan of Sedgwick

always liked her. She's very no-nonsense, and one of the very few Hollywood types married to another actor who doesn't look like a swizzle stick. She actually looks like a grown woman, and a very bright one at that.

[Eloriel]

2. Will it be on next week too?

If so, perhaps you could remind us? I think I probably missed it for tonight. Thanks for the review.

[BlueIris]

3. Should be Mondays at 9 p.m. from now on.

And yes, I will remind you.

[BlueIris]

4. And so: REMINDER. MONDAYS AT NINE P.M.

Hopefully, this next episode won't suck.