Ten Statements About....VERONICA MARS SEASON TWO, EPISODE TEN 'One Angry Veronica' (2005)

"Screw civic responsibility...who wants to solve a crime?"

“It's not always easy doing the right thing”.
“If that phrase isn't on the Mars-family crest it should be.”

1) This episode is evenly broken down into two plots, a jury duty plot for Veronica and a plot about the Kane/Echolls sex tape for Keith.  As such, many of the overarc plotlines are either forgone completely or given a slight bit of lip service.  It manages to remove that cluttered feeling some of the other Season Two episodes have.

2) This is the episode where Rob Thomas starts setting up the status quo for next season (although I imagine Thomas was uncertain about whether there was going to be third season, considering how they got this second season by the skin of their teeth).  And it’s funny how even here, with this brief exchange of dialogue about Hearst College, it doesn’t sound very appetizing.

3) One of the things I really appreciate about this episode is the jaundiced view of the legal system.  Veronica triumphs in solving the done in one case not because of her clever detective work persuading her fellow jurors, but because the hold out gives up due to his desire to return to his own life, and boasts of how the perpetrators will appeal and get off immediately.  And the jurors--even the one who spurs Veronica’s investigation on--are acting not out of civic responsibility but purely selfish reasons.

A man who can cry...

4) Sure, I may not care for Jason Dohring’s limited acting range, but there’s a scene between Logan and Keith that shows us Dohring is capable of greater things.  It’s full of emotion and subtlety.  And let’s be honest, the sight of Logan crying as he views the Kane/Echolls sex tape is moving.

5) I am impressed at how the nature of the trail allows writer Russell Smith to remind us that the racial and class tension in Neptune is very high.  Hell, one of the brief moments not only reminds us of those tensions, but also very quietly reminds us of the schism that’s growing between Weevil and the other PCH’ers.

6) Wait a minute...is that...it is!  Veronica is actually working at Java The Hut (the outside of which we actually see for a change).  It’s the first time ever since Keith asked her to come back to work in the office part time that we’ve been reminded that she had to continue working there.

7) Max Greenfield’s Leo reappears for reasons that becomes obvious, but at least let’s give Smith the credit for making his motivations nuanced enough that the character isn’t irreparably damaged.

Would that this was my Christmas Present...

8) You know, like  “An Ecchols Family Christmas" , this is the Christmas episode for the season.  Unlike “An Ecchols Family Christmas,” the Christmas angle seems really incidental.  I think the only references we have to this being Christmas in Neptune are the allusions to Veronica being on the winter break and the Mars family celebration where Keith gives her a lead on the case she’s serving as juror to..

9) Of course, you could count the return of Percy Daggs’ Wallace in the episode’s last scene as Veronica's Christmas Miracle.  Being without Wallace for a few episodes really emphasizes how much Veronica needs Wallace to play a combination of Watson and Willie Garvin for her.  Plus, no Wallace means there’s no reason for Tessa Thompson’s annoying Jackie to be around.

10) One of the things that might not be noticed right away is that the trail is resolved, but the mystery itself isn’t; we don’t find out if the version of the events is the one Veronica pieces together or not.  This lack of resolution is a foreshadowing of a future episode which will ultimately bite Veronica on the ass in the third season.

Overall...an interesting episode more than a satisfying one that sets up what will be the structure in Season Three, and that handles the multiple subplots very well.

Ten Statements About DOCTOR WHO CHRISTMAS SPECIAL 2011: THE DOCTOR, THE WIDOW AND THE WARDROBE (2011)

"It's a glowing, pulsating package...what's to be afraid of in
a glowing, pulsating package?"

"Are you the new caretaker?"

"Usually called The Doctor, or The Caretaker, or Get Off This Planet...though, strictly speaking, that probably isn't a name."

1) Wow....no mincing around with this special, is there? Let's just chase Matt Smith around a disintegrating starship then toss him off it, why don't we?

2) Right off the top, I appreciate that Moffat has chosen to make this special a showcase for Smith's talent for physical comedy. Whether stumbling about in a spacesuit with its helmet on backwards or bounding around the superhouse he's created for the Family Arwell, Smith excells--and looks like he's having a ball doing every single stunt.

3) As opposed to Russell T. Davies, who just created episodes writ large that just happened to have a Christmas Tree in the background, Moffat seems to be using the Christmas Specials to both illuminate other aspects of this Doctor's personality by giving him problems he can't just speechify away and explore actual perceptions about the holiday season. Setting this at a very particular time in England's history gives him the chance to deal with the darker side of the Christmas Season (It does play host to the highest suicide rate of the year, after all) which gives some of the broader comedy bits a bittersweet patina.

I also respect that giving the Doctor de facto new companions who wouldn't work on a weekly basis like Madge Arwell allows us to see a different Doctor than we do in the regular series.

4) At the center of this episode is Claire Skinner's performance as Madge, and she is able to add a great deal of nuance and subtley to a character that could've been all string-pull-y and manipulative of the audiences' emotions. There's a definite sense of a before-and-after life for her and her children with helps build the veracity of the story.

Yep...it seems Britian can't forget A Christmas Story either...

5) Okay, Stephen Moffat, be honest--you cast Maurice Cole because he looks so damn much like that kid from A Christmas Story, right? Right?

6) I don't know why, but I love the interplay between our three soldiers. Bill Bailey, Arabella Weir and Paul Bazely have wonderful comic timing--and you understand what each of these characters is about just from their initial exchange.

7) I love how the Moffat Christmas Specials show the Doctor affecting positive change both personal and universal--Hell, here we get him helping Madge save an entire race while also getting her to cope with the death of her husband....

8) ...or so we think. And the genius of Moffat is that we suspect that's where we going very, very early on (pretty much from the first moment that the Arwell father's death is mentioned)--but when it happens, it happens in a thoroughly logical way...and it's not The Doctor's hand, but Madge's that creates this Christmas miracle.

Put all your Doctor/Woodie jokes in here...

9) Claire Skinner scolding the Doctor into going and visiting Rory and Amy? Brilliant. Utterly brilliant.

10) Is it just me, or has Karen Gillen gained a bit of weight? If so....damn, it looks good on her, and we all know what I thought of her before...

Overall...I have to agree with the common feeling that this is a lesser entry than last year, but I'll still take this over any of Davies' specials

Ten Statements About....VERONICA MARS SEASON ONE, EPISODE TEN 'An Ecchols Family Christmas' (2004)

This may be a Christmas episode--but it's not one fulla cheer....

"Annoy, tiny blonde one. Annoy like the wind."

1) How can you not love an episode (and I love this episode--it's one of my all-time favorites, and arguably my favorite of the first season) that begins with a riff on my favorite number from my favorite Christmas Special, The Year Without A Santa Claus? Keith Mars loves the Miser Brothers, thus he is empirically proven to be a good guy.

2) Diane Ruggerio's script cleverly gives Veronica multiple incentives to take on this week's case-within-the-episode..and also gives her reason to interact with many of the supporting cast to a degree she hasn't before. This is a good thing because....

3) Francis Capra, Teddy Dunn and Jason Dohring are waaaay at the top of their game. They've got the rhythm of the show down dead, and engage in these great back-and-forths full of wonderful lines. Hell, the line I use as the header, which is Dohring's, ranks as one of my favorite lines in the series ever.

There's a good reason these 09'ers ultimately opted out of
rushing for Weevil's budding fraternity....

4) This is prolly the most we see of Lisa Rinna as Lynn Ecchols...and she's actually extremely good. I like how, even before she kinda, sorta apologizes to Keith for not staying in touch, you get the sense that this woman, of all the '09'er parents, is the one person who didn't resent him for doing what he did, who genuinely liked him and still does. Pity she's not much longer for this series.

5) Compare Lynn's interaction with Keith to the way Harry Hamlin's Aaron deals with him...yes, on the surface Aaron is just as warm and friendly as his wife...and yet, there's a sense of panic to the way he guides him to the door, a strange undercurrent of discomfort in his voice. Ladies and gentlemen, you have encountered your first clue in the overarc...and I doubt any of you realize that it was presented to you.

6) Emmanuelle Vaugier is in this as one of the women who is suspected of being Aaron's stalker. As always, she's not that great an actress, but...Emmanuelle Vaugier.

Yes.  I think she's hot.  Deal.

7) Since Veronica's case is more of a standard drawing room mystery, I love how Ruggerio ends up revealing the solution in her version of an Agatha Christie last act, with our heroine bearding the (not very convincing) villain in the scene of the crime. And since the Ecchols Family Christmas Party is going on at the same time....

8) The scene toward the end where Veronica confronts Jake Kane is something else--just as much for Kyle Secor's acting as for Bell's. There's obvious confusion in the way both of these people are interacting, and the way they get even more frustrated in the mass of accusations is magnificent. It's to Secor's credit that when he practically screams 'I don't know,' you believe him...and it's to Bell's credit that when she retorts 'I don't believe you'...you suspect she might believe him a little as well. This, and the little exchange with Celeste that follows, is another indication that Jake Kane is far from a one-dimensional monster....

The beautiful thing about this scene is that things end up
bloody and unpleasant for all three of these people given time...

9) There is a sense of profane beauty to the way the Stalker storyline resolves...but a beauty that is intentionally artifical. And the fact that the stalker turns out to be literally a nobody, someone who walks on at the last minute to stab Aaron...well, let's say we've just been handed another clue we won't even know we had until the end of this season.

10) If there is one sour note, it is the overtly affected performance by Kevin Sheridan as Sean Friedrich. It's so arch, so mannered that it's hard not to think he's the villain in Veronica's subplot.

Overall...as I said, this is one of my favorite episode--not just because it is fun and exciting, not just because it shows most of the cast at the top of their game, but because during this forty-some-odd minutes we learn a lot about a lot of these characters in their behavior and interaction with each other....and in the course of these interaction, learn some things we don't realize we learn until the resolution of this season's mystery has shaken out.