Saturday, August 23, 2014

Terrible TV: Black Box, episode 8

I keep trying to do something different with this series: take my mood stabilizer and wait for it to kick in before I start watching. The hope is that the stupid will hurt less. The downside is that I lose the edge hypomania grants me, which Dr. Black has already taught us is the most important of all things. In a practical sense, it also means I make it ten minutes and then I fall asleep. So, here comes my third fourth attempt at episode 8, fueled by nothing but caffeine and nicotine.

So, did Catherine sleep with Bickman? Looks like we won't find out until after we meet the patient. Danny is a young-ish man who lives with his mom, right up until he shoots and kills her with a shotgun. Huh. Well, I have been asking for gun violence. I just wish it had involved our central characters. Then he sits down and journals about not being in control of his emotions. Catherine wakes up alone, remembering the previous night with Bickman. Hooray, more bad decisions blamed on mental illness! Then again... is this a bad decision? Will has no personality and nowhere near Bickman's frequently-mentioned-but-never-seen intellect. In addition, Will and Catherine's relationship isn't even dysfunctional. It's non-functional. Irreversible coma, breathing machine, please do everyone a favor and pull the plug already. So really, the worst part about this transgression is that it wasn't with Ali Wong. Or Bossman. I bet Bossman's oh-face is historically great.

Back at the apartment, Catherine lies to Will some more and Will tells the truth. With Will's total lack of affect and Catherine's overacting, this averages out to a well-executed scene. Leo comes back to work, but his hypermemory isn't back. The first patient we see at The Cube is Gordon, who his fiancé Stacy introduces as "The nicest man on the planet. That's why this is so crazy. I mean, he's a vegetarian, and gluten-free, for God's sake... The man laminates his library card."

What the hell is with these people talking about gluten? Gordon robbed the bank he worked at. I would guess he's not the first non-gluten eater to do so, seeing as how the two have nothing to do with each other. He has no control or awareness of what his left hand is doing. Catherine goes to Bickman to "clear the air", but really that just means "be passive-aggressive even though I actually like you". Once again, bitchiness and bipolar are not the same thing. Both exist, both are problems, but they don't have a causal relationship.

"I don't know what's going on here." -Catherine
"Me neither. Isn't that nice?" -Bickman

No sir it is not. It's permanent nails-on-a-chalkboard because the people writing your words and actions are horrible at their job. There is nothing nice about that.

Here's why Danny isn't at The Cube yet: he's decided to try to get a walk-in with Hostage Redgrave. He found out about her from reading a magazine article of the "Ten Best Psychiatrists". Ugh. OK, first off, superlative achievement unlocked. Good job, Hostage Redgrave. Second off, while psychiatrists can in fact do therapy, they are MDs and are focused on diagnosis and medical treatment. The right person for Danny to see, but unless Hostage Redgrave is a master of both psychiatry and psychology (and since she's a character on Black Box, it's a foregone conclusion that she's both of those things and also a princess and an astronaut and a dragon ALL AT THE SAME TIME RAWR), Catherine would most likely see a psychologist for her navel-gazing sessions. You know, because the World's Finest Neurologist would have to have the World's Finest Therapy. This is all hilarious, because she tells Danny that she's not the kind of doctor he needs to see. I just facepalmed myself and my hand went through the back of my skull. He refuses to take no for an answer, and it looks like shit is about to get thick.

Catherine and Josh meet up to talk- sister drama is always more important than working for those blue-collar types- and she says she has to break up with Will. Um, yeah. Way ahead of you there, Dr. Black. This upsets Josh, and he says Will's good for her. Josh figures out that she's cheating on him, and Catherine lies some more.

"People spend years in therapy trying to figure out what they want. No one can tell you. The answer is in your actions." -Josh

Damn, Josh. Why are you smarter than all the characters who went to school 12 years longer than you did? Also, why don't you treat everyone around you like shit? You're an anomaly in the Black Boxiverse, and while I like you, I don't like that. I'd be much more comfortable if you cooked meth and beat your family in your spare time instead of displaying a reasonable temperament and admirable morality.

Delilah comes back to the restaurant to apologize to Will. Will reads his lines directly off the script in a flat monotone. He accuses Delilah of trying to manipulate him. No dude, she really just wants your dick. There's no guile or deception here. The purpose of the Delilah character is to want into Will's pants. That's it. She says she and Will both have the same problem: they both love someone who won't love them back.

Let's go back to The Cube, where stuff makes just as much nonsense. Leo is surprised and hurt that Bickman can't write him a letter of recommendation, despite the fact that he and Allie had a conversation no more than a month ago where they acknowledged that missing even a day- let alone multiple weeks to recover from brain surgery- means you fail at your rotation.

Hostage Redgrave's facial expression finally makes sense, as she Googles Danny and finds out what he's done. She tries to call him an ambulance and he smashes the phone, right before having a psychotic break and running away.

Catherine prescribes Botox to Gordon to block the nerve impulses to his rogue limb.

"I'm a firm believer in self-control..." -Catherine.

Yup. Redgrave calls to tell her a crazed gunman might be headed for The Cube, and all I can say is it's about time. Danny slips by security, stakes out a spot on the roof, and busts out the sniper rifle. Aww, yeah. It's real-life GTA time. He almost kills himself, but the voices in his head change their mind and he gets ready to open fire on the lunch truck. Leo and Allie are in his sights, but since he can't hear their self-absorbed ramblings, he lets them live. As soon as the shots ring out, we find out Bickman is still at the food truck. He's shot in the neck but the bullet missed all major systems. So close. Danny starts seizing when the cops show up on the roof. Catherine, in a panic, tries to backseat drive Bickman's surgery. When he's out, she shows up offering to change his bandages. What? She wakes him up and he's all about getting back into surgery. Can you see where this is going? As if on cue, we find out Danny has a brain tumor that's causing all this nonsense.

"He doesn't look like a killer." -Ali Wong
"What does a killer look like?" -Catherine
"Good point." -Ali Wong

While Danny is being taken to surgery, a doctor says that it won't be a tragedy if he dies, because of this thing called free will. Catherine puts on her strident face and burns that strawman down. I think she just leveled up in the skill of Vociferously Defending the Obvious. And surprise, guess who's operating on Danny. It's Bickman! Oh snap! Doctor operates on the guy who shot him! Such noble. Many honor. Since everyone else is busy, Leo gets to assist and be scrub nurse. Bickman gets the tumor but nicks a blood vessel, then bows out due to pain, so Leo fixes it. Yay! A surgery winner is you.

Will calls Catherine and they have another conversation that makes you wonder what exactly makes them a couple. While toying with a pen at Catherine's place, he realizes it's from the Hotel Mirabella- the very hotel where Bickman lives. Dun dun dunnnn. Leo finds out Ali Wong lives in The Cube and is agoraphobic, and she threatens him with his radiology rotation to keep her secret. When Catherine goes to see Danny, Bickman's already there. Danny's memory is gone, so he's going to prison and doesn't know why.

"Life's fragile, huh?" -Catherine
"Yeah, believe me. I got the message." -Bickman

Between the bomb scare and the shooter, the show's pretty much out of ratings grab hospital show tropes with five episodes to go. How will they limp to the finish line? You can watch it for yourself (bad idea) or you can check in here for Episode 9 (good idea!).

Thursday, August 21, 2014

Got All Them Buckets Coming Outta My Ears

Before we get back to defiling the grave of Black Box, I have something good to throw out into the aether. This is the sort of thing most people would retweet or like on Facebook, but this is my only internet presence so it's going here. As anyone who read my posts from 2012 probably could surmise, I lost my sister to ALS in early 2013. ALS sucks and I am completely in favor of discontinuing its existence. I'm not sure how pouring cold water over ourselves gets that done, exactly, but awareness is a good thing. I'd like to thank my friend Ted for jumping on this bandwagon. It gives me some evidence that not all viral phenomena exist to make us dumber and worse people. Good work and thanks, Ted.

(Unfortunately, Blogger's YouTube button apparently refuses to allow me to find and add any videos that don't involve famous people, or aren't about UFOs. So go here and watch it.)

Tuesday, August 12, 2014

Terrible TV: Black Box, Episode 7

It's been an amazing week of Magic: the Gathering for The Everlasting Dave. Orzhov midrange took me to a 4th place and 2nd place finish at two Game Day tournaments this Saturday, and on Sunday I took it all the way to the title. Ugly-as-sin playmat that I will still use because it says "Champion", ten packs, a foil promo I cashed in for five more packs, and the Nissa Pop Magic figurine I was destined to own. This is all to say I haven't given up on Terrible Television, just that sometimes there are more important things. Like card games. Card games I'm at least kind of good at. But we're back tonight to push past the halfway point of Black Box, just days after its cancellation was announced by ABC. Who's excited? I'm excited.

Episode 7 kicks off with models in sparkly, shimmery, hyper-glam, brightly colored makeup- another modest highlight in a show that desperately needs one. The makeup artist, Frankie, collapses and is our patient this time. Esme and Reagan are at Catherine's place while Josh is at the Knicks game. Catherine mentions she could have gotten him floor seats, cause you know, Mary Sues can do absogoddamnlutely anything their writers want them to do. Little known trivia about Catherine Black: she can breathe underwater, once crab-walked a marathon in under 4 hours, farts a cancer-curing substance that smells like ambrosia, and only dates men who ride white horses and whose armor is stained with the blood of the wicked. All true. Reagan is inexplicably nice all of a sudden, helping to plan Will and Catherine's wedding. Will previews his dance moves again and casually mentions he's about to introduce Catherine to his family. Catherine takes the opportunity to insist repeatedly on Hunter not being invited to the wedding, in the face of passionate opposition from nobody.

Everybody at The Cube is watching the news about refugees in Syria, and Bossman helpfully mentions "The administration does not need another Benghazi." See, doctors are just like us- total fucking morons. Then the models show up with Frankie, and every man in The Cube turns into a babbling waste of oxygen. Oh, wait. The presence of models changed nothing. Catherine examines Frankie, who's suffered a stroke and has had personality changes.

"The color has gone out of my life." -Frankie

OK, spoilee time, because I remember this episode. Frankie's stroke caused colorblindness. Let's get through the final 37 minutes and try to forget the clumsiest foreshadowing in history. Will uses big words to explain to his sous chef that he (Will) has a hyper-developed sense of smell. Again, everyone in the Black Boxiverse has to be the most something of everything. I don't know the people who created and wrote this show but I am absolutely convinced they all have borderline personality disorder. All this mostest and best-ever stuff was tiresome halfway through the first episode, but they keep cramming superlatives into every crevice- and the show is like 90% crevice. Delilah shows up just to be the object of Will's cold rejection.

"Back off please? Your perfume's getting all up in my olfactory holes." -Will

Bickman and Bossman both show up in the imaging lab to awkwardly ask the smug, judgey lady docs if there's any information they can relay to Frankie's model friends. The boys stammer and stutter while deciding who gets to tell the models, and Catherine smirks that they can each deliver a piece of information. Best. Doctor. Ever. In the very next scene, Catherine takes one of Bickman's moves while he and Bossman are playing chess. OK, so maybe the misogyny of the last episode has faded, but its opposite is no less damaging if a goal of our life experience is to become enlightened and good human beings. This show's take on gender dynamics would resonate best with unsupervised third graders at recess. Yes, I'm overthinking it, and yes, that is still the only way this is enjoyable for me.

Anyway, a photographer from the Syria story caught a piece of shrapnel and Bickman is the only neurosurgeon in the whole wide world allowed to operate on her. Of course he is. In the excitement, Bossman tells Catherine that Frankie can't be fixed and she needs to let it go. Uh oh. Did he... Did he just tell The Marco Polo Of The Brain that something can't be done? Damn, Bossman. Your sweater-vests, bow ties, and round glasses belie your livin'-on-the-edge style. Hostage Redgrave makes an appearance just so Catherine can re-establish that she never gives up. The scene ends with Hostage Redgrave shaking her head with an impressed, bordering on awed, smile on her face. Redgrave calls back immediately after the session with a brilliant, groundbreaking way to fix Frankie. Ali Wong has a "synesthesia machine" lying around that translates sound into color, and she reverse engineers it so Frankie can hear color. Because that's a thing that happens. Frankie is not enthused but takes the equipment home with him anyway.

Here's where the people making this show abandon all hope of being original, thought provoking, and in any way significant in the never-ending battle against ignorance that us mentally ill folk try to fight every day. Turns out the photographer has a live round of ammunition lodged in her skull and Catherine is the only one who sees it on the scan. This is a very compelling storyline, and I know because Grey's Anatomy did it eight years ago. Black Box plagiarizes everything about it, right down to the self-destructive female protagonist who refuses to leave the OR at grave risk to herself. The difference is, in Black Box, the extremely sensitive live ordinance has already survived flights from Syria to Germany to New York without giving the photographer a real-life case of the head explodies. Planes don't jostle, right? Also, in Black Box, Bickman gets the shell out and nobody dies. Because Magical Christmas Land.

What better way to celebrate an unrealistic surgery than meeting your fiancée's super-traditional and stereotypical parents? Mama Will collects snow-globes and Stepdaddy Will kind of reminds me of Tio Salamanca from Breaking Bad. In rapid-fire-nails-on-a-chalkboard style, we find out that Mama Will is under the impression that after the wedding, Catherine will give up that silly world's greatest neurologist thing, squirt out a few puppies, and be Will's housewife. I'm not sure if this is more offensive to women or black people. All I know is I'm offended and that takes a lot. Catherine takes a call from Bickman, and Will gets a sext from Delilah. All the while, Mama Will grills Catherine about how devoted she really is to Will and his happiness. Catherine retreats to the living room, watches Leave it to Beaver with Stepdaddy Will, and hallucinates herself as June Cleaver. It's just surreal enough to be sexy when she starts repeating "My husband is quite a catch. He is the sun, and the moon, and the stars." over and over, with increasing levels of distress, until she finally chugs a bottle of vanilla extract. But then again, the things I find sexy are varied and inexplicable. I think this is supposed to be a scary descent-into-madness scene. On the ride home, more lessons on how not to be a couple by the experts:

"Don't forget, you're dropping me off at The Cube." -C
"(Passive aggressive yep)... You had a horrible time tonight." -W
"I didn't."
"You were distracted and disinterested. You must've walked off five times to take phone calls and texts."
"I'm not the only one who took texts during dinner."

Catherine goes back to work, and Will goes back to the restaurant, where he finds Delilah sitting on the bar wearing lingerie. OK, maybe not all the things I find sexy are inexplicable. That shoots up to #1 on the list of greatest Black Box moments. Will's inability to act is on full display as he shuts her down yet again. Frankie sends Catherine a goofy video showing he's using and enjoying the synesthesia machine, because some viewers may have forgotten that Catherine is always right. She goes to the roof to find Bickman.

"(Will's family) is the most kind, lovely, adorable, close-knit family I never had." -Catherine

Haha. Nobody loves you or ever will, Catherine Black. Bickman reveals he lives in a hotel because the only thing he really cares about is being the most bestest brain surgeon there ever was, is, or will be. Catherine's turned on, and Bickman asks her to have a drink with him. It ends before she answers.

In retrospect, this episode was the best of the show's entire run. Sparkly makeup, black and red lingerie, and a hallucination based on "Leave it to Beaver" are the three things I'll remember about this series a year from now. I hope that was the producers' intent.

Sunday, August 3, 2014

Terrible TV: Black Box, Episode 6

The last time we saw the Marco Polo of the brain, she was shroomin' and chillin' with the Virgin Mary. Can we keep cranking up the stupid from there? You know we can. Let's rock.

We find out right away where Catherine gets her love of jazz: her father was "the great jazz pianist Hunter Black". So there's our daddy issues. Her patient this week is an Afghanistan vet who's missing the lower half of his left arm, and has phantom pains. Leo's been staying with his parents, who hate him unless he's using his awesome brain powers for awesome, while he recovers from brain surgery. And Will is meeting with a guy who I guess is the restaurant owner? Shrug. Anyway, the restaurant is not profitable. Don't worry, this doesn't go anywhere except the land of "Not how people really talk and act but some cokehead thought it looked good on the page":

Will: "I'm thinking of scaring up some more coin by opening up a Sunday brunch."
Owner: "Mimosas? Ka-Ching! I love it!" *fist bump*

Scaring. Up. Some more. Coin. Then the owner talks about how hot Delilah is, and Will says he wants to fire her. The owner says now that Will's slept with her, that can't happen. Why does the owner look and act like the Mayhem Like Me guy, yet isn't entertaining? Simply amazing.

Dr. Black's other patient, Beatrice, is going blind but has vivid hallucinations. Bickman stops the elevator when Catherine's in there with him, because even the emotionally distant supersurgeon just can't resist the sultry wiles of Dr. Catherine Black. She melts even the coldest hearts! Ugh. He gets all "No means yes" again, but Catherine rejects him. Next, Will and Catherine are at Josh's. Will's not just a chef, but also a master sommelier.

Esme: "Well, for the record, my glass of 2014 sparkling cider is epic."

Quite possibly my least favorite word in the English language, said by one of only a few Black Box characters I don't want to see get all the kinds of cancer. And one of those few already died of all kinds of cancer! Also, Esme does not pass for 15. Like, at all. If she did I would feel a lot dirtier than I do. Josh and Esme invite Will and Catherine to go see Hunter in concert, and once again we have the "bipolar as an excuse to be unnecessarily bitchy without really being manic or depressed" trope made famous by Jennifer Lawrence in "Silver Linings Playbook".

Catherine: "He left us the day of Mom's funeral. Have you got amnesia?" *storms off *

I don't think I can explain why, but this whole scene makes me laugh hard. It's the way she says "am-nee-zee-uh?", and pretty much overenunciates her entire side of the argument. It's the dialogue that kind of reminds me of Engrish with less insight. It's the way bipolar affects TV characters differently than it affects the rest of us. See, we'll have mood swings, and sometimes we'll act destructively or irrationally, but we do it in the context of an emotionally altered state. We don't just get bored and decide to be assholes, which to this point, defines Catherine as a character. Something I try to get across to everyone I discuss mental health issues with is that being mentally ill doesn't decrease your personal responsibility when it comes to being a good person. It increases it, because people are going to expect you to fail at it. In short, "don't be an asshole" is a good and ACHIEVABLE goal for the healthy and sick alike. Dr. Black has managed an awe-inspiring career and a long-term relationship with someone I think is supposed to be a catch, all without learning not to treat others like crap. It makes less than no sense. Anyway, Josh stalks down Catherine to apologize- you know, because asking someone if they'd like to go somewhere is just super offensive and a totally understandable reason to get pissed off. Catherine's ensuing screed on abandonment and not wanting to expose Esme to it is- all together now- BORDERLINE PERSONALITY DISORDER, not bipolar. Idealization and demonization. Intense, PTSD-esque reactions to any unexpected thing. This scene would even ring true for me, as a Borderline sufferer, if that was what the character was supposed to be . But she's not Borderline. She's just a bad person. Josh has to apologize to her for not holding a grudge, and for wanting to know his own father. Yeah. Catherine isn't just a self absorbed idiot, as the first few episodes led me to believe. She's a bona fide monster. Also, huge boyfriend points to Will as they deal with the fallout from this. You knew her well enough to propose, but you knew nothing about her ridiculously traumatic childhood OR her mental illness? Frankly, I'd expect better from a master sommelier who is also a head chef.

Bickman and Dr. Mahmoud sit in on a House-ish diagnosis session on the one-armed soldier. The psychiatrist pitches psychosomatic due to repressed memory of the incident and survivor's guilt- and Catherine snaps "That's absurd." Weird. Pretty much everything you've done so far, medical or otherwise, could be described with those same two words. But it's someone else's idea, and the show isn't called Mahmoud Box, so... Yeah. Allie goes to Catherine for reassurance that Leo's post-surgery memory deficits will get better, and she's super noncommittal. Bickman gives Leo a pop quiz during his checkup, and he fails. Leo storms out, distraught, and Catherine goes snarly den-mother all up in Bickman's business.

Catherine: "Emotions matter. And so does kindness, and decency, and compassion."

Great statement of truth. As with all of Catherine's wisdom, it comes out when it's at its most completely hypocritical.

Catherine: "If you fix his head and you break his heart, then you're a lousy man and you're a lousy doctor."

Actually, letting someone practice medicine when they're mentally disabled would make him a worse doctor. But whatever. Surgeons aren't the ones who are supposed to have bedside manner anyway. Beatrice hallucinates a dog in a suit and calls him dashing. Pretty sure that's the new highlight of the series. Usually I'm not cool with dogs in clothes, but you know what, that was one classy hallucinated puppy. I'll allow it. Hunter comes to The Cube and Catherine refuses to see him. She goes to tell Josh she's not still mad at him- again, he did nothing wrong and indeed he, Esme, and Hostage Redgrave remain the show's only decent human beings. As long as Esme doesn't say 'epic' again, that is.

Josh: "I should never have given Esme the idea that you'd go see Dad. That was wrong of me."

 Um, yeah, except adults set their own boundaries and it's ok for them to say no- to polite requests, to friendly invitations, even to demands. As if anyone would ever DREAM of demanding something from the Marco Polo of the brain! I mean, I guess it's possible that whoever makes this show is truly, deeply misogynistic and believes that if a man asks a woman if she wants to do something she always has to do it. And if Catherine is both a Mary Sue of infinite strength and wisdom but at the same time not possessed of her own free will, that would go a long way toward explaining these bullshit storylines. Yes, I know I'm way overthinking this, but I have to find some way to make this fun! Catherine has Josh make something to help the soldier's therapy and they talk some more about Hunter. According to Josh, Hunter wanted to take the kids with him on the road, and Josh and Catherine's aunt put her foot down and told him to leave. Catherine says Josh's memory isn't objective, when of course hers is. Later, she's having drinks with Will and still talking about daddy issues. You know, not everything needs validation from every possible source. Turns out Will's father, despite being an abusive drunk, always left a Thanksgiving turkey for his favorite bartender. I love how every single character complexity is described as occurring off-camera. This show's really found a market inefficiency and a new alternative to hiring real actors. Speaking of real actors, we see Hostage Redgrave again.

Redgrave: "Life life FORWARD."
Catherine: "What if my memories are false?"

*headdesk x1,000,000*

Catherine's mirror-box to trick the soldier's brain into thinking he has two hands works perfectly. Beatrice's brain misses having clear vision so it gives her hallucinations as "a gift". Bickman comes up with a virtual reality program that does the same thing as the mirror-box. Bickman gives Leo a chance to work on his memory, and he shows some improvement.

Catherine: "I'm proud of myself."
Bickman: "Really? And why's that?" (In a cringe-inducing, patronizing tone that sounds like he should really end the question by calling her sweet-cheeks or something like that)
Catherine: "Because I shamed you into [giving Leo a chance]."

Sexual tension achievement unlocked. If you're keeping score, that's a bet, a raise, and a call in the poker game of undeserved self-congratulation. How Bickman ended up being the most likable person in that exchange, I'll never know. Esme texts Catherine, and she winds up showing up at the concert just long enough to make eye contact with Hunter, then leaves.

I have to say I didn't notice this the first time through the show, but the second time around it's striking me as anti-feminist at best, and traditionally misogynistic at worst. There are shows I could not or cannot watch because they're so bleakly misanthropic- How I Met Your Mother, It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, The Office, and Seinfeld, just off the top of my head- and Black Box is gradually putting itself on that list. A few of the ancillary character are basically not flawed at all- Well, Esme smokes pot and Hostage Redgrave is a really bad therapist, but Josh is perfect- and all the people the plot centers around are personal and moral cesspools. This one wasn't fun or funny to rewatch. It was just saddening that someone thought this show would be entertaining to people, and for some people, it was.