Anything You Can Do
Updated 2004-11-25 16:00:00
I have a confession to make: I am beginning to think that this show has some problems. It's like cotton candy -- delightful going down, but doesn't stay with you any longer than five minutes. While it's absolutely well-acted and well-scripted, and the production values are brilliant, I don't think it's particularly well-paced or plotted. The Many Mysteries set into motion are unraveling at a glacial pace, and unlike the myriad other shows which have progress with a similar slowness, this show doesn't even pretend to reveal anything more than one meager plot point a week. Even shows which eventually completely imploded under the weight of their own plotting -- The X-Files, Twin Peaks, even, some would say, Alias -- made a practice of revealing actual, meaty clues and moving forward each week. You felt like you were going SOMEWHERE, even if that somewhere ended up being up the butt of a cranky genie. I think part of the problem with this show is, of course, that it's mostly confined to Wisteria Lane, which makes it feel like it's not going anywhere -- it literally never does go anywhere. But my real problem with it is that it doesn't stick with me. Twin Peaks stayed with me, freaked me out, confused me, frustrated me. But there was something there. Ditto The X-Files. Sure, that ended up in a total disastrous cluster***** of an ending, but it was meaty and layered and complex. ("Thanks?" offers my Agent Mulder action figure from his spot on the top of the heater. The top of the heater is like Florida for action figures; it's warm, and that's where they retire. "You're welcome," I tell him. "So, does this mean I get to talk now?" he asks, "because I've got some real theories about this Dana thing. Clearly, she was abducted by aliens! It's all so very obvious!" Next to him, the Scully rolls her eyes. "Cram it, Spooky," she says.) This show, although it gives endless lip service to seeing beneath the surface, seems to be only surface to me. There's no real there there. I hope I'm proved wrong about this -- there are some things I really enjoy about this show, and I think it is totally chock-full of potential, but I'd like to see some actual real plot development, and soon. I know Charles Pratt and Co. can do it -- I watched Melrose Place. Come on, kids! Let's see some backstabbing! Some man-stealing! Some cocktails in the face! Go to the alien thing, if you have to.
Anyway. You all know where to address the hate mail. We open with a tubby-ish middle-aged dude jogging down the street, as MAVO blah blah blahs about competition. As the Middle-Aged Jogger comes to a corner, he runs up alongside a Buff Young Dude, and struggles mightily to keep up with the younger man. MAVO points out that, on Wisteria Lane, "keeping up with the Jones meant keeping up with Bree Van de Kamp." Yes, because who wouldn't want to be married to a jackass who won't sleep with you even when you trick yourself out in the finest La Perla and mink? MAVO explains that KimberBree had the nicest lawn in the neighborhood, and that it drove Mrs. Kravitz crazy. You know what drives me crazy? Brenda Strong's sing-songy delivery of her voice-over lines. They all sound exactly the same: "high pitched, high-pitched, high-pitched. Lower-pitched, lower-pitched, lower-pitched. Sarcastic question? Knowing commentary." Mix it up, Bren! Anyway, apparently, Mrs. Kravitz goes all out to make her lawn lovely, but, according to MAVO, "the grass was always greener? On the other side? Of the fence?" So, when Middle Aged Jogger drops dead in Mrs. Kravitz's lawn, she sees a wonderful opportunity to even the score. She loads the jogger into her wheelbarrow, trots him over to KimberBree's, dumps him in the hydrangeas, and calls for help.