The Following (Season 1) (2013)

The pilot for Fox's new series The Following, about a Poe-obsessed serial killer (James Purefoy) and the former FBI agent (Kevin Bacon) in pursuit of him, had about as dark an ending as anything I'd ever seen on television. Honestly, it was a bit too graphic for me. My brother stuck with it, however, and convinced me to hang on for a few more episodes. While subsequent episodes remained as violent as almost anything on broadcast TV, I thankfully did not find them as disturbing and fatalistic as the pilot. Instead, I found the first season of The Following to be, to my surprise, perhaps best described as "The Vampire Diaries for adults." Maybe this shouldn't have been so surprising, since The Following's creator, Kevin Williamson (Scream, Dawson's Creek), was also the co-creator of The Vampire Diaries.

Like The Vampire Diaries, The Following is an incredibly fast-paced, twist-driven, and cliffhanger-heavy serialized show. It's also completely nuts. Past the pilot, the series actually focuses less on Purefoy's serial killer character, charismatic English professor and failed novelist Joe Carroll, and more on his (as it turns out) massive and pervasive cult of fanatical followers ready to carry out his murderous plans even as he sits behind bars (Carroll is apprehended at the end of the pilot). The show is not remotely a realistic study of cults, and it frankly strains credulity how this guy lecturing on Edgar Allan Poe ever managed to attract such a devoted and well-organized following of capable killers from all sectors of society. Basically, any character other than lead good guy Ryan Hardy (Kevin Bacon) is potentially an agent for Carroll, and so often does an episode end with the twist that some friend, neighbor, or local law enforcement officer is an undercover cultist that you're quickly left more wondering who isn't a follower, rather than who is.

As implausible as it is, The Following also makes for some intensely gripping television viewing. Just like The Vampire Diaries, the show has a twisted affection for its irredeemably evil characters, which it somehow manages to spread to the viewer as well. After the part they played in the pilot, I wanted nothing more than for Carroll and the core trio of followers in the main cast to get what was coming to them. As subsequent episodes shifted attention away from Carroll's ritualistic killings, however, and more time was spent exploring the threesome as they fended for themselves, I found myself bizarrely invested in their story. It wasn't as if there were ever any developments redeeming them; these people remained always thoroughly and murderously insane. But they exhibited occasional semblances of humanity in their three-way relationship, and the volatility within the group, setting up one or another at different times as more sympathetic, quickly became a bigger draw for me than the conflict between Carroll and Hardy. Somehow, even though I knew they didn't really deserve it, I found myself rooting for them to make it out—break free of the cult and just ride off into the sunset. As on The Vampire Diaries, however, there are seemingly no happy endings in the cards for anyone.

Indeed, as even major characters can get taken out very suddenly on any given episode, the best thing about The Following is just how unpredictable it is. Of course, what do you expect when most of them are insane? Eventually, it becomes apparent that, although Carroll has plenty of influence, his actual control over his own followers is limited at best. The man himself doesn't quite live up to the idea of him that these psychopathic romantics have built up in their own heads, of this visionary mastermind who has made death his art. And so what we have is a show where almost every character is a complete wildcard, and hell is perpetually threatening to break loose (and does). I really don't know how they'll be able to sustain this, but I'm already feeling the long wait for the second season.

Star Trek: The Original Series (Season 1) (1966-1967)

I started re-watching the first three seasons of Arrested Development. I thought I'd go through all the old episodes on Netflix in preparation for the debut of the new season, but, turns out, I would have needed to have started a lot sooner in order to have been done in time for the premiere, because, as much as Arrested Development was one those shows remembered as having been canceled too soon, its original run actually lasted a fairly long three seasons.

Likewise, the original Star Trek TV series, although considered unsuccessful in its original broadcast, actually managed to make it three full-length seasons. That's about half what later series got, but, for a non-serialized show, that's still a lot of material to burn through on Netflix (or watch it for free on StarTrek.com). I did finally get through all of the first season, and, as a brief overview, I think much of the writing still holds up, and the show has probably aged better than just about any other TV series of its era. Much of what is good in The Next Generation and Voyager is found in The Original Series, albeit it's far more raw.

Some of the stories are ridiculous (e.g. "Mudd's Women," "Shore Leave," "Arena,"), but often that's owing to the poor production values and weak special effects of the time limiting the places they could venture, hence a notable lack of aliens that actually seem, well, alien, and not merely regular humans, storybook characters in outlandish costumes, or straight-up monsters. Even the bad episodes have intriguing ideas with promise; they're just laughably executed.

What you don't find in these early episodes, I imagine again owing largely to technical limitations, is a convincing fully realized universe that the characters inhabit—so much a part of later Trek. On an average episode, I don't think you'll see the characters in more than four or five distinct locations (and that's counting a single room or hallway on the Enterprise as a "distinct location"). Rarely is there ever the sense that there is anything at all that exists beyond the immediate set. That surely is partly due to the cheapness of the sets, but also, in these early goings, they have yet to establish much of the fictional history of Starfleet, the Federation, or really any developed human-like alien societies. Instead, the crew of The Original Series really do feel like explorers of old, mapping uncharted territory.

When they do encounter alien lifeforms, they are, more often than not, well out of humanity's league. As a result, The Original Series often feels like the "Old Testament" of Star Trek, in more ways than the obvious. Many episodes follow a basic formula of:

1. Crew is faced with alien threat.


2. Crew contemplates moral dilemma over how to deal with threat.


3. Crew ultimately has moral choice taken away. (Either they're forced to choose the more expedient of two evils, or else a greater power literally makes the decision for them.)

Repeatedly, Kirk and crew are made to realize their own ultimate powerlessness and failure to match their moral agency with sufficient wisdom to guide it.

Where The Original Series has its descendants beat is in the strength of its cast, despite it having only three characters of regular consequence. In fact, only William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy are credited as regulars, but DeForest Kelley is early on established as a de facto regular. The other familiar faces—Uhura, Sulu, Scotty—are distinguished from the random one-off crew members only in that they are recurring; they never contribute significantly to the plot. Nevertheless, Spock and Bones, and the men who play them, are so brilliant that the show doesn't require much more.

Spock purports to operate on pure Vulcan logic, but his barely veiled smug superiority belies his supposedly nonexistent emotions. As the season develops (and, since the episodes weren't even aired in production order, there are no character arcs but only a gradual stabilizing of character identities), we observe him as a person of enlightened morality; far from having an unemotional disregard for life, he is the crew's one true pacifist, who regards the preservation of life (for all lifeforms) as a matter of chief primacy on principle. He's also intensely loyal and readily self-sacrificing. The combination of all these qualities, matched with a performance from Nimoy that is deceptively brimming with humanity, makes for a character that, despite being the one alien on the crew, frankly embodies most purely all that is good in any of us.

McCoy, the ship's doctor, appears on neither the rejected pilot "The Cage" nor the chronological first episode "Where No Man Has Gone Before." Those episodes feature two different characters and actors in the medic role, and, in retrospect, there was really something lacking in them. McCoy is such an essential component of the classic Trek that it's a real shame that the character has become such an afterthought in the new movies. They've gone in a different direction, giving more prominence to the new Uhura instead, which is fair enough—the new movies don't have to, and probably shouldn't, just try to replicate the old—but the characters of Kirk and Spock actually suffer without Bones there to complete the trio. McCoy is not just another crew member, but his unwavering sense of compassion motivates him to consistently be the one guy to disregard chain of command and openly speak to his captain as an equal and his friend. Likewise, he is able to constantly spit forth seemingly bigoted remarks in Spock's direction, and yet there is never any doubt as to his genuine respect and affection for the Vulcan. This is such a common reality of the playful ribbing among the closest of friends of different races, and yet it's also such a difficult thing to pull off on TV without offending someone. McCoy manages it because Kelley's portrayal of the character is so honest and unpretentious that the viewer feels an instant easy familiarity with the character.

William Shatner's Kirk is such a peculiar character. As an actor (and maybe just as a human being), Shatner has gotten increasingly eccentric over the years, and this original TV version of Kirk is definitely more subdued than the character he would eventually become in the movies. Still, he already feels always like a character that seems to exist, to some extent, in his own world, even apart from Spock and Bones. Bones clearly treats Kirk as a friend, but it's less clear how Kirk really feels about Bones, or about anyone. There's just something always slightly off about the guy, as though he's operating on a different wavelength from normal human beings, and, even as he is charming and charismatic, there are parts of him that seem unapproachable. His is such a singular self-motivated, self-confident ego that you don't quite believe that he could even have real friends. But he's believable as the captain of a ship, precisely because he's the kind of one-in-a-million maverick, before whom others will naturally fall in line, not because he's a tyrant but because he simply exudes a larger presence—a veritable god in whose footsteps follow mere mortals. You get the sense that, more than any other captain on any other Trek, he is the one that really rules his ship, and every important decision must be his call to make.

As I ready myself for Season 2, I leave you with a list of my favorite episodes from Season 1 (episode numbers reflecting broadcast order):

Episode 11 "The Menagerie, Part I"

This is actually the first part of a pretty dreadful two-parter. My advice: Do NOT watch the canned pilot "The Cage" before watching this, because most of the footage from "The Cage" ends up recycled in "The Menagerie." Nevertheless, the first part is notable for being the first episode to really highlight the character of Spock, hinting at there being far more to him than just his purely logical exterior. He defies orders, going to extraordinary lengths and placing his career in jeopardy, in order to see through a kindness to a man he once served under, all the while never breaking his outward stoicism, which we learn can just as well signify modesty as arrogance.

Episode 14 "Balance of Terror"

A clear precursor to Wrath of Khan's submarine-inspired combat, it's a gripping and uniquely shot episode concentrating on a single protracted battle, as much of wits as of ships. This is also the first episode to feature an alien race that, rather than being either a monster or a god, is analogous to a foreign nation.

Episode 21 "The Return of the Archons" and Episode 23 "A Taste of Armageddon"

A pair of episodes showcasing Star Trek at its ambitious, allegorical science fiction best.

Episode 28 "The City on the Edge of Forever"

Arguably the greatest story in all of Trek, the time travel fun in the first half prefigures the genius of Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, while the ending is a standard inclusion on any "greatest moments in television" list. The unforgettable climactic scene is brilliant, and so are all three actors in it. That said, Kirk's decision doesn't strike me as especially Kirk-like. I always thought of him as that guy who overcame no-win situations and always searched for a way through, even when there was none. But TV Kirk seems quite often ineffectual in the face of moral dilemmas, so at least here he finally takes the burden of most crushing responsibility upon himself.

Episode 29 "Operation: Annihilate!"

Another precursor to the movies, here we see the "needs of the many" argument laid out, and the friendship among the three main characters cemented. After some erratic early episodes, the writers and actors really found the core three characters—Spock and McCoy especially—and it's remarkable how, as early as this first season finale, we could see exactly who these men were and what they were made of—qualities and characterizations that would last and continue to be fulfilled in the movies more than a decade later.

Star Trek Into Darkness (J. J. Abrams, 2013)

Quick Take:

Not one of the best Trek films, but one of the better ones. Never meandering, the most entertaining action movie I've seen in a long while. Internally sloppy script is exacerbated by ill-conceived attempts to tie into Trek history. Brilliant score. Highly recommended.

SPOILERY Thoughts:

One thing I always enjoyed about the Star Trek franchise, pre-J. J. Abrams, was how much effort the writers across all the TV series and movies put into maintaining a consistent continuity, with each project merely adding to the history of what always remained the same fictional universe. As a fan who had followed everything post-Next Generation, I had invested quite a lot of my own life in that world, and so I appreciated that the writers kept it going and never left me feeling like I had wasted my time keeping up with all this developing mythology. That said, what bothers me most about the "rebooted" film series is that they haven't just dumped the old lore entirely but are still trying to tie into it, even as characters and events in the new movies have diverged dramatically from previous canon. The new movies try to have it both ways; this is supposed to be a fresh start to bring in new audiences, but, at the same time, so much of Into Darkness especially depends on the viewer having seen, in this case, The Wrath of Khan. It gets to be a real mess, but, worse than that, even as the references and connections are sometimes rewarding as fanservice, it often feels like Abrams's team is just appropriating old canon in order to lend the new movies weight and credibility that they haven't earned on their own merits.

The big twist in this movie is that the villain, despite all the pre-release materials insisting otherwise, is none other than Khan, the titular antagonist of the most well-regarded film in the franchise. But why exactly did that need to be a twist? Why the deception? The revelation that he is Khan would only mean anything to fans of the old movies, but, even then, the reveal is only worth maybe a few seconds of going "Ohhhhh . . . . " It's such cheap gratification compared to the Iron Man 3 twist, which 1) had significant in-story repercussions, rather than just being playful marketing (although it was that too), and 2) was effective and fun even for people who knew nothing of the comics (although those who did know the comics would have appreciated an extra dimension to the twist).

The upside of entangling Into Darkness with Wrath of Khan is, I suppose, that the new movie could resonate with the old in occasionally clever ways, playing against history and fan expectations. This could make for a fun (if needless) game of "spot the difference."

Kirk's sacrifice was, for the most part, well-done. Internal to the character's Into Darkness arc, I thought it made sense. Not only had I felt, up to that point, that Kirk was strangely the one member of his crew without a clear function—he didn't seem much as a commander; Scotty and Uhura never would have challenged the Shatner Kirk's authority the way they gave lip to new Kirk—but his sacrifice also felt like the proper payoff to his and Spock's relationship, beginning from the movie's opening scene. When the dying Kirk says to Spock, "And this is what you would have done," it's a great, honest, and touching moment that reflects how these two characters, as headstrong as each is, have grown together and learned from one another. Factoring in the added resonance to Wrath of Khan, the line gave me an extra chill. Of course, for a number of reasons, the scene still doesn't touch the sacrifice scene in Wrath of Khan. Mostly, even though new Kirk and Spock have fine chemistry, because the characters (and actors) haven't had the many years and dozens of television episodes' worth of history that original Kirk and Spock had going into Wrath of Khan, the new movie was never going to be able to manage the same unique weight of the original moment. But if you take the Into Darkness scene on its own merits (if you can take it on its own merits, which the filmmakers seem reluctant to let you do), then it's still a good moment.

Spock yelling "Khan!" was far too much. For anybody who got the reference, it could only be enjoyed as comedy, but if it was intended as comedy here, then it was rather tacky and ruined a moment that I had been on the way to finding genuinely moving.

That was not the worst moment for me, however. My least favorite moment, by far, was Leonard Nimoy's gratuitous cameo as old Spock. More than anything else I've mentioned, this scene really encapsulated what I find most distasteful about new Trek. They can't just let old be old and new be new, with a clean break between; they have to remind us that the new movies do connect to old canon, thereby reminding longtime fans also that all that history they invested so much of their lives in was canonically erased by a genocidal time traveler.

Its relationship with old Trek aside, this is still a movie sloppy with plot holes and unintended raised questions galore. They barely touch on the implications of the discovery of the miraculous properties of Khan's blood, which can not only cure cancer (or whatever that girl at the beginning had) but can even resurrect the dead. In the short term, yeah, it's the key to saving Kirk, but shouldn't it also revolutionize medical science and even irrevocably alter society by effectively curing death? And if this is actually old science (since Khan and crew were cryogenically frozen centuries ago), why didn't it already revolutionize medicine and life long ago? If there are no negative side effects (as with, say, steroids), why isn't everyone in the future as perfect as Khan? (Yeah, I know old Trek had an answer, which Into Darkness glosses over, but, to be honest, I've never bought the outlawing of genetic engineering as being the likely course of the future.) Also, aren't the rest of Khan's crew also supermen? In which case, shouldn't they have the same super-blood? In which case, why did they need to bring Khan in alive, and so urgently, in order to save Kirk?

For that matter, once it's all done, why is Khan merely refrozen and stored with the rest of his crew? Are they saving his superior intellect again for the next rainy day? By the end of the movie, this guy has done more damage, claimed more lives than probably every other villain in all of this year's summer action movies combined. Doesn't the public need to see someone stand trial for crashing a gigantic top-secret Starfleet ship into San Francisco? All that destruction and loss of life goes barely acknowledged, even though the reality is that, whatever Khan's endgame was (which isn't clear), if he didn't outright win, the good guys still lost pretty badly in this one. Instead, it ends on a note of, essentially, "Five-year expedition, baby!" (Maybe those weren't Kirk's exact words, but close enough.)

For all its faults, Star Trek Into Darkness was nevertheless a thoroughly entertaining film. I was engaged all the way through, and I honestly felt it was the most satisfying and expertly directed action movie I'd seen in years—chase sequences, fistfights, and giant ships shooting other ships out of warp (I swear, that last one was ripped right out of my imagination (which probably means I saw it somewhere else once, and that was where Into Darkness ripped it off from)). The value of this is not to be overlooked, even if I'm not going to spend a lot of words explaining why it's great. I mean, if I had the movie on home video to reference, I probably could give a blow-by-blow breakdown arguing why that Spock-Khan fight is so much better—more thoughtfully constructed and more gratifying—than any of the fights in the latter two Star Wars prequels (giving me at least some hope for Episode VII), but who really cares? It's something you recognize in the moment, but, unless you're an enthusiast of the craft, talking about it only dilutes its potency. The bottom line: I hated a lot of things about this movie, but I loved the experience of watching it.

JJAMZ - The Griffin, May 21, 2013

(Drummer Jason Boesel is perpetually a faceless blur.)

I caught JJAMZ again last week, when they were playing at The Griffin in San Diego (presented by 91x Loudspeaker and Space Camp), this time as the headliner. Opening for them were two local bands, Inspired and the Sleep and Hills Like Elephants.

Inspired and the Sleep was a very young band, consisting of three members: vocalist/bassist, guitarist/Korg operator, and saxophonist(!). It was clearly the brainchild of the lead singer, Max Greenhalgh, who, besides singing and playing bass, compensated for the band's relatively spare makeup by employing a rather innovative technique, wherein he would record short clips of himself playing a variety of different instruments before each song, then loop the samples to add depth to their sound. Sometimes he would create as many as 6-7 samples, including drums, flute, tambourine, egg shaker, and a vocal clip or two. Whether a song technically began once all the clips were ready, or as soon as he started recording the first one, I felt the live experience resembled the video game Amplitude, where you could hear a track come together piece by piece.

Hills Like Elephants was a more seasoned act, although, not being hip with the local music scene, I had obviously never heard of them either. They would announce when they were about to play a new song, which, from my perspective, seemed a tad pretentious (because what was the likelihood that most attendees would even know any of their songs?), and the lead singer also charmlessly complained about the provided equipment at one point. But, for the most part, I thought they were quite good, albeit all their songs kind of blurred together without leaving an impression. One neat thing, I thought, was that the singer also played keyboard, and another band member would also alternate between guitar and keyboard, so sometimes they would have two keyboards going at the same time.

JJAMZ was what I had come to see, and they were as good as expected. Some of the male members of the band—James Valentine (guitarist, also of Maroon 5), Jason Boesel (drummer, also of Rilo Kiley), and Michael Runion (bassist)—were hanging out at the bar before their set, and what I hadn't realized before is that these guys are all really freaking tall. When their turn came up, the band was ready with surprising speed; I guess they had most of their equipment good to go before doors opened and just needed to quickly check it again when they took the stage. They played all the same songs as last time (i.e. every original off Suicide Pact, their 2012 album) and in nearly the same order, only adding in one new song, "Waste of Time," in the middle.

"Waste of Time" was sung by Alex Greenwald, who mostly plays guitar on Suicide Pact, although he provides vocals (alongside Z Berg) on "LAX" and is also the lead singer for his other band, Phantom Planet. Yes, that was him singing on "California," the theme song for the FOX TV series The O.C. The sunny power pop sound of Phantom Planet's album The Guest (2002) feels, in many ways, like the backbone of Suicide Pact as well, and I was also excited just to hear something new from the guy who sang what is, for one generation at least, the quintessential SoCal song. But "Waste of Time" didn't really sound like "California" (which, in fairness, was over ten years ago, and I'm not personally familiar with any of Phantom Planet's later stuff), and it didn't really sound like any of JJAMZ's other songs either. It was a more downbeat and noisier kind of garage rock. It wasn't bad; it just made for a slightly odd departure in the middle of the set. Also, with the sound smothered by the small venue acoustics, it was impossible to make out lyrics for any songs I didn't already know, making it harder to appreciate anything new to me. You can hear a YouTube capture (courtesy of slothitronic) of a previous performance from last year here, which is probably clearer and less heavy than what I heard live.

They also performed their other new song not on the album, "Ceremony," which kind of hits at the opposite end of their sound spectrum. Sung by Z Berg, it's very catchy, although it also doesn't fit perfectly with the dreamily melancholic summer sound of JJAMZ's other songs. Sassy and flamboyant, with different production it could pass for one of the retro pop tracks from the second iteration of Z Berg's girl group, The Like.

Of course, it's not as if Suicide Pact has an entirely uniform sound. It's actually quite remarkable that it's as cohesive as it is, given that the material was accumulated over the course of about three years of the band's members—five real-life best friends—intermittently writing music together between and during tours with their other groups. During the show, Z Berg alluded to the history behind their first song, "Square One," and, in an interview with Interview last year, Michael Runion gave a fuller account of the band and the friendship's origin:

Jason wasn't even in Rilo Kiley yet. James had just moved here. Maroon 5 was still called "Maroon." Phantom Planet hadn't even made their second record yet, so "California" hadn't even been out yet. It was a long time ago. We just became friends over the years. At one point, we went out one night to karaoke at a bar. It was kind of lame. We were like, "Let's go back to James' house." James had set up a little studio in one of his guest rooms.  So we went back and Jason put down a drum beat, Alex started playing chords over it, and I played bass over that. Then, James was like, "I'm going to record vocals." Z went into the shower attached to the guest room; we put up a mic, and she sang this song that none of us had heard before. That became the demo for our first song, which is on our record. Not that version, but we made that demo, and we were like, "This is awesome! We already love hanging out. Let's just do this all the time!" We got together the next day, and we wrote a song called "Get What You Want," which eventually became the first song on our record. We didn't set out to make a record, but we knew when we hung out that good things happened: when we had time. Everyone was on tours; Maroon 5, Rilo Kiley and The Like were all touring. It was hard to make time for it. As time passed in the studio, we recorded six songs. We didn't know what we were going to do with them. We wrote some more songs, then we thought, "Oh, we should make a record." We tracked those songs.  We recorded those songs, and we started mixing the record last year. Now it's done and out in the world. It's really crazy for me that it actually exists. It was kind of a long process.

If the stories match up, then that first song Runion is talking about is "Square One." Interestingly, although the song was collectively written by the members of JJAMZ, and was performed by them as early as 2009, it was first recorded, in a very different form, by The Like for their 2010 album, Release Me.

Z Berg will be down in San Diego again this Friday, May 31, 2013 to support Tom Brosseau and Sean Watkins at the North Park Vaudeville & Candy Shoppe. I don't know if I'll make that one ($15), but maybe she'll perform some of her solo originals, which, so far, are sounding yet again something apart from either JJAMZ or The Like.

The Vampire Diaries (Season 4) (2012-2013)

Elena: Remember that time you tortured me until I told you how to find the cure? You ruined my relationship with Stefan, and then you trapped us with a werewolf?

Rebekah: Yes, so?

Elena: So, you're not a good person.

— The Vampire Diaries Season 4, Episode 19 "Pictures of You"

It's difficult, even perhaps pointless, to step back from the in-the-moment experience of watching The Vampire Diaries to then reflect on whether this past season was a strong one. What I know is that, throughout its fourth season, this remained the show that, week to week, I would most look forward to, the show I would consistently helplessly get caught up in—the breathless pacing and all the insane twists and cliffhangers that would leave me jaw agape in a mix of awe and bewilderment.

The big "moment" this season was—SPOILER—Silas announcing himself by snapping Jeremy's neck. Brutal. I had always felt Elena's kid brother was dead weight, but The Vampire Diaries continued its tradition of unexpectedly killing off characters right at the peak of their coolness. As with Alaric the previous season, they took a character that had, for a good while, been in a limbo of having no clear role to play and probably needed to be cut loose, and they gave him one final moment to shine, sending him off in the most awesome way possible. Well, maybe it wasn't awesome for Jeremy, but his death was used to create an awesome moment. Seriously, this was, as much as anything I saw on scripted TV all season, one of those "where were you when" moments for me. I mean, obviously I was at home watching Vampire Diaries, but it was one of those moments where I had to take a minute there to just process what I had seen . . . . So, to be honest, I do feel pretty cheated that they decided to go back on it this time. All I can do is give the writers the benefit of the doubt in trusting that 1) it was not a planned fakeout but merely one decision to kill him off, and then a later, second decision (no less valid and carefully considered than the first) to bring him back, and 2) they will hopefully find ways to keep this character interesting.

I suppose it shouldn't have been all that surprising that they chose to resurrect Jeremy. I mean, this is the show, after all, where characters are constantly getting their necks broken, but it's not a big deal, because a vampire can get back up from that in maybe under an hour, just as soon as their healing ability repairs the damage. And, more absurdly, even humans can and have come back from broken necks, provided they were wearing one of those special rings that will resurrect them if they were killed by a supernatural being (even if a broken neck doesn't seem like an especially supernatural cause of death). Which brings us to my other favorite moment this season.

If perhaps Jeremy has seemed like dead weight at times, then surely Matt's consequence has been even more in question all along, as the one member of the regular cast who has always been just a normal human, with no powers nor supernatural lineage. And yet, I've always liked Matt. He's humble and loyal and reasonable. And even if he's the most ordinary character on the show, he does kind of defy expectations by being the quarterback—not normally a sympathetic character in young adult fantasy—yet also the easiest character in the show to relate to. Against the vampire love triangle that is the core of the show, not to mention all the high-stakes supernatural warfare surrounding it, this regular guy had often seemed like a complete afterthought even in the eyes of the girl he was always there for. It was a great touch, then, having his death be the trigger that brought Elena back from the dark side. Was it cheap that it was all an obvious ploy, since it turned out he had the resurrection ring on? In this case, no; it was just a clever move by the brothers Salvatore. What's more, you have to believe, given everything we've learned about these characters over the last four seasons, that Damon would have gone through with it and snapped Matt's neck even if the ring hadn't been in play, if that had been the only way to get Elena to feel anything. And Stefan would have let Damon do it too, because these guys prioritize Elena's life above her will and above what is "right," because, at the end of the day, they're not heroes and never have been. And they have never given a damn about the quarterback.

I've always been fascinated by how, even though there are both good vampires and bad vampires, the show in general has rather a skewed sense of morality. This was most embodied in the long-problematic character of Klaus, who was introduced in Season 2 to be the big bad (the ultimate bad, in fact—almost supremely powerful, and a total dick about it), but whom we were then also supposed to buy as a legitimate romantic interest for the virtuous Caroline, even though he never really did anything to convince us that he was anything less than the most evil and sadistic character on the show.

This was the guy who killed Caroline's actual boyfriend's mother, and then, just a few episodes later, we're supposed to believe that he has a sweet side, and we're supposed to be invested in that potential relationship? And then another few episodes pass, and he nearly kills Caroline herself, and then afterward, once again, fans are supposed to go right back to shipping them? And these are, debatably, not even the worst things Klaus has done over the course of his time on the show. Remember that time he murdered Aunt Jenna? Or remember also that time he killed Tyler in order to turn him? Or how about that time he compelled Elena's mother to kill herself?

But it's not just Klaus. Remember that time Elijah slapped a dude's head off, just because they once both liked the same girl? And then we're told over and over again that Elijah is defined by his mighty morals? Or remember that time Rebekah killed Elena (leading to Elena becoming a vampire)? And then, for the rest of the season, we're apparently expected to feel pity or something for Rebekah because she's actually the most sentimental and emotionally vulnerable character on the show? Even everybody's favorite character, Damon (my favorite too, until I actually watched Season 1, after having originally gotten into the series starting with Season 2), is, remember, a guy who raped and murdered teenage girls. And now, three seasons later, he's the show's hero and the guy who gets the girl? And, yeah, I know we're not supposed to think of it as rape or murder or even to think of these high school girls as minors. Let's not forget that he also murdered Stefan's best friend just to cover his own ass. Or that Damon himself at one point snapped Jeremy's neck, having no idea that Jeremy was wearing the resurrection ring at the time, just because he was pissed, not even specifically at Jeremy but just in general. And that was after Damon was one of the "good guys"!

As of the end of Season 4, I'm pretty sure there's not a single main character on the show who hasn't committed mass murder. Even Matt, the stalwart human, presumably (if unknowingly) wiped out a ton of vampires when he staked their great-grand-sire Finn, who seemed to be the one good guy among the Originals (which means he was probably some kind of serial killer, like everyone else on this show). And always the show moves on very quickly and expects us not to dwell on the many horrible things these characters have done.

The only way, not to excuse it but to rationalize it, is to consider that anyone who has lived for over a hundred years (and themselves died along the way) is very likely going to be blase about a lot, and so of course they get over things quickly. It may sound like I'm giving the show too much credit, but it all comes back to that great Season 3 moment, when Stefan and Damon, wondering what would happen between them, if ever Elena were to make up her mind and choose one of them, agreed that the one not chosen would leave to give the happy couple space until Elena passed away at a ripe old age, after which the brothers would go back to being brothers, no girl between them. That's the insane perspective that comes with being a vampire. When you can look ahead ninety years with no regard to age, how deeply can you be concerned about these days that you know are just going to die and fade away? Kudos to this show for sincerely exploring at least some of the implications of what it would be like to live as an immortal.

Mixed feelings about the Originals getting spun off into their own show. On the one hand, the fan in me is thinking, "Yes! TWO hours of Vampire Diaries every week! It's gonna be Buffy and Angel all over again, hopefully with more crossovers and none of that complicated split networks business." On the other hand, that episode of The Vampire Diaries that served as the backdoor pilot was definitely the worst episode of the season. Part of it is that I'm accustomed to The Vampire Diaries pushing forward at a constant breakneck pace (no pun intended), whereas this episode was completely a midseason sidetrack that consequently felt like a lost week.

Moving Klaus off of Vampire Diaries might be the best thing for that character. He had become too popular a character, and Joseph Morgan far too ridiculously charismatic in the role, for them to ever kill him off, and yet, for the reasons stated above, he could never work as a hero, so keeping him around as a sub-antagonist or wildcard was just going to make an already tangled story messier and messier. Of course, I don't know how he's supposed to be any more believable as the hero on his own show, especially when its antagonist appears to be just a regular vampire leagues beneath him, and there doesn't appear to be anything else to hold Klaus back from murdering everything. It also leaves us with some unfortunate lack of closure over on The Vampire Diaries, since neither his mortal nor romantic rivals could ever decisively best him, but instead it feels like they just managed to outlast his interest in their town. And I'll admit, as preposterous as I always found the Klaus-Caroline pairing, there was something sweet about how Klaus arrived to the rescue for her graduation in the finale—made for the best graduation episode ever in my eyes, even if the high school angle was increasingly an afterthought on this show (which hopefully means at least that, instead of a clumsy attempt at a college phase (a la Buffy Season 4), the writers will just recognize that school is not a priority for immortals).

I'm more surprised that Rebekah is moving over to The Originals. The finale gave no indication of this, so I'm guessing this was a late decision. It should make The Originals a better show than that pilot we saw with only Klaus and Elijah. And if she's more of a core character on that show than she was on Vampire Diaries, I suppose I'll no longer have to worry as much about how sad I would have been when they inevitably killed her off in brutal yet awesome fashion. Yes, as much as I established that she's not a good person, the show still managed to make me feel for her. Damn this show for getting me to fall for unscrupulous serial killers. Hopefully they'll spend at least a moment next season to give her Vampire Diaries story more closure than her siblings got with their abrupt exits. And, yes, crossovers, hopefully.

As for what's in store for Vampire Diaries itself, that was some crazy season-ending cliffhanger. Stefan trapped in a coffin at the bottom of a lake (ripped from Angel, but still cool), while the new bad is walking around town with his face? Does this mean the villainous Silas will be replacing Stefan as Paul Wesley's main role on the show? It's been said before that the core three characters are the only essentials—the only ones who are safe from the threat of getting killed off at any moment. But is it really more the three main stars who are essential, rather than their characters? Both Nina Dobrev and Paul Wesley now have multiple characters that they play on the show, so even Elena and Stefan could theoretically be killed off without it affecting the actors' contracts. I don't honestly think the writers would ever do that, but, still, having Paul Wesley play Silas could be a game-changer. Stefan had gotten stale a while ago, not necessarily through any fault of the actor. I used to find Elena pretty boring in the early seasons, and yet I loved Katherine. It was hard to believe that Nina Dobrev played both characters, since Katherine came across so much more charismatic, more deliciously saucy, and, I could have sworn, more physically attractive even than Elena. Maybe giving Paul Wesley likewise a villain to play will invigorate his performance.

Google's Nexus 4 - One Slick Phone

Just over half a year since its release, the Nexus 4 is, spec-wise, already no longer on the cutting edge of smartphone tech, but, man, is it one slick device. I mean, literally, with Gorilla Glass covering both front and back, this thing is so slick that it could function as a really crude level, informing you if a surface is even slightly, if imperceptibly, slanted. At work the other day, I set my Nexus 4 down on a table that looked fine and level to me, and then I watched as the phone started sliding slowly but steadily back in my direction. Given that its all-glass shell makes it considerably more fragile than Samsung's plastic Galaxy phones, maybe being this kind of slick is not such an asset, since it will be always threatening to slip off any flat surface you place it on.

Before Sunrise (Richard Linklater, 1995)

Before Sunrise is largely just a running conversation between its two main characters, Jesse (Ethan Hawke), an American, and Celine (Julie Delpy), a French student. Strangers meeting on a train, they spontaneously decide to get off together and spend the night roaming Vienna, understanding that, after they leave, they will most likely never see each other again.

Nothing these characters have to say is especially groundbreaking or insightful. They're not neurologists or geneticists or war heroes; they're just dweebs, as are most romantics. If you've never tried online dating, maybe browse around the profiles on some of the dating sites, and you'll very quickly discern a pattern in the self-written "About Me" sections. Well, first of all, disregard about 90 percent of the dudes on these sites, because they're all either 1) muscled douche bags with shirtless selfie pics looking for hookups, or 2) really creepy bearded or mustached guys with no self-awareness, who, in their loneliness, have turned to weirdo hobbies like wood-whittling. Among the remaining "hopeless romantic" types (even if they are not explicitly self-described as such, though many of them are)—both male and female, but obviously I've perused more female profiles—a majority (not all, certainly) seem to fall into one of two categories: either 1) they describe themselves as "simple" or "just your ordinary [insert hometown] gal"; they enjoy dining, the beach, sincerity, or 2) they describe themselves as "not your typical girl"; they are "pretty weird" or "unusual" (hopefully you can handle that), often with a "sarcastic sense of humor" (you better be able to handle that!), and they prefer wit and "intellectual conversations." I oversimplify, of course, but these words do come up in people's descriptions of themselves with alarming frequency, which, in the case of the latter group, is, you'll grant, a tad ironic. What you realize, coming away from that, is that there are not very many original personalities out there, and, no matter what we may believe of ourselves, most of us are not the exception.

What is understood in Before Sunrise, however, is that, while the content of even our most seemingly profound "intellectual conversations," is, in fact, rarely original or objectively interesting, the dialogue can become intensely interesting to the participants, when there is a romantic chemistry there leading them to become invested in one another's personalities more so than in any specifics of what they are saying. At least for a while.

That Jesse and Celine's time together is limited is a blessing in disguise, because the two really don't seem compatible for the long-term, despite their both being romantics. Having arrived in Europe to spend time with a girlfriend studying abroad, he's the kind of guy who will literally cross an ocean (uninvited) in order to find his end in another person. But some bad experiences have also cultivated in him a reflexive cynicism that makes him hard to tolerate for long stretches. Meanwhile, Celine is transparent and unguarded, tending to assume the same level of sincerity in others. But, whereas he seems in need of an other half, it's harder, despite her transparency, to pinpoint what she's after, because she herself doesn't seem to have a definite object in mind. She's looking toward something as yet formless, unarticulated, not finite. Mostly, I imagine what would doom their relationship is that she would never be as emotionally co-dependent in it.

And yet, there probably is a deal of truth in what Jesse predicts. Celine probably will end up marrying a decent guy and settling into a stable life. And she probably would, years down the road, have wondered about that guy she didn't pursue, not because she'd be unhappy with her marriage necessarily, but just because she'd be having that kind of a day or moment when she couldn't help herself reflecting.

I didn't find Before Sunrise to be an especially profound film, but it felt authentic to an extent. I'm more intrigued by the sequels. Not knowing anything about them, other than that they pick up the story nine and eighteen years later, I'm especially interested to see how Jesse might mature as he grows older.

I had this coworker once, a single mom, whose day consisted of working six hours, then leaving early to pick up her kid from school, preparing dinner, doing the laundry, and basically occupying herself with typical all-consuming motherly duties. But, at work, she would always relate to us these crazy stories of her youth—growing up on the East Coast, then, at the age of nineteen, trekking across the country with her roommate, no destination in mind, getting into all kinds of trouble, before finally settling in San Diego. She had led such a colorful life, but that was all before any of us at work had ever met her. When asked if she ever got the itch to go adventuring again, she didn't hesitate to say no. Although she cherished the memories of her youth, she was a different person now, and she was adamant that being a mother to her son provided her more joy than anything else she had ever known. Even so, I couldn't help wishing that I could have known her as her young adventurous self, and I said as much.

"Sounds like she was a fun person," I joked.

And then she joked that she would rather know my ten-years-older self: "I bet he'd be pretty cool."

I was already cool, of course, but what she meant was that she looked forward to the day I would finally grow up and become an adult, instead of the generally nice but flighty man-child she saw me as. If I ever see her again, I'm sure she'll be disappointed, because I pretty much crystallized into who I'll be the rest of my life at age fifteen, which was when I first saw The Matrix (kidding!). But I also kind of get what she meant, because now I'm really curious to see how cool a grown-up Jesse might be, if he ever grows out of being such a grating douche bag. Guess I'll have to hunt down Before Sunset next.