Television With Balls

I've done enough bad things to know I'm bad!

While this is not a love letter to American Horror story I have to give the Fox channel one more props for letting this show go forward with bigger balls then that construction robot from Transformer two.  This show manages to mix serious horror with camp and some "oh shit" moment that would make Lost jealous.  This show demonstrates one of the reasons I rail against the notion that TV is to be dismissed in any way.  Like any media, popularity and availability will breed far more garbage then quality, but when TV gets it right, it gets it right.   This is a dedication to TV with balls, a list of shows either highly popular or somewhat under the radar and should be watched as soon as you can find any of them on Netflix.   American Horror Story is the catalyst of this post so it goes first, only what more can be said that has not already be said by everyone making the show a success.   It doesn't hold back, doesn't have any compunctions about killing off main character and having a plausible within the logic of the show's reason for bringing them back.  This show defines creepy and it goes for every level of it.  This show has the kind of balls Tony Montana would respect.

Claudius, Rome deserves you!

Waaaaaaaaaaaaaay back in 1975 PBS, the seventh channel on the dial in a world without cable and internet, ran a mini-series that had to be the ballsiest show ever produced at the time.  Based on the book by Robert Graves it tells the autobiography of Roman Emperor Claudius who was thought to be mentally disabled because of a pronounced speech inpediment who eventually became leader of Rome just before Nero started playing with matches.  It starts in his youth shortly after Julius Caesar's assacination and is a tale filled with sex, murder, insanity and betrayal.   When a show feature two women making a bet as to who can be gang-banged by the most men and the show actually shows the contest, you're talking television with balls.  And if you think Darth Vader is the #1 black hat, you have to meet Livia.  If you enjoy shows like Tudors or Game of Thrones or Boardwalk Empire, take some time to meet the grand daddy of them all.  Trust me no matter how long ago it was made you will not be able to stop watching.

The people!!!

 Sally Field has been a in front of camera staple since as long as I can remember.  I have a permanent memory image of sitting in front of a black & white watching this cute woman take off because he only weighed 90 pounds and could direct herself with this wide ass habit.  I didn't care how phony the stock footage of her flying looked, I was about five or six, it looked good enough for me then.   The flying Nun was a pretty popular show lasting for three seasons and going into endless syndication for a big chunk of the early 1970's.   Back then a popular show could get an actor stuck in a role for life, meaning you'd be pretty much down and out until the nastolgia wave of the late 1990's began.    The goad therefore was to break out from TV to movies if you could, but many actors back then got type cast out of any other work except guest appearances.  They'd have to hope for the "break-thru" role.   For Sally Field Sybil was that role.   I was in middle school back then, and long before the TV movie the story of Sybil was a school yard legend.  Back then even your average bully had a Stephan King paperback in his back pocket, so reading wasn't the forced art people make it to be today.    Sybil can in this thick dark purple paperback with an unsettling picture on the front cover - and it seemed like everyone had read it.   The two part TV movie is one of the most un-nerving pieces of media art produced and was the lunchroom and assembly hall talk the next day.   The story features a mother who was so bad Satan kicked her abusive ass out of hell because she brought the place down.  There is a reason Sally Field won an emmy for this movie and when you see it you'll know why.

Good cop/bad cop left the room

One of the things that separate TV with balls from the rest of the herd is TV with balls will always have unique characters - ones that stand out so strongly they over power the show they are a part of.  Detective Vic Mackey is one of those characters.   Loving father, flawed husband, a cop who will always have his fellow officers backs during an arrest or action - and a very bad man.   Not bad meaning cool but bad meaning corrupt, self-serving, amoral, and a killer with very little conscious.  While most other police series tended to lean towards the occasional maverick character, either the lead or the 3rd co-star,  Michael Chiklis gave us a maverick with a big ass gun pointed to your head while he explained why you worked for him.   In a story that lasts for seven seasons we watch the slow fall of Vic Mackey and his Strike Team, a story with more twists and turns then an evening at Circus Oley.   It's first series where Forrest Whittiker didn't annoy the fuck out of me, and there is no cop show that comes close to the balls this one swung every season.   I dare anyone to watch the first three episodes and not be completely hooked into the story of one of TV biggest bad asses.   Vic Mackey is the bad guy and you root for him even when the good guys come after him.  Watch the Shield, you won't regret it.

Say it together, LESBIAN!!!

I know someone must be rolling their eyes thinking this was just comedy fluff whose main, but unspoken purpose was to let William Shatner play William Shatner - and those who think this could not be more wrong.  Boston Legal started out as the season wide and series ending plot line of The Practice.  It could be argued that the Practice had some ball but in the end it was only a step above the typical law show.  The Practice had it moments, but there was nothing like Boston Legal.  This show as crafted with the deft of a professional stand-up's routine.  It had a perfect storm of characters who you got to know quickly despite a large ensomble cast.   It wasn't what you'd traditionally think of as episodic but there were a few plot threads that lingered through the season and every episode stood alone while building on each other.   And it wasn't just William Shatner, every character who walked on the show were given their moments to shine.   However, Alan Shore and Denny Crane stole the show since almost day one.  They were a pair with a perfect onscreen rhythm.  There's a season where the show tried to shift the focus away from them a little, but it didn't work and once they stop that nonsense the sshow snapped right back to high quality form.  Excellent dialogue, spot on humor, unforgettable plots - is is simply five seasons of a damn good time.   This show had the balls to stand out from every other show with a hardy "fuck-yeah" attitude even when it got silly enough to make Monty Python jealous.  If you've never watched it or only caught the occasional episode, find and and give it a try.

Bitch, I was in proximity!

The facts are these. . .
At this very moment, 4 years, 2 months, 17 days, five hours and 33 minute from the literal time of this writing a little know network called ABC owned by a little know company ruled by a rodent icon is premiering a show so different everyone would agree it was, in fact, television with tremendous sackage.   It tells the tale of the pie maker, Ned, who as a boy discovered on the last day of his dogs life that when he touched something dead it would live again.   This gift came with conditions.  1.  If he left what he brought back alive for more then one minute something else of equal size  or "life value" in proximity died in it's place.  2.  If he touched that which he brought back to life twice it would die again, this time forever.   Noted actor Chi McBride played Detective Emerson Cod who discovered Ned's ability and made a deal with the pie maker to use his gifts to help him solve murders and collect rewards.   Things are going well until the case involving the murder of Ned's life long love Charlotte "Chuck" Charles and Ned's decision to keep her alive past the given minute.  While something (or someone) did die in Charlotte "Chuck" Charles' place, something else was born during that broadcast hour - one of the most unique shows on television.   With it came doomed romance, cases that defined quirky, simply insane but lovable plot threads and, of course, Olive Snook.  Regarding the stand out character Olive Snook; she is an ex-Jockey, ex-co-conspirator in the death of a fellow jockey, ex-trophy winner of the 2000 Jock-off, current waitress of the Pie Hole.   Played by the cute and curvacious Kristin Chenoweth who won one of the shows seven emmys for a performance that will melt your heart, make you laugh and annoy the hell out of you in a good way.  This show ended way too soon and should have lasted for at least five season.   Alas, writer strikes and network's constant lack of understanding of how a show is watched and received today (not every fucking show can be a LOST, give some shows enough time you idiots) lent to there only being two short seasons.   But if you're looking for something different, that knows it's different and embraces said difference like a child hugs it's first teddy, take some time to be entertained by a romantic fairy tale with serious over tones garnished liberally with original characters, dialogue and plot.

Drugs are bad, Um-Kay

Let me begin this by being honest, I don't really like this show.  I think it crosses lines too many times the creators could choose not to cross - but that doesn't mean this isn't a creative and funny show that change the language of society and is without argument one of the funniest shows on TV.  The show does not care what or who they go after, and in my own opinion I think sometimes they should.   There first five season burst with classic episodes, one of it's most popular characters is a singing, dancing piece of shit, and show get an award for being able to run the same joke for years before anyone got tired of it.   It spawn one of the top ten funniest movies of all time (so far, nothing will ever beat Airplane)  and started out as an internet animation where Santa fight Jesus for domination of Christmas (it's a must see if you can find it on YouTube.)  Not my cup of tea but that doesn't mean it isn't TV with a large swinging iron pair as this so apologies for nothing and manages to even make a point or two in the process. 

My Dark Passenger is stirring.

The serial killer who kills serial killers, that's all you need to know to start watching Dexter.   Where it goes from there is a roller coaster ride with more twists and turns then the Kinda Ka on Independence Day.  So far it's in it 5th season and it does not disappoint.  Dexter is a show that works as a whole.  It's not that the acting is good but there a coordination to the characters that fits in place to make every season work.  Dexter himself is a completely unique character.  He is the monster on our side, but he is a monster - just a monster that kills monsters.   He as a rigid code, but it's still a code of murder and the show pulls not punches pointing out he has the same impulse control as Ted Bundy or Manson - only if he had his way Manson would be on his table.   Each season Dexter faces another monster, some smarter then him, some off to the side, some played with such cold blooded intensity it would make Hannibal Lector take notice.  (Now wouldn't that be a story?  Dexter vs Hannibal.  I just felt a chill.)    Don't let the seemingly slow build in the beginning of some season fool you, as each episode builds what Dexter has to over come to keep his serial killer life while not damaging friends and family creates the fill of control chaos that could spill out into the world very easily.   If you have not met Dexter, then you're in for something different.  It's worth the ride.

If we can't save someone like
that, why we doing this?

My last two picks come with some personal nits I need to pick.  Fox, the network channel competing with the other big three, gets a bad rap.  I am not friends with anyone who works for FOX, and it's part of the over all conglomerate that is owned by the kind of money I'll most likely not see in my life time.  But I am clear there are four sides to FOX - The right-wing nut job news channel, the Network TV channel, the basic cable channel,and  the other bunch of channels it owns but I don't really know too much about.  The FOX bashing beings with the whole Firefly thing and the excuses made for it's failure.  Browncoats, here's the truth.  No one watched Firefly but you and you did not have the numbers to keep it on the air.   And a good percentage of the Firefly watchers watched it on DVD.   TV is a business, not a "please sections of the public entities.   At best you can say FOX should have put it on the basic cable channel.   They do not make shows to fail because successful shows means lots and lots and lots of cash.   And that's what these channels and the evil empires behind them love the most.   So Human Target may have made some changes in it's second season but LOST increased it's cast every six episodes and no one complained.   Fox took a chIf ance and gave us a balls to the wall action show that did not lose that action in season 2, but it did not have the watchers - and that the truth of the matter.  I agree the addition of "love interests" wasn't the best idea because no one asked for it and it took away from a little bit of what made the show work - but that didn't mean the show didn't keep on it's toes and remember where it started.   So stop blaming FOX for canceling this as if they targeted it for death from the beginning.   Audiences like what they like.  Human Target was a spot on action show and you can enjoy it in seasons or separate episodes equally.  It is that good.

Let's have a chat about that last episode, because I love to piss off fans with the truth.  LOST is my finale pick for TV with balls because it, it fact, was  the very definition of TV with balls.   LOST has forever change how a TV show can be presented.   LOST owned the art of flashback to the point that if you have a 15 minute internet quickie with a memory scene it will accused of imitating LOST.   The kind of people who accuse anything that uses a flashback of imitating LOST are the same ones that accused Charlie's Angels the movie of imitating Matrix.  Here's my first "get a fucking grip" statement to fanboys:   The Flashback were a TECHNIQUE not a plot element.  It was a McGuffin, a mechanic of story telling.  So when other shows do it, it is NOT imitation, it use of technique.  The things that bugged he hell out of me the most from LOST fans was the reaction to the finale.    For instance the idea that the finale killed all enjoyment of every other season.   I for the life of me cannot see how.   For six season we got one of the most complex and compelling stories TV had to offer.  ABC threw caution the wind and let the show creators go full speed and it worked.   LOST, like The Shield, is a six season movie and there had to be an ending.  It didn't answer any questions?   Seriously?    The show that made its fame never answering any fucking questions got a bad rap because the final episode, LOW AND BEHOLD, didn't answer any questions.  Did it occur to anyone that some shows can move on in spin-off and maybe there could have been other material to explore - so best not to give it all up?   How about the complaints of the religious overtones to the final episode - unlike all that religious symbolism of the entire show.    Excellence is excellence and there is a reason why LOST was so popular.  It can be re-watched and proves just as gripping as the first run.   If you're one of the few that's never seen it or gave up on it in a certain season, get the set and go for a ride.   The show stands out and is most certainly a stand out example of TV with balls. 

Everyone has their idea of ballsy TV, so if you have a show you think deserves that title, feel free to let me know.