The plot of every episode of Cold Case ever

Kathryn Morris is 1) the whitest actress to ever be on television and 2) what Avril Lavigne will look like in her 30s.

I'm a big fan of Cold Case on TNT, although "big fan" might not be the best term for it. Frankly, it's formulaic approach to episodes is somewhat comforting, and for some reason, I get plenty of work done when watching it. Also, yes, I am aware that it was on some network before TNT, but that's the only place I ever see it. Therefore, to me, TNT "owns" the show.

Basically, in terms of formula, every episode of Cold Case follows a sort of pattern. In 3/4 of the episodes, you have someone struggling against the tide of the flashback.

For example, if the episode is set in 1940s Philadelphia, then we have a white guy fighting against his neighbors, who are trying to demonize some Japanese-Americans. Anything in the 1960s has the obvious civil rights issues. They had an episode set in a high school detention in 1994, which was essentially just a remake of The Breakfast Club.

The stories are pretty much all generic and uplifting. The Philly homicide cold case division isn't doing much to solve murders of Nazi members, you know. Most episodes serve as an excuse for Detective Lilly Rush, a.k.a. the whitest person alive, to either be tough or tender.

The remaining quarter of the episodes are somehow related to the cold case squad. Because this is television, all of them are really screwed up. I'm serious, by the way - Every single character is really flawed, to an unbelievable degree. Going down the list:

- Lilly was apparently molested as a little kid. Also, her mom abandoned her. Also also, her sister is a massive skank who slept with one of her co-workers (more on him in a second) and is on the run from New York police in several episodes.

- The Stern White Boss (I never remember his name; he's just a copy of other boss archetypes anyway) has never had a clean friend in the police force. I'm serious; any time one of his pals shows up, it means they're dirty or crooked.

- Will the Black Dude is probably the best of a bad lot. He still flies into a rage and punches a slimy district attorney, and also, his wife was killed in a hit and run, and the identity of the driver becomes a major plot point for some episodes.

- Along similar lines, Scotty Valens' ex-girlfriend slash hooker witness commits suicide by jumping into a river. Well, okay, maybe she was murdered. We're not sure. (I haven't seen every episode.) Valens is also the one who hooks up with Lilly's sister, which is nice of him. One of his first girlfriends shown by the show? A Colombian drug mule.

- Nick Vera is a drunk white cop who's wife dumps him in season one or two. He then dates a sassy black lady (more on her in a bit), and also has creepy affections on victims. Like one lady he goes after is a high school crush who comes in about her sister's murder years ago. Again, really happy stuff.

Despite all those issues, I still kind of like the show. It hits all of the bare minimum qualities of the detective show genre for me, so I let it fill up my DVR. This "base quality" thing isn't that surprising, since it was produced by Jerry Bruckheimer. While he doesn't have a ton of critical successes, the guy knows how to make a presentable product.

Also, one weird thing about Cold Case - it really loves it actors used by other shows. I don't recall it dipping much into the Law and Order pool, but plenty of people from The Wire did guest spots, most noticeably, Greggs. It feels odd seeing her play the tough-as-nails (and straight!) love interest of Nick Vera for a few episodes. Kima Greggs, I feel odd watching you harassing him over a basketball.

However, the most inexplicable bit of double-casting is… Sandy Martin, a.k.a. Mac's mom from It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia. In Always Sunny, she plays a grizzled old lady who ignores her son for the most part. In Cold Case, she plays a grizzled old lady who was a single teenage mother who killed her best friend over a baby. She, uh, needs a better agent, because there roles are pretty damn depressing.

The Wire, The Baltimore Sun and Journalism

One of the main story arcs in the fifth and final season of The Wire is about the dysfunction present throughout the management and reporters of The Baltimore Sun, which is regarded as the chief paper of the city. With less revenue coming in, the upper-level management of the paper has laid off experienced reporters in favor of younger kids fresh out of journalism school, and the product has suffered as a result. Since my profession is reporting, I had a couple thoughts on the whole presentation of the paper. You can also read a past entry I did about my experience(s) with journalism here.

- The clueless upper level corporate management is something I've heard horror stories about, and it's completely accurate. On The Wire, they call all of the staff into the room to announce that because revenue projections weren't met, they would have to begin another round of buyouts.

At one of my first journalism stops, I actually saw this happen. It was one of the most painful things I had to sit through, especially since the meeting was held at a swanky yacht club. (Newspapers are wonderfully duplicitous like this.) The meddling nature of executive editor James Whiting (Sam Freed) I have definitely seen firsthand, and I cringed whenever he mentioned the "Dickensian" aspect of a story. I thought to myself, "What the fuck does that even mean?", a sentiment probably shared by the characters of the show. Managing editor Thomas Klebanow is portrayed as a sleazy mouthpiece of management as opposed to being concerned about putting out a good product, which also echoes for me.

There still is an emphasis on stories that elicit an emotion from a reader, as opposed to actually being about anything relevant. The best example is normally stories about animals. I've done plenty of these, and they always get a good reaction from readers, because hey, who doesn't like a story about a cute pet? However, almost any issue involving an animal is normally small fry as compared to what's going on with the budget or tax situation.

Also, with the now constant pressure of a 24-hour news cycle at some places, and as executive editors attempt to run newspapers like television stations, there is less opportunity to just breathe and stop (in the words of Q-Tip). A deep, investigative story should be the bread and butter for newspapers. Now, they're seldom done except around award time, just like the portrayal of the editors of The Baltimore Sun regarding the Pulitzer Prize.

- I've dealt with shifty reporters when I was the editor of The Good Five Cent Cigar, the student newspaper of the University of Rhode Island. As a result, I immediately had my suspicions about the BS reporter Scott Templeton (Thomas McCarthy) was spewing about the handicapped kid outside of the Baltimore Orioles game. In fact, shortly after I saw that scene, I sent an e-mail to my buddy Tom about it:


As his editor rightly notes, Templeton's stories are too good. Speaking as someone who talks to and quotes people for a living, almost no one is that well-spoken in an interview, unless they talk professionally for a living. While some light clean-up of a person's words is allowed at some shops (i.e. removing excessive "ums" and "uhs"), Templeton was obviously doing wholescale cribbing and plagiarism.

However, I do understand the reluctance of editor Augustus "Gus" Haynes in calling Templeton out on it. It's a serious allegation to make against a reporter, especially when he's the golden boy of the paper as in The Wire. I think people have a desire to want to believe a story - whether it be of a hotshot reporter or the homeless guy who's secretly a classical musician or millionaire - without really questioning it.

- The Baltimore Sun doesn't really come off that well in the show, but I think you could substitute any non-super local paper in its place and see similar problems. At least from the conferences and what not that I've attended, papers like The Providence Journal and The Boston Globe, and even The New York Times and The Washington Post, are all dealing with problems when it comes to market share and revenue.

David Simon, the creator of The Wire, mentions in interviews that the show is really about illustration how corruption taints organizations, whether it is the police force and drug dealers in seasons one through five, the shipping union in season two, politics in seasons three through five or reporting in season five. Or, as one of the characters so eloquently puts it on the show, "Shit rolls downhill."

Likewise, I think you can trace the decline of journalism to the corporate ownership of newspapers. At a certain point, newspapers became a commodity to be owned by a larger company, and expected to produce and expand like any other product. This always struck me as folly. If you're producing a Providence paper, then most editions simply aren't going to resonate with a reader in California.

It also didn't help that many reporters and editors simply refused to accommodate new technology intelligently. Giving away every story for free on the Internet was a stupid decision, however, using the web for photo slideshows and expanded coverage? That's an effective use of resources to me, especially if you're going to actually make the shitty sales people do something smart, like aggressively marketing those photos and making packages and what not that can be marketed.

- In a completely random note, the best pro wrestling blogger in the business writes for The Baltimore Sun. Check out Ring Posts by Kevin Eck here.

Inexplicable TV Review: The Wire (will possess your television and life for a week)

Note: Significant spoilers throughout this entry.

So, I managed to steamroll through five seasons of The Wire over the past week. It's not as sad as it seems, since there are only about 12 to 13 episodes per season, as opposed to LOST, which took me a couple weeks last summer and has sprawling seasons.

However, the shows do have one important thing in common - A large ensemble cast. LOST kind of lost its way (sorry) when it started focusing more on the "stars" of the show, like Matthew Fox (even though I loved him) and Evageline Lilly (meh) and that guy who plays Sawyer (maybe someday, he'll be known by his name as opposed to his character name).

In contrast, The Wire keeps the focus spread out, and it remains fascinating through five seasons. The quality level varies from a low of "really good" (the first half of season two, most of season five) and downright incredible (all of seasons one, three and four). Because of the show's focus on a large ensemble cast, it allows for multiple interwoven stories each episode. There are always some long, multi-episode arcs, mixed up with shorter arcs that are resolved in one episode.

The large ensemble also allows for different personalities to shine through. Touching on my favorites, Lester Freamon is quite possibly one of the coolest detectives ever. All he does is solve crimes, convince a stripper to drop that lifestyle and marry him, and carve miniatures that sell for hundreds of dollars. Lucky bastard. "Cuddy" goes from drug muscle to a boxing trainer - dude looks so much like Kimbo Slice that I looked him up on IMDB to make sure it wasn't him.

If the show has a "star", it's probably Domenic West as asshole detective Jimmy McNulty. The stress of the job normally has him destroying his personal and professional relationships in order to assert his own superiority. In fact, one of the best scenes of the show's run comes in the otherwise subpar by Wire standards fifth season. McNulty has made up a serial killer in order to get the police department more resources, an outlandish plot point in an otherwise ultra realistic show. However, the FBI does a profile of the serial killer, and it matches McNulty's character 100 percent.

Let's talk about the seasons, or specifically, why two of them are sub-par. Season two takes a bit to get going - The awesome unit from the first season has been disbanded, and it takes the story a couple episodes to get them back together. However, the final half of the season is awesome, as the shipping union tries to cover up its crimes, as Ziggy finally gets thrown in jail for being an asshole, and as we learn more about The Greek and his organization.

Therefore, it's definitely the last season that is the biggest letdown. McNulty going completely insane and fixing a case seems like such an outlandish step for his character to take. Also, seeing him bed random women and what not seemed like a step backwards, into the mess of the first two seasons. I think they should have just had him and Freamon doing an illegal wire without the mess of the homeless killer. Some of the other aspects - like the financial crisis in the department, and Marlo killing at will - also fell flat to me.

However, even a bad season of The Wire is still gripping to watch, and I have to admire the bravery of the show's creators and writers to not pull any punches when it comes to the characters. Just as you're really starting to like someone - Omar, Bodie - they get shot. Marlo Stanfield, the entire reason why McNulty and Freamon become ex-police, is a free man. The show is overwhelmingly cynical, but there are jussttttt enough satisfying moments to keep you interested. You know, like when Slim Charles kills the arrogant Cheddar in the final episode, or when Michael gets the jump on Snoop and kills her. (I totally agree with Steven King's write-up of the fourth season - Snoop and Chris Partlow are terrifying modern villains.)

So yeah. The Wire is definitely the strongest start-to-finish television drama of the past 30 years, with the caveat that I still have to watch through Homicide and The Sopranos. If you haven't seen it, prepare yourself to clear out plenty of free time to watch it, since it is addictive as hell. And tomorrow will be my entry about The Baltimore Sun and its presence on the show.

Delay, delay, delay! (Or, Steve struggles with technology.)

So, I actually drew the comic today. Of course, the scanner isn't working. Sorry about that, folks. In return, I'll be doing entries about The Wire tomorrow - One focusing on its depiction of The Baltimore Sun and another about the show itself. I'm classy like that, you know.

The duplicitous actors

Above, you see Amy Ryan from The Office. She plays the love interest of Michael Scott, and over the past couple years, she's been the best of all of his dates. You know, the sort of wacky, insane female match to his utterly insane character. However, in addition to playing Michael Scott's love interest on The Office, she also plays a harbor patrol cop in The Wire:


It reminds me of another actor, Omar Gooding. He first came up as a super colorful host of Wild and Crazy Kids:


And he progressed from that and roles on Hangin' With Mr. Cooper to being a drug-snorting nephew of Snoop Dog on the ultra-inappropriate ESPN show Playmakers:


Anyone else have some celebrity acting doppelgangers they like?

The first picture of Amy Ryan is from this site. The second picture is from here.

Getting hooked on The Wire (and McNulty and Freamon and Greggs)

Friends have been getting on me for months for not watching The Wire. I finally took the plunge last night, and immediately devoured six episodes. It is filling the hole in my viewing (and heart) LOST finally being over and done with.

Sure, it's only about eight years late. But still, it's a fascinating show because all of the various angles covered by it. Although the first season focuses mostly on the police and the police politics, there are also great scenes with the drug dealers and two addicts. The whole show is clad in layers of murky, morally ambiguous gray.

I'm trying to race through episodes as fast as I can, between work and other obligations - I'll be done with the first season in a couple days, hopefully. And at this rate, I can probably finish the show in about two weeks.