Author: John Paulsen (Page 32 of 79)

When product placement goes too far…

September 29, 2008 /

Movies and television have been using product placement for years. For a kickback from the manufacturer, the product appears onscreen and usually fits within the context of the scene. For example, someone might be working in an office, and there’s a FedEx envelope or a can of Coke sitting on his desk. This type of product placement makes sense and can even add to the realism of the scene. (It’s less distracting to have a can of “Coke” than a can of “Cola” that is made to look like a can of “Coke.”)

Anyway, with DVRs creeping into more and more households, advertisers (and television producers) are getting more and more aggressive with their product placement since they know many of their viewers are simply skipping the commercials. It’s a fine line between having reasonable and distracting product placement. If the CSI unit pulls up in a Toyota truck, that’s okay, but what the folks on “Eureka” are doing is ridiculous.

This season, “Eureka” started a joint campaign with Degree deodorant to shoehorn its logo into (seemingly) every episode. Most recently, there was the episode where Sheriff Carter kept living the same day over and over and, you guessed it, he kept pulling a stick of Degree out of his medicine cabinet. And it’s not like the stick is just sitting there in the background. The first time he pulled it out, we were treated to a two- or three-second closeup… of a stick of deodorant! Then there was the episode where Zane was working in his lab and Fargo came to him with a favor. Mysteriously, there was a stick of Degree sitting on Zane’s desk. Once again, we were treated to an inexplicable closeup. Later in the same episode, there was a scene in a larger room and in the background there were metal crates with the Degree logo on the side.

When does it stop? The shoehorning of the Degree logo into every episode has become a joke between me and my wife, and we’re seriously considering dropping the show from our watchlist because the product placement is so cheesy and distracting. Moreover, I’m actually less likely to buy Degree deodorant because the product is ruining a good show.

And I’m not alone in this. TV Guide’s website posted a jeer from one of its readers.

Jeer to Eureka, one of my favorite shows, for indulging in product placement. This season, the producers apparently came to an agreement with the makers of Degree deodorant to display their logo at every opportunity. Not only is it disappointing, but it is annoying, and distracting to deal with in an otherwise quality show.

In the associated poll, 45% agreed with the jeer, 15% disagreed, while 40% said it was a “Jump the Shark” moment.

In total, 85% of respondents find the product placement distracting. So is it worth those extra advertising dollars if you’re irritating 85% of your audience?

Doubtful.

External Entertainment, External TV, TV, TV Comedies, TV Dramas, TV Sci-Fi

Prison Break 4.5: “Safe and Sound”

September 23, 2008 /

This was a rather enjoyable episode that was pretty light on “You Must Suspend Disbelief” moments and featured both Michael and Mahone completely in their elements. In a few short hours, Michael had to plan a break-in into a federal building and figure out a crafty way to drill into a safe. I’m not sure what’s going to happen when Don’s new lunch partner sees the big hole in his wall, but one would think that it would quickly lead back to Don, who was rather obvious about his desire to eat out. My guess is that we don’t hear anything of it – the creators will just assume that we’ll forget about that hole. Oh well.

Meanwhile, it was great to see Mahone back in the law enforcement game. It all started with a powerful scene with Callie Thorne (who one of my favorites from her work on “Rescue Me”). “Prison Break” isn’t known for its strong acting, but Thorne and William Fichtner are top notch and that scene in the diner was one of the best of the entire series run. She’s obviously torn up about the murder of their son, and the one thing that drove her nuts about Mahone is the one thing she can count on right now. Mahone is going to find Morpheus and make him pay.

It’s clear that Trish Ann (the secretary at the Gate Corporation) is this season’s eye candy. She and her ample bosom have put the screws to T-Bag, and it’s always fun to watch him squirm. It doesn’t look like 3% of his future commissions is going to go very far, however. She would have been better off getting a piece of his bonus check.

We discovered that Michael had nosebleeds when he was 13, so his unknown illness is something that he’s had for some time. I’m not sure how this is going to fit within the season-long storyline, but it’s possible that it will be used at some point to throw the whole Michael-and-Sara-sail-off-together dream into major uncertainty.

“So will it be the red pill or the blue pill?”

Lastly, Gretchen busted out of prison! I’m going to make a wild prediction and say that she’s going to eventually become an ally to the Brothers. At a meeting at some point in the future, Linc will look at her suspiciously, but Michael will convince him that trusting her is the right thing to do.

I’m pleased with how this season is turning out. Instead of one long breakout, it’s a week-by-week set of challenges in diverse environments. Season One and Season Three were a bit claustrophobic at times since (pretty much) the entire cast was stuck in either Fox River or Sona. It’s especially compelling to watch Mahone in action (even more so considering his motivation), so let’s hope that he doesn’t find Morpheus too quickly. It would be a shame if that match flickered out before its time.

External Entertainment, External TV, Prison Break, TV, TV Action, TV Dramas

Prison Break 4.4: “Eagles and Angels”

September 16, 2008 /

Given the number of times that Michael and Sara used the phrase, the name of this episode should have been “One Day,” but obviously the writers are trying to make a point about how the series should eventually end – the carrot on the proverbial stick, if you will. And in this scenario, the audience is the mule/horse. Sometimes being a fan of this show feels like being a beast of burden, but this episode was relatively headscratcher-free, aside from Sara’s ponderous decision to have her credit cards exposed for the skeezy barfly to conveniently swipe, which (apparently) is the only way that Morpheus would be able to find the gang. Sara gets a pass since she wasn’t thinking straight, mourning the death of her friend and all. Heck, I give her credit for not downing that double bourbon, though the bartender gets an assist. (That bar scene was a nice piece of acting by Sarah Wayne Callies, by the way. It’s good to have her back in the fold.)

I also question the convenience of Gretchen being held somewhere in L.A. That’s a little contrived. She’ll eventually escape and cause a ruckus, no doubt.

Speaking of obvious future plot twists, with the death of Don’s whistleblower, it’s clear that the gang will eventually need to enlist the aid of T-Bag, since he (ponderously) is risking life and limb to infiltrate the Gate Corporation posing as the company’s top salesman. Apparently, this is somehow a part of the Scylla puzzle; methinks that the corner office is important so that the gang can either drill up or down into an adjacent floor.

Back to T-Bag – I was really looking forward to his first meeting with his supervisor, but that was fairly anticlimactic. However, I’ll give you three to one that he’s sliding up next to that well-endowed secretary in the next episode or two.

There was a nice moment between Linc and Bellick after the two had clashed earlier in the episode over Bellick’s constant naysaying. Bellick stepped up and stabbed the Company henchman, effectively saving Linc’s life.

We had another taste of foreshadowing with Michael’s bloody nose. He’s clearly suffering from some illness and it will either come up later in this season or at the end, when they’re setting up Season Four. Whatever the plan, I hope Fox allows the series to end on its own terms, or at least gives the creators enough notice so that they can end the show properly. I know it’s premature to talk about this, as the show is considered a “hit,” but it has happened time and time again to other series, and the conclusion of “Prison Break” needs to be protected. We’ve invested too many goshdarn hours in this show only to have them pull the rug out from underneath us.

Anyway, two cards down, four to go, and Morpheus is hot on the gang’s trail.

External Entertainment, External TV, Prison Break, TV Action, TV Dramas

Prison Break 4.3: “Shut Down”

September 9, 2008 /

I couldn’t place it last week, but Wyatt (the company’s hitman who is trying to track down the Brothers) seems to be channeling Laurence Fishburne from “The Matrix” series. So, from now on, I’m going to refer to him as Morpheus.

Now that that’s out of the way, let’s move on to the episode, which was actually a little bit of filler. As Don (the FBI agent) struggled to keep the operation alive, Michael had to break into an internet hub in Anaheim to retrieve a couple of emails (because Roland’s stealth data collector just happened to run out of hard disk space as it downloaded those emails). Anyway, with Sara in trouble at the front desk, Michael pulls the fire alarm to create a distraction. He returns to the server room, and he and Roland get trapped there when the room is locked down. The two almost die because all of the air is being sucked out of the room to prevent the servers from burning. Now it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense that the server room locked down after Michael returned, but hey, this is “Prison Break.” Lincoln does what he does; he grabs and axe and smashes the window, freeing his brother and the “douche.”

At the beginning of the episode we were treated to a shot of Don twiddling with his wedding ring and a later shot of him gazing at his wife’s photo, so count on his marriage coming up later on. (Maybe “The Company” killed his wife?)

Morpheus now knows that the Brothers are in Los Angeles. For some reason Bruce (R.I.P.) knew they were in L.A., but he didn’t know where. Other than a convenient plot device to get Morpheus to the City of Angels, why would Bruce know where they were? Doesn’t that knowledge only put them in danger?

T-Bag’s idiotic “blood feud” has brought him to Los Angeles and now he’s trying to get a bonus check from the Gate Corporation. God only knows what’s going on there.

This week’s “you must suspend disbelief” moment goes to Mahone, who somehow knew (before the team had even acquired the emails, mind you) that the meeting of the six Scylla cardholders would take place at a power plant in Newport Beach, so he asked his former partner to hide the files he requested within walking distance of the power plant. Either (a) Mahone knew where the meet would be or (b) it was a totally lazy (or overlooked) plot progression that the writers must have assumed that the audience wouldn’t notice. All they had to do was show him driving off in the stolen cab, and have the drop point at some location other than the powerplant/docks (that don’t exist in Newport Beach, by the way), and this would have been totally reasonable. Sometimes I wonder if the creators watch the episode before it airs or if they even think about these things as they’re shooting (or as they’re writing the script).

Anyway, the gang now has video of all six Scylla cardholders, so the operation is back on.

External TV, Prison Break, TV, TV Dramas

Prison Break: “Scylla” & “Breaking and Entering”

September 2, 2008 /

Well, “Prison Break” is back for a fourth season, and it’s sort of a blessing and a curse. There’s no doubt that it’s an entertaining show, and its return marks the beginning of the fall season. But I’ve been using my brain this summer, and it’s hard to turn it off for two hours while “Prison Break” gets set up for this season’s storyline. How contrived is this show? Let me count the ways…

1. Sona burned down and Bellick, Sucre and T-Bag escaped. Think about this for a second. Sona was a big square building with a fence around it. If the building catches on fire, the inmates would just run out into the fenced-in yard surrounding the prison. If any tried to climb the fence, they’d be shot by the soldiers in the towers. So how do not one, not two, but three main characters escape the prison?

2. Lincoln kills a man in Panama. All right, this is a little more believable, but he was right there in public and any number of witnesses (including LJ and Sofia) would have seen the struggle and the eventual accidental murder. He gets 15 years yet Don (played by Michael Rappaport… Michael Rappaport!) is able to “swing a deal” to allow Linc to serve his time in the States.

3. This whole “Ocean’s Seven” thing they have going. Don is working a covert operation and he needs Michael to acquire “Scylla” to take down the Company, and he’s going to give him the manpower to do it. Not trained professionals, mind you, instead he’s going to provide – you guessed it – guys like Sucre, Bellick and Lincoln. These guys have mad skills in covert ops.

4. T-Bag is going to leave his sexy nun because he has a “blood feud” with Michael. T-Bag has $50 K from Luchero and a hottie Panamanian girl that seems to love him despite his handicap and his general creepiness. Why leave all that to pick another fight with a guy who has outsmarted you time and time again? What’s the upside here?

5. Sara is alive. Boy, this one really got me. During the entire run of the third season, I watched and waited for some clue, some tiny little hint that Sara might still be alive. I was slow to accept her death because I believe that her romance with Michael is the real heart of the show. But finally, when no discernable clues or hints ever came, I eventually accepted that she was gone. NOPE, SHE’S BACK! (And luckily I missed the news that Sarah Wyane Callies was returning to the show.) She somehow escaped Gretchen’s clutches and made it back to America in one piece. Now, I have no problem with the thesis that Gretchen faked Sara’s death, but the story of her escape is implausible and the fact that there was no hint that she still might be alive is proof that this is something that the creators came up with during the hiatus (or very late in Season Three). Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad she’s back, but this seems woefully thrown together.

I could go on, but those are the major head-scratchers.

So now what? Once again, “Prison Break” has spun off into a completely different direction. Michael, Lincoln, Sara, Sucre, Bellick, Mahone and some tech genius named Roland have to acquire the six parts of Scylla and break into the Company’s headquarters in order to secure their freedom. Gretchen is still alive (I’m sure there will eventually be some emotional confrontation between her and Sara) and Michael is bleeding mysteriously from his nose.

Oh, and don’t forget, there’s still a lot of money sitting at the bottom of that Panamanian bay. Clearly, the producers are hoping we forget that little fact because surely Lincoln would have collected the loot once the escape was over.

Lastly, one thing I noticed was that the show was quite a bit funnier than last season. Here are a few of the better lines:

Bellick and Sucre getting caught at the hospital…

Bellick: “We’re screwed!”

The group discusses Roland’s background.

Michael: “He’s an identity thief.”
Lincoln: “He’s a douche. Hey, why don’t you sit in the corner and we’ll get you when we need you.”

(By the way, I think “douche” is one of the funniest words in the English language. I want a sound clip of Lincoln saying “he’s a douche” to play every time I get an email. That’s how funny I thought that line was. In fact, I’m still laughing as I type this.)

Mahone catches up to Bellick, who supposedly stole the maid’s bag.

Mahone: “I actually had to slow down not to catch you.”

(Is it just me, or would it have been easier just to have Sara meet the maid at the bus stop again and tell her that she might have accidentally dropped her cell phone in her bag when she was looking at it? No, no, of course not. What am I thinking? The double break-in was totally necessary.)

T-Bag comes across a couple of four-wheeling Americans just after becoming a cannibal.

Dude on four-wheeler: “What’s wrong, man? Eat some bad Mexican?”

Ba-dum-bump-tish!

External Entertainment, External TV, Prison Break, TV, TV Action, TV Dramas

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