J.J. Jareau and the case of the magical boyfriend from N'awlins.

In the last few years, as shows I loved have come, gone, and jump the shark, I've started investigating running series that I'd never picked up when they started. One such show is Criminal Minds, which Lianne recommended to me because I'm a sucker for a.) a good crime drama, b.) strong characters, c.) some psychological intregue, and d.) pretty boys. I watched the first two seasons in less than a week, all-told, and devoured the first half of the third season over my Christmas break. It was instant and nearly obsessive love.

Aside from the cases, though, I really felt drawn to the cast of characters. Even in their weakest moments, every one of them felt fleshed out and developed, from Elle (who I was glad to see go, and frankly, I always think a mark of a strong character is being able to hate them), to Spencer, to Hotch, Garcia, Morgan, Emily, and even Gideon. In a lot of ways, though, J.J.'s development was my favorite, mostly because of its subtlety. I spent half of the first season thinking that she was, to put it bluntly, a pretty blonde who served next to no purpose in the show. As time wore on, however, she was given clever slivers of personal development that slipped in almost unnoticed. By season three, I really liked J.J. and how she fit into the team.

And then, we had the writer's strike.

Now, this is not another instance of me raging against the WGA and talking about how the strike simultaneously saved and ruined television. That would be petty. However, while the strike was on-going, A.J. Cook--who plays J.J. on Criminal Minds--announced that she and her husband were pregnant. If the strike hadn't occured, the pregnancy might have been able to keep out of the show, because they wouldn't have been filming so late into the spring or starting to film the next season as early (that is, during the first few summer months). The show was clearly at an impasse: write Cook's pregnancy into the scripts, or have her spend half of season four hiding behind file cabients, desks, bags, coats, and other various "baby blocking" equipment (a la Mariska Hargitay).

They decided to write the pregnancy in.

I wasn't entirely sure how I felt about writing in the pregnancy. Part of me thought it would be an excellent chance for development and evolution in the character, but let's face it: the rest of me was cringing. There's always the risk in giving a character--any character--an in-show pregnancy that it will come off as artificial and lame. Truthfully, and especially in shows that spend as much time on cases as Criminal Minds and its ilk, there's a fine line between satisifying character development and overwrought melodrama (a la Law & Order: Special Victims Unit).

When the post-strike episodes began to air, then, I spent my time waiting for a reference to, if not the pregnancy, a boyfriend. Or, if not a boyfriend, some sort of tryst or affair. An interest in artificial insemination. An act of the Holy Spirit. Anything, really, to set off the pregnancy plot. I figured that, with seven episodes before the season finale, there would be some opportunity to set up J.J.'s coming bundle-of-joy properly.

The fourth episode in, Detective Will LaMontagne (first featured in a second season episode) appeared, quite literally, out of the blue to help the BAU and the Miami-Dade Police Department work on a case. This was all well and good. What wasn't? The sudden revelation that he and J.J.--who'd had some chemistry when they'd first worked together, yes--were entangled in a secret love affair that had started when they first met and now, a year later, was still going on.

What?

There was never any indication this was happening. To watch Will and J.J. in the first episode where they met was to watch the slow build-up of flirtacious fun, to this I will admit. But the episode was more than a year gone and without so much as one hint that J.J. was going to New Orleans literally every weekend. At the end of the episode, the other characters congratulated themselves for having had the relationship figured out from day one, but clearly their profiling powers are in the "Superman" range, because no viewer had a clue. And yes, I realize that there are "offscreen" moments that these characters clearly have with one another, but if they were going to drop this bomb, what about sort of pushing it towards the audience?

The next few episodes, though, were worse. From discovering the relationship between Will and J.J. to the season finale, where someone is probably dead (there was an exploding SUV, for pete's sake), J.J. shifts from a strong, capable woman to someone's wishy-washy girlfriend. She wants Will, then she doesn't. She wants to be with him, then she wants to break up with him. She wants to tell her colleagues about her pregnancy, then she doesn't. She wants to marry Will, but she doesn't, but she does only if he'll quit his job, but she doesn't want to quit hers, but she's torn between going into the field while pregnant and chasing down a bad guy to going back to the hotel and making sweet love to Will... You get the idea.

I'm all for character development. I don't want any character to stay stagnant, because that is simply bad writing. Even some of the baddies in Criminal Minds show remarkable, surprising amounts of growth. But for J.J., it's like a switch was flipped from "off" to "on" within ten seconds, and we lost her.

There's a moment where she and Will are arguing. I don't remember the full body of the argument, or exactly what is said, but J.J. suddenly throws what is basically an ultimatum at Will: give up your badge if you're serious about me and the baby. She does it in part because Will thinks she shouldn't be diving face-first into streets filled with a killer gang, but it just goes to show how absolutely self-centered and ruined J.J. has become. She won't give up her own job and believes she shouldn't have to, but this man she supposedly loves does. J.J., who calls these people she works with her family, who has literally killed for them, turns into a petty high school girl: "I don't wanna unless you will! So there!"

It's just sad.

At the end of the season finale, an SUV explodes, and we know it has to belong to one of the cast members. All of them except Hotch is in one of the black monstrosities. Recently, a promo pictures of Hotch standing over J.J., who is lying prone on the street, was released. I know it sounds awful, but I hope it was her.

It's the only way to save her character and, maybe with it, that entire storyline on the show.

I can't get no satisfaction.

The last couple weeks of television have been rough. Let's just admit it together, now: the strike crippled TV as we know it and now we're all struggling to catch up. I think this is especially true with serious character dramas, like House, MD. Sorry, fans, but Grey's Anatomy doesn't actually have character development to be affected, nor does Two and a Half Men or Law & Order, but House and its ilk does. You can feel when you watch that the writers and producers are working with half time and thusly trying to shove all they can into a few short episodes, which means it ends up feeling false. House doesn't know, at least in what we've seen, that 13 is bisexual. Since when have Chase and Cameron still been together? And don't get me started (again) on Amber and Wilson.

With the season finale being a week away and Amber's mysterious illness building to its conclusion, I am pondering not the season but rather the series finale. A friend of my feels that it's "unfair" that Amber should get sick and (possibly) die, because it's already a show about misery and someone (Wilson) deserves a happy ending. I argue that the misery is the best part of the show.

In fact, I would argue that it's so much the best part--and so integral--to the show that there are only three ways the series can actually end without being the least satisfying piece of tripe imaginable. And here they are.

1. House dies.
   The cyclical nature of the season finales have worked this way thus far: House loses someone he loves (Stacy); House gets hurt (shot); House loses someone he loves (the fellows resigning or getting fired); House gets hurt (bus accident). House puts himself in some of the most ridiculous and dangerous positions imaginable and never seems to expect that he'll die or almost die. There's also the argument that with episodes like "97 Seconds" (House electrocutes himself to see if there's anything "there") and "House's Head" (House self-medicates and goes into cardiac arrest), his self-destructive behavior is amping up. I don't think it's too much of a stretch to imagine a finale in which House dies. It could be in the tireless pursuit of knowledge and a cure for a disease, but I think it's more likely to happen that he destroys himself. House is surprisingly adept at putting himself in danger, and wouldn't it be just like him to get in a bad motorcycle accident and be lying in a coma while the team has to scramble to save the half-diagnosed patient of the week? The patient lives, House dies, and the show ends (in a way) as it began. It is, after all, the pilot in which House gives his "dying isn't dignified" speech. It would be a strong coda to the show, too.
   
   
2. Wilson or Cuddy dies.
   The cyclical nature of the season finales being as they are, House could possibly lose someone he cares about. But who does he care about? The two people he most is connected to and cares about are his two close friends: Wilson and Cuddy. The fellows dying would be bad but not necessarily touch him the same way losing either of these two would, and in the same way, I don't think there's going to be an emotional connection to any new character in the next few seasons that will rival the connection he has to these characters. I'd go beyond calling it unlikely to calling it "impossible."
   But if House is going to be affected by a death, anyone's death, it's going to end up being either Cuddy or Wilson. Frankly, I think that Wilson is a more likely candidate. Cuddy and House are close, but not like House and Wilson. If House is going to lose someone who he cares about, Wilson will be this person. It may crush House worse than anyone else he knows--it may be worse for House than his own death--but it's a possibility. Especially since I get the feeling that House is very much the kind of person who "don't know what he's got 'till it's gone."
   
   
3. It's all a dream.
   In "Three Stories," arguably one of the best season one (or perhaps overall) episodes of the series, we discover that House underwent surgery for his infarction after he was put into a drug-induced coma. From the point of view of the show, he comes out of the coma with his injured leg, but as we watch the show, we realize that "time is not a fixed construct." The show slides through time almost fluidly, when three months and three minutes can all take place in the same episode. It's never been perfect reality. Plus, we get to see inside House's psyche several times ("No Reason", "House's Head", even "Three stories" to an extent) in a way that no other show does. It's entirely possible, perhaps even logical, that he could still be in the coma and this reality we see as the viewer is actually the drug-induced reality of House's head. We know what his mind is capable of. Why would this not be a expanded a few beats further into it being all one giant, drug-induced dream? Reality is not a fixed construct in the House universe, either.
   

It's not that I want my show to end. It's not that I like thinking about the series finale. But I think, in a way, the show is edging along a terrifying cliff. Finding a satisfying ending is going to be a challenge, but there's no room for "happily ever after" in a show that is about, in its essence, misery.

It's just the level of misery we find at the end to mitigate the misery we've had from the start. Maybe it won't be warm and fuzzy, but it will be a little less frigid. At this point, that's the best we can hope for.

Welcome to the digital age, television.

The Writer's Guild of America strike this past winter annoyed me. There, I've said it. As a creative mind and a writer, myself, I understand the WGA's position and I am never going to stand up and beat my chest about money-grubbing writers when I know far well that they do not get paid the wages they probably deserve. I will not, however, stroke the corporations behind these shows for standing their ground and throwing the television industry as we know it a monkey-wrench that destroyed the gears for the better part of a season.

My issue is with the internet.

Ah, yes. The internet. That mystical place where media is available at a single keystroke or click of a mouse. I'm not sure why it took until the tail end of 2007 for the internet to become a hot-button issue for television studios, producers, writers, and consumers. I have friends who have been using the internet--perhaps less legitimately than we would like--to view and collect television episodes and full movies since I was in high school. We're talking as early as 2000 here, folks.

But now, and for the first time, the year 2007 was the year of streaming full episodes, web-only content, AppleTV, and the iEverything. iPhones, iPod Touches, and even iPod Classics were able to hold gigabytes of visual media and play it through (rather than hold the gigabytes but only have three or four hours of viewing time). Every major network offered at least one of their major primetime hits as streaming media online with minimal commercial interruption. "Webisodes" (don't look at me; I didn't coin the term) popped up in just as many places. A few networks even piloted web-based shows. Entire television shows, available only online! I'm not making this up. Moreover, iTunes surged into its greatest popularity ever. American Idol (yeah, them again) hooked in with iTunes, and while NBC pulled all its content from the system, most other stations doubled and even tripled the content that was available to the public via the iTunes store. iTunes was actually lauded as saving a few "bubble" 2006-2007 television series--most notably the NBC comedy 30 Rock--because it gave viewers the opportunity to try on one-episode mid-season and decide if they were interested.

Factor in YouTube--which became a breeding ground for television clips that then companies like Viacom had to fight to be removed from the site--and you got a banner year for media, the internet, and our techno-savvy culture.

One of the touchstones of the strike was the fact that writers wanted to be given royalties for online and iTunes content. I suppose I understand this. If you're to be paid every time a rerun is shown, a streaming episode seems to count to me as a rerun. Whether it should be a flat rate or per viewer, I'm not sure. In the same way, an iTunes download should possibly count as a DVD purchase and not a rerun, but there's still the issue that the writers deserve their due. I'm not going to deny that.

But I have to wonder: how was this not anticipated at all in the last ten years? I'm all for crossing bridges when you come to them, but it seems that in 2007-2008, both the studios and the writers glanced down, realized they were on a bridge, and then went, "Oh no! We didn't discuss toll rates!" This volume of internet media is new, yes. The concept of internet media is not, and considering that You (and YouTube, to an extent) was Time magazine's "person of the year" in 2006, I would think television would have braced itself for this change.

I'm all for internet media. Personally, I'm an internet junkie. (Exhibit A: I have a blog.) But hand-in-hand with internet media comes anticipating the next step. In this entire process of the writer's strike, I often just felt that both sides--the networks and the writers--were being very short-sighted. Technology moves faster than a conversation penned by Aaron Sorkin. We need to be ready for it, or more than just our television series could crumble. After all, this is the digital age. Welcome to it.

(And if you don't get the Aaron Sorkin reference, I'm going to be sad.)