TV is the New Reading

Some shows headed for hiatus won’t be coming back

A lot of what I’ve been seeing is “following the Olympics,” or “coming in March” and “starting in April,” like “We’re riding out this current wave of disappointment,” or “Yes, yes, we know we’ve got to come up with five additional hours of primetime” or “We’re cancelling something, we just haven’t figured out what.”

At the same time, I’m hearing that more people than ever are watching television, when before it sounded like absolutely no one was watching television. Unless someone finally figured out how to count DVR viewership and individual downloads of individual episodes, and realized this wasn’t some mathematical formula they needed to devise so much as you can count every instance of every download because it meant that some viewer was watching it. It shouldn’t even be possible to use 1950s-style Nielsen ratings on a FLOtv.

Archer

I’ll start with something I’ve wanted to talk about for a couple weeks now, the new animated series on FX called “Archer.” I don’t know anything about its ratings or how well it’s doing, but storylinewise, it had me at Jessica Walter as Malory Archer, head of the International Secret Intelligence Service, or ISIS, and mother to one of the agency’s top spies, H. Jon Benjamin as Sterling Archer.

The show traces the many international adventures of Sterling Archer’s naughty bits along with Aisha Tyler as exgirlfriend and rival Lana Kane currently involved somehow with Chris Parnell as Cyril Figgis, with office gossip provided by Judy Greer as Carol or Cheryl or whatever her name is as the fetish-prone office throw pillow and Amber Nash as Pam a not 100 percent closeted bisexual in human resources, who says things out loud that maybe she’d prefer she had not.

It’s hard to imagine one’s tax dollars spent in any worse way than maintaining Sterling Archer in a James Bond lifestyle with an Inspector Clouseau talent except that I’m not offhand recalling ISIS accomplishing many of its objectives in an especially cost-effective manner. Mostly things are blown up, enemy agents are suborned and then turn once more, people are poisoned and coverups happen. Vast networks of espionage apparatus are misused to put together sex tapes and a lot of national dosh is spent following up on Archer’s dates with ... procedures.

Nip/Tuck

Talking of procedures, or just talking of talking, Wednesday turned in one of the last four episodes we’ll ever see of “Nip/Tuck” and they spent it ... talking. Longtime viewers already know that Julia’s in New York with Annie and Conor, Erica is in federal prison on drug charges, Kimber is (probably) dead and Matt’s out of prison and, as of this week’s episode, marrying Ramona, some chick who looks exactly like Emmy, the half-sister he had a fling with. Ramona has a high threshold for personal drama. She meets the dads, Christian and Sean, in a therapy session and the words “meth habit” are among the first she hears, along with “dressed up as a mime” and “armed robbery.” Charming. Well, at least there’s a good chance she hasn’t slept with any of his parents so here’s holding out some hope.

I liked hearing form Liz, albeit seven years later, that she wanted a buy-in to the partnership. How ambitious, but she’s involved anyway. Having miscarried a sperm donation from Christian, she’s now carrying Sean’s child, apparently because any random stoner in the park would’ve been too stable. After getting shot, mutilated, kidney-harvested, fired, rehired and married and acrimoniously divorced from Christian, along with all the drama in their offices generally, you’d think she’d run for the hills, but here she still is and pregnant as well.

And their couples counselor Dr. Griffin getting shot in the face might not have been the worst of his ordeal with these two. They came out and told him a couple of times they’ve committed murder and demonstrated the most passive aggression against each other. They’ve had a medical consult on the show since day one. It wouldn’t be a bad idea to have a psych consult as well. These people just aren’t behaving like people. We’ve seen everything we could possibly see in terms of contempt and anger and cruelty. Shouldn’t we also be seeing a little bit of warmth and compassion and humanity as well?

There’s three episodes left to close out the series, and they’ve been drawing out this goodbye unacceptably. Part one and part two of Season Five, a Season Six and now a Season Seven I mean just be done already. This week Christian confronts his abusive father. The next two weeks should be Ryan Murphy and Jennifer Salt explaining to the audience at home how we get from Ava Moore and the Carver to Matt marrying Kimber and selling meth and onscreen appearances by Xenu. Also how so many, many crimes have been perpetrated by these people and how they are not in prison -- mostly because they lie to the cops and no one bothers to follow up at all so they get away with it.

Well, the rollercoaster is nearly over, but we’ve been all screamed out for years, now. Bring us home so we can get off and leave already. More after this.

Mercy

Metacritic has “Mercy” among its top series on its way out. Not that I have any idea who Metacritic is, but they seem to deal in numbers and speculation. “Mercy,” as they say themselves, has been picking up a little speed but who knows where that momentum will lead once the Olympics are over.

And to be fair, I’ve wondered if I’m all up in Nurse Veronica’s soapy antics -- Jersey nurse Veronica Flanagan at Mercy Hospital came home from Iraq to find her hubby cheated on her, so when she returned to Iraq she cheated on him and then the object of her cheat followed her home and she’s been pining and hiding and cheating and pining and hiding and Mike’s left her while Chris walked away then the “I miss my friend” speech and a kiss and this is where we are now. And Nurse Sonia has been looking for that lottery win and seemed OK with just love for awhile but she wants the priviliged life and seems to be aiming for the heir of a rich client. I don’t know if I like this show or if it’s just the appearance of Kate Mulgrew as Veronica’s alcoholic mother and Michelle Trachtenberg as Nurse Chloe. Otherwise, it just seems to be “Grey’s Anatomy” Eastside and I don’t know that I need two of them. It’s pretty enjoyable, however, and I’ll watch them as long as they’re making them.

Ugly Betty

Finally, seconds after posting my thoughts on “Ugly Betty” recently I learned that the show was on its way out. Which is sad. I think “Ugly Betty” has done so much in the past few years in mainstreaming a homosexual image in a safe environment, and being a voice for people who might feel underrepresented in a primetime setting. It’s possible that we don’t have too long to wait before most shows have at least one gay main or recurring gay character who isn’t pigeonholed or stereotyped or only to be encountered in some cabana party context -- somehow so strange and exotic as to exist in some magical realm. But right now, the count isn’t high.

And it’s true, even in the context of this show, Michael Urie’s Marc St. James is a junior editor at a fashion magazine in New York City and Betty’s recently closeted nephew Justin, who went back in after being named homecoming queen at his high school, is all about the theater and Broadway, but the show also features one of literature’s only closeted straight men, Suzuki St. Pierre, who had to pretend to be gay to cover fashion, and in fact “Ugly Betty” has featured two of these creatures, and for the same reason -- a fashion designer who felt he had to pretend to be gay to be taken seriously in the world of fashion.

And all of this is not to take away from the Hispanic culture this show is based in. Betty Suarez is an eager young professional with multigenerational family ties in a home filled with cultural influences on a show celebrating images of black and Hispanic people seeking and earning success in their lives, breaking into publishing, starting their own businesses and running for office. Catholicism isn’t a significant priority for the largely secular show but you get the sense from sister Hilda’s lighting of candles and reluctance to end an inconvenient pregnancy that spirituality does carry some sway for these characters. Throw in the occasional clip from some over-the-top telenovela and you’ve got this show.

And I don’t think ABC helped it out any by moving it around on the grid this season, but for the most part, I’ve been willing to follow this cute little show around and enjoy the storytelling.

Heroes

One last point, I don’t know what Tim Kring was thinking when he ended Volume Five of “Heroes” with a glimpse of Volume Six. Season Five ended like Season Three began, with everyone running away and leaving it a cold, empty shell of itself and I don’t think anyone would have objected to the show coming to some conclusion, rather than Claire demonstrating her ability to the media and the world. The show has been wandering aimlessly for awhile and it wouldn’t have been a bad idea to just let it come to a close.

Oh well. “Archer” airs new episodes Thursdays at 10/9c and “Nip/Tuck” airs new episodes at 10/9c Wednesdays, both on FX. These shows carry MA ratings for excellent reasons so viewer discretion is advised.

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