THE HACK: cheap views on pop culture

Top Tens Shows of the 2010/11 TV Season

10. “The Day We Died” (Fringe)

 

Like the season one finale “There Is More Than One of Everything,” the final episode of season three manages to take the show’s sci-fi elements and bring them and the plot up a notch – a notch much higher than expected. For one thing, you have the episode itself which brings everything to a head, from the two worlds linking to Walternate getting his revenge. It’s amazing. But, it’s the final sentence spoken by an Observer at episode’s end that pushes everything over the top. Peter served his purpose? And, he’s been wiped from existence? This ending took balls.

9. “Threat Level Midnight” (The Office)

Michael Scott spent years making a movie. And, not just any movie. Threat Level Midnight is a work of pure cheese, made all the more enduring because Michael truly believed he was making something great. Terrible as the movie may be, it’s hilarious to watch. And, hilarious to watch others watching. Bonus Points: for bringing back former cast members, who acted in the film when they worked with/for Michael during the years he spent making it.

8. “iGet Pranky” (iCarly)

I’ve known about Nickelodeon’s second best show (after Victorious) since before the series premiere four years ago. I just never gave it a chance until last summer. I’ve been watching ever since, and this season’s best episode was the Spencer-centric adventure that has the loveable older bro of title character falling into his old habit of pulling pranks on people. Every moment in this episode is perfect.

7. “A Fistful of Paintballs” (Community)

Last year, I had “Modern Warfare” on this list. It was about paintball. Funny how this year’s list features another episode concerning paintball. Annie takes over, becoming a badass “gunslinger” and the driving force of the episode. Alison Brie has never been better, and the show is all the more better for it.

6. “Pilot” (Boardwalk Empire)

Martin Scorsese directed this first episode to HBO’s epic about prohibition and the individuals involved in taking the country in the direction it currently resides. Kelly McDonald, as the light in the life of main character Nucky Thompson (Steve Buscemi) deserves an Emmy for her work. Masterful.

5. “TGS Hates Women” (30 Rock)

A brilliant satire on how we treat women in comedy. Also, this episode introduces a worthy nemesis for Alec Baldwin’s Jack Rudolph in the form of Chloe Moretz. Her performance is as great as you’d think it’d be. Emmy for guest appearance? Possibly a nomination, I’d like to think.

4. “Alexandra” (Nikita)

The first season of this show told the story of Alexandra Udinov. It’s no surprise then that several episodes were dedicated to this character. “Alexandra” was the best among them. Sure, other episodes pushed the story along by leaps and bounds. Other episodes may have had more character development. This one though is a perfect 40+ minutes, focusing on the past and present of the character. It also helps that Lyndsy Fonseca brings the character to life in this episode in such a way that I believed every moment with her. If there’s any justice in the awards world (and there isn’t) Lyndsy will get nominated for Supporting Actress.

3. “Wherever I Go” (Hannah Montana)

Shows end. Most never get the chance to say goodbye. Some never get a proper goodbye. Over the last decade, a handful of shows have been given the opportunity to end on their own terms. Most of these ended well enough. But, only a few ended in a way that gave tribute to the show; that gave closure; that gave finality. Lost was one of these. Six Feet Under was another. Angel, The Shield, and Dawson’s Creek were others.

This season Smallville ended. After ten seasons. It’s last episode, aptly titled “Final” was good – at times great – but it was never going to feel like a last episode, because this show was never about the ending, even though it was. We wanted to see Clark fly and whatnot, but in the end, it was always going to lead up to something else. It was always going to simply be a beginning.

Disney Channel’s Hannah Montana had a final, truncated season. It had its ups-and-downs. The show’s finale, “Wherever I Go,” manages the proper tasks mentioned above and saves the show from the uneven final season.

Here’s the thing. It turns out the show was about two girls. One was named Miley Stewart, and she had a secret. She was a pop star named Hannah Montana. This was driving force behind the show. Most of the plots revolved around this.

The show was also about another girl: Lily Trescott. She was the best friend of Miley, and she was always a part of these crazy adventures. She was also a part of the stuff that didn’t involve Hannah Montana, like dating and family problems. And this, as it turns out, is what the show was all about. 

Four episodes before the show’s end, Miley revealed her secret to the world. The following three episodes addressed the fallout. The one-hour series finale involved one thing: two friends going their separate ways. And, make no mistake about it. Things don’t end happily ever after. This is Disney, so things were made to look that way, but re-watch that final scene. Get this: it never happened.

After an emotional goodbye at the airport (featuring an Emmy-worthy performance from Emily Osment), a montage shows the two girls on their own journeys. Miley is shooting a movie in France. Lily is getting situated at Stanford. The end of the montage has Miley on her balcony, deep in thought. We dissolve to the Stanford campus, where Miley shows up and tells Lily that she’s left her movie to go to college with her – her best friend. And, it’s this scene that never happened. It’s Miley’s wishful thinking. It’s what she wants to do but will never do. The two friends will always be friends but their lives have taken them to different places.

And, it’s this that makes the episode great for me. Instead of having the show’s final hour be about “the secret,” the showrunners decided to focus on the girls and their lives. We all had friends in high school. Some of us got to stay in touch with them. Most of us, though, had to say goodbye. “Wherever I Go” made the Disney Channel’s most ridiculous show real in the end, and that is quite the accomplishment.

2. “Entrada” (Fringe)

There has never been a more suspenseful opening to show. Peter finds out that the Olivia he’s been sharing a bed with for months is not the real Olivia. At first, he doesn’t know what to do. Then, he makes sure. Then, he tries to kill the imposter. But, she gets one over on him and escapes. This all happens before the first break. Amazing. Emmys for writing and directing, please.

1. “Homecoming” (Smallville)

“Finale” didn’t end up delivering the goods in the way this 200^th episode did, but that’s fine. In fact, the series finale is still good and completely watchable, but it’s this episode in which Brainiac 5 takes Clark on a journey of self-discovery that reminded me why I watched the episode in the first place. It managed to do what older episodes used to do so well – tell human stories while taking the Superman-mythos a step further. Seeing the future in this episode paid off great in “Finale.” Clark and Lois slow-dancing in the barn was pitch-perfect. Bringing back the first villain from the first episode was masterful. Seeing Lois wanting so badly to fit in was enduring and made me love her even more. Throwbacks to the Torch and the Wall of Weird was awesome. And, explaining Clark’s state-of-mind over the show’s past few seasons made sense and took the character to his final passage. “Homecoming” compliments “Finale” but because it was not given the task of wrapping things up the way finales do, it had no real reason to fail. Unless it was poorly written and directed. Thankfully, it wasn’t. This was the finest episode of Smallville since season seven’s Lex-centric “Descent.” For that alone it belongs here. In other words, it made me the fan I was years ago and prepared me for the end.

Achieving that makes it great enough to top my list of the best episodes of the 2010/2011 TV season.

The Journey of Miley Stewart [original post]

         

  Before you even begin to trace the steps of Miley Stewart’s coming-of-age journey, you have to first set up a timeline for the show and film. The first season, from “Lilly, Do You Want To Know A Secret?” to “Torn Between Two Hannahs” consists of Miley’s eighth grade school year. That’s easy enough. When we get to the second season, things begin to get a bit tough, thanks in large part to the writers strike that prevented the third season from being produced on time, making the second and third seasons take up longer amounts of time in the life of Miley. From the second season premiere “Me and Rico Down By the School Yard” to its eventual finale “We’re All On This Date Together” Miley is in ninth grade – there’s also some time spent during the summer. Here’s where things get complicated. In the third season, from “Ready, Set, Don’t Drive” to “You Give Lunch a Bad Name” (the first half of the season – 14 episodes), Miley is in tenth grade. School then ends and she goes off to film Indiana Joanie and the Curse of the Golden Cobra, leaving Lilly and Oliver to end up together. She returns to Malibu in “What I Don’t Like About You” and ends up on the S.S. Tipton a few weeks later in “Super(stitious) Girl”. School starts up again and Jackson goes away to college, as shown in the Hannah film. From “Once, Twice, Three Times Afraidy” to “Miley Says Goodbye?” Miley is in eleventh grade, Jackson returns to Malibu and goes to community college, summer comes along, and then the group starts twelfth grade. The fourth and final season of the show should consist of Miley’s final year of high school.

            Now, let’s break down the seasons. In season one, Miley adjusts to her double life, most likely just becoming a big star a few months prior to the first episode. Starting with the first episode, Miley begins to tell her friends, Lilly and Oliver, her secret. In turn, they too have to deal with Miley’s double life, sometimes being let down by her and sometimes enjoying the perks. Miley also begins a love/hate relationship with actor Jake Ryan whom she starts off despising (“New Kid in School”), starts to like (“More Than a Zombie to Me”), and nearly ends up with (“People Who Use People”) before the season ends.

            Season Two puts the trio in high school and essentially expands the world we already know. We get introduced to Miley’s deceased mother via dreams (“I Am Hannah, Hear Me Croak” and “The Way We Almost Weren’t”), Lilly’s mother (“Lilly’s Mom Has Got It Goin’ On”), and Uncle Earl (“(We’re So Sorry) Uncle Earl”). Jake returns and nearly wins Miley’s heart, until it’s decided that he needs some growing up to do (“Achy Jakey Heart, Part One and Two”). He returns again, this time with Miley realizing she herself has got some growing up to do (“That’s What Friends Are For?”). In this season, there is more and more of an emphasis on Hannah’s world and how it interacts with Miley’s.

            As the third season begins, Miley’s life starts to move forward. She gets her license, starts to handle more of her own money, but in the Hannah front, things start to look less fun than in previous seasons. She finds that being a role model is tough when her words get taken out of context (“Welcome to the Bungle”), she is told by her publicist to date a jerk-singer to sell records (“Cheat It”), and she discovers that her success has been taking its toll on her friendship with Oliver (“You Gotta Lose That Job”). Jake returns, only to pull a prank on Miley (as Hannah), though the two find that the spark between them is still there by episode’s end.

            As already stated, the school year comes to a close and Miley goes off to shoot a Rob Reiner movie. As she’s away, Lilly and Oliver realize that they have feelings for one another and begin dating. When she returns, she’s shocked but then comes to – sort of – accept it. A few weeks later, Miley, Lilly, and Robbie go aboard the S.S. Tipton to go to Hawaii to perform a concert. Miley loses a lucky anklet that her mom got her years ago before she died. This is the beginning of Miley’s transformation. In the episode “Super(stitious) Girl”,  Miley begins to question if she can still be Hannah. This is an important tie-in with the last time she questioned her double life and that was back in the beginning of season two with “I Am Hannah, Hear Me Croak”, also an episode dealing with her mother. It is subtlety hinted that perhaps being Hannah, and not simply being Miley, is Miley’s defense mechanism. After her mother died, is it possible she began to pull herself away from the world? Think about it. She has only two friends, both of whom she did not tell her secret to until some time after she began her double life. When her father begins to stray, she becomes hurt (“She’s a Supersneak”, “On the Road Again?”, and “Me and Mr. Jonas and Mr. Jonas and Mr. Jonas”). Even when it looks like she’s feeling out of the loop with her friends, she takes insanely drastic measures to keep them (“You Gotta Lose That Job” and “Joannie B. Goode”). Miley has abandonment issues stemming from the death of her mother at an early age. Hannah represents her mask, keeping her hidden from the world where she doesn’t have to lose herself with anyone.

            Although, there’s Jake. Of course, their relationship was never solid until the end of “He Could Be The One”. Even during that episode, Miley subconsciously tries to sabotage her love with Jake with someone she connects with as Hannah. She’s afraid that things will work out with Jake so she tries to hide behind Hannah and that world. With the help of her mother, via video, she’s able to overcome Hannah’s world and truly start her relationship with Jake. None of this is possible, though, without the events of the film.

            In the beginning of Hannah Montana: The Movie, Miley has begun to lose touch of her real life and has begun to put her Hannah world at the forefront of everything. She doesn’t see Jackson off to college and she shows up at Lilly’s birthday dressed as Hannah, causing Lilly’s buried jealousy to come to the surface. You can see it when she tells the tabloid journalist where Hannah came from. She’s angry at the attention Miley gets as Hannah. This was clearly Lilly’s day to shine and Miley takes it away from her. Robbie decides to take her back home to Tennessee, to Miley’s mother’s old home to get her back to her roots – not necessarily her country roots, but her Miley roots. He wants her to remember that she’s Miley and that Hannah is just a persona. Throughout the film, she does just that. There’s also a little romance, but to me the important part is, again, her mother. She sleeps in her mother’s old room and before the major reveal at the end of the movie, her grandmother gives Miley her mother’s necklace. This not only brings Miley to tears, it reinforces her struggle. (Also, receiving the necklace ties in with the loss of the anklet, which in the timeline occurred only a month or so before. So, it’s like Miley’s got her mother back with her, again.) When everyone’s she’s lied to and hurt is present in the audience during her concert at the end, something snaps in Miley. She realizes that being herself is more important so she reveals that she is Hannah Montana. However, it’s her fans and the very people she’s hurt that ask to be Hannah Montana. It’s a beautiful moment when looked at through this spectrum. She returns as Hannah, but not because she has to, but because those close to her, and her fans, wanted her to.

            From episode 17 and on, the third season has Miley putting her life before her Hannah world. In the episode “Promma Mia”, she makes the choice to take a nerdy boy to prom over doing a duet with David Archuleta. This is more than just Miley going on a pity date. This is Miley choosing her own world over Hannah’s. The same thing happens in “Can’t Get Home To You Girl” when Miley does her best to make it home for Lilly’s birthday, having ruined her previous one. All she thinks of in the episode is her best friend. Hannah is used, but only as a means to get home to Lilly.

            As for the season finale of season three, "Miley Says Goodbye?," well, it all comes to a climax. Miley's literal subconscious tells her that her heart belongs in Tennessee, and so she makes the decision to return to her old home. The thing is, that it is simply her old home. Malibu is where Miley belongs now. Isn't it? Well, that's the thing. Mirroring the finale of the film, Miley has another decision to make. While the first one dealt her choosing Miley over Hannah, this one is all on Miley. She must decide who she truly is on the inside. This is no longer about wigs, lying, or secrets. This is about her internal struggle for identity. In the end, she decides to really keep the best of both worlds. Her dad buys a ranch in Malibu. Something still does not feel right about that. Why? Because it is still about having the best of both worlds. By the end of next season, Miley must confront this ultimate choice. She really will have to choose. Will that mean the end of the Hannah personality? Possibly.

            Miley is a different person at the end of season three than she was at the beginning of it. With the episode "He Could Be The One”, she faced one last struggle with her Hannah identity. By the end of that episode, though, it’s clear that Hannah is just a means to an end. Because of this, it’s hinted that she cannot be Hannah forever. I predict that the fourth and final season will not only see Miley graduate from high school, it will also have her reveal herself to the world. Not only that, but the episode will consist of a dream where she will talk with her mother concerning this decision, and in the end she will finally make peace with her mother’s death, setting up a new stage for Miley’s life. She will say that she is Hannah Montana and will want to continue doing her thing but from then on as Miley. This will be the perfect ending, because not only does it reflect real life (Miley Cyrus moving on with her career as herself and not Hannah Montana), it provides one of those endings where it’s really only the beginning. "Miley Says Goodbye?" already points toward this. All that's left is to sit back and watch.

 

Screencaps by Mileyfans.net