Whatcha Watchin? (2020)
Dec 10, 2020 11:36:12 GMT -8
Post by Jay on Dec 10, 2020 11:36:12 GMT -8
I've reached the end of my months-long slow-watch of Northern Exposure. I have also discovered why it streams nowhere: The creators don't want to pay again for music licensing rights, nor do they think it's appropriate to replace any of the songs used in Chris' regular radio program. Good to know.
I feel that it's a shame that it doesn't get the greater.... exposure?... perhaps that it deserves and that it's been largely forgotten outside of its brief time in the sun, coinciding roughly with Seattle's grunge movement (perhaps "in the rain" is more apt). It brings in a certain element of magical realism that it's hard not to find charming, with regular dream sequences that no one dares dismiss entirely, or mystical happenings around town, such as Chris' early reunion with his literal brother-by-another-mother coinciding with an artistic dry spell and a show from the northern lights. It's also surprisingly erudite, which I think is one of the running gags that serves it well. Outside of Chris and his thing for Jung and Campbell, there's all sorts of classical mythology references (Shelley walking in on a grotto meet-up of bad mothers in history), a panic about the effects of climate change and chemicals that seems both nostalgic and depressing, and the fact that Ed knows nearly everything about cinema despite being in his early twenties, a quirk curiously shared by many of his tribesmen. The collective quest to find one's purpose or sense of calling remains a theme throughout and the show manages to do it with some surprising sensitivity to the indigenous folks nearby, although it must be said that outside of Ed, a half-white foundling played by a white guy, and Marilyn, who is famously laconic though given to end-of-episode speechifying, there aren't really primary cast who are themselves natives.
The more spiritual, less material foundation serves its "fish out of water" premise comfortably enough, but you realize a season in or so that Joel is never going to develop nor shake his "View of the World from 9th Avenue" take on the world. There are bits in earlier seasons, but he seems mostly determined to cover his ears and talk over passers-by even as they hold forth on art and philosophy and matters of good taste. It's interesting for two reasons, the more obvious one being Rob Morrow's famous hold-out that left him being phased out in the second-half of the show's run. The fact that he doesn't develop and remains miserable by his own determination leaves him as something of a heel in the show. Even Maurice, who resembles all the older military men I've met in my life in that you don't know when a racial slur will casually slip out, has his moments of tenderness. Joel mostly refuses to accept anything as good enough and in that, begins to blur with his actor in the writing: They both seem like leads in billing, but neither seems to realize that their draw for the larger audience is watching them get knocked down a peg or three. The other reason more plainly ties to the historiography of television, which is that in a moment like ours where inexplicable turns by characters are mercilessly dissected online, Northern Exposure and its shift to a late-night spot somehow gets omitted from discussions. If anything, Joel's last-minute 180 where on the heels of proposing to Maggie, he has a breakdown and flees for a small fishing village where he reinvents himself as a man calmly attending to the details of each moment, is one of the premier cases of it. This particular turn, narrated in flashback, is made all the more egregious because even though Maggie's primary hang-up throughout the whole series has been her belief that she's causing the death of her boyfriends through her own bad fortune, she conveniently ignores that core character trait for forty-five straight minutes and seems to find it all rather amusing and kinky that guns keep going off in Joel's vicinity.
Then again, Joel is mostly the show's star in a nominal sense, and the relationship with Maggie the tomboy, heiress bush pilot given to go off on feminist rants is really something of a classic "will they or won't they" Macguffin. It comes into its own more as an ensemble piece between the jailbird philosopher Chris, the libertarian general store proprietress Ruth-Anne, Ed in two worlds of cinema and shaman life, Holling as the trapper-turned-bartender along with his perky metalhead teenage bride in Shelly, and Maurice with his constant scheming on how to turn this small corner of Alaska into a multi-industry empire. We even have late introductions of the dome-dwelling hypochondriac Mike Monroe and (my favorite), the Wall Street financier turned trapper Walt Kumpfer, who slips into the show and gradually stokes a romance with Ruth-Anne in a process so slow, it probably deserves to be spoken of in the same breath as Oz fitting into the main cast of Buffy and other such later additions. The characters are the main source of delight, even as the writing starts to droop in the fifth and sixth seasons, and the irregular guest stars like Adam, Officer Barbara Semanski, Rabbi Schulman, Cal the Violinist, and Ron and Erick over at the bed and breakfast are all delights when they manage to show up. The show has its inconsistencies and slip-ups in continuity, things air out of a seasonal order and they give up entirely on the white night summers and all-dark winters in the later years of the series. Still, overall, it's rarely bad and manages to sail through the kind of gimmick episodes (CHRIS LAUNCHES A PIANO WITH A TREBUCHET) that would normally doom other series.
I feel that it's a shame that it doesn't get the greater.... exposure?... perhaps that it deserves and that it's been largely forgotten outside of its brief time in the sun, coinciding roughly with Seattle's grunge movement (perhaps "in the rain" is more apt). It brings in a certain element of magical realism that it's hard not to find charming, with regular dream sequences that no one dares dismiss entirely, or mystical happenings around town, such as Chris' early reunion with his literal brother-by-another-mother coinciding with an artistic dry spell and a show from the northern lights. It's also surprisingly erudite, which I think is one of the running gags that serves it well. Outside of Chris and his thing for Jung and Campbell, there's all sorts of classical mythology references (Shelley walking in on a grotto meet-up of bad mothers in history), a panic about the effects of climate change and chemicals that seems both nostalgic and depressing, and the fact that Ed knows nearly everything about cinema despite being in his early twenties, a quirk curiously shared by many of his tribesmen. The collective quest to find one's purpose or sense of calling remains a theme throughout and the show manages to do it with some surprising sensitivity to the indigenous folks nearby, although it must be said that outside of Ed, a half-white foundling played by a white guy, and Marilyn, who is famously laconic though given to end-of-episode speechifying, there aren't really primary cast who are themselves natives.
The more spiritual, less material foundation serves its "fish out of water" premise comfortably enough, but you realize a season in or so that Joel is never going to develop nor shake his "View of the World from 9th Avenue" take on the world. There are bits in earlier seasons, but he seems mostly determined to cover his ears and talk over passers-by even as they hold forth on art and philosophy and matters of good taste. It's interesting for two reasons, the more obvious one being Rob Morrow's famous hold-out that left him being phased out in the second-half of the show's run. The fact that he doesn't develop and remains miserable by his own determination leaves him as something of a heel in the show. Even Maurice, who resembles all the older military men I've met in my life in that you don't know when a racial slur will casually slip out, has his moments of tenderness. Joel mostly refuses to accept anything as good enough and in that, begins to blur with his actor in the writing: They both seem like leads in billing, but neither seems to realize that their draw for the larger audience is watching them get knocked down a peg or three. The other reason more plainly ties to the historiography of television, which is that in a moment like ours where inexplicable turns by characters are mercilessly dissected online, Northern Exposure and its shift to a late-night spot somehow gets omitted from discussions. If anything, Joel's last-minute 180 where on the heels of proposing to Maggie, he has a breakdown and flees for a small fishing village where he reinvents himself as a man calmly attending to the details of each moment, is one of the premier cases of it. This particular turn, narrated in flashback, is made all the more egregious because even though Maggie's primary hang-up throughout the whole series has been her belief that she's causing the death of her boyfriends through her own bad fortune, she conveniently ignores that core character trait for forty-five straight minutes and seems to find it all rather amusing and kinky that guns keep going off in Joel's vicinity.
Then again, Joel is mostly the show's star in a nominal sense, and the relationship with Maggie the tomboy, heiress bush pilot given to go off on feminist rants is really something of a classic "will they or won't they" Macguffin. It comes into its own more as an ensemble piece between the jailbird philosopher Chris, the libertarian general store proprietress Ruth-Anne, Ed in two worlds of cinema and shaman life, Holling as the trapper-turned-bartender along with his perky metalhead teenage bride in Shelly, and Maurice with his constant scheming on how to turn this small corner of Alaska into a multi-industry empire. We even have late introductions of the dome-dwelling hypochondriac Mike Monroe and (my favorite), the Wall Street financier turned trapper Walt Kumpfer, who slips into the show and gradually stokes a romance with Ruth-Anne in a process so slow, it probably deserves to be spoken of in the same breath as Oz fitting into the main cast of Buffy and other such later additions. The characters are the main source of delight, even as the writing starts to droop in the fifth and sixth seasons, and the irregular guest stars like Adam, Officer Barbara Semanski, Rabbi Schulman, Cal the Violinist, and Ron and Erick over at the bed and breakfast are all delights when they manage to show up. The show has its inconsistencies and slip-ups in continuity, things air out of a seasonal order and they give up entirely on the white night summers and all-dark winters in the later years of the series. Still, overall, it's rarely bad and manages to sail through the kind of gimmick episodes (CHRIS LAUNCHES A PIANO WITH A TREBUCHET) that would normally doom other series.