'Big Love's' Short Season Making Every Episode Feel Like a Finale

*Warning, spoilers ahead from the recent episode of Big Love.*

The recent episode of Big Love, "Next Ticket Out" had way too much of everything. The storylines leapt all over the place so that you couldn't really absorb what had just happened before something else monumental occurred. Everything seemed important because every storyline seemed to have heft: The new weirdness on the compound, the senate campaign, Barb's scuffle over Marilyn, Marilyn's crusade against Bill, Margene's marriage, Sarah moving to Portland, etc. And when everything's important, nothing's important. It was all just too much.

"Next Ticket Out," like the "Blood Atonement" episode which preceded it, are examples of how the quality of this once incisive and intriguing HBO drama has suffered because of the decision to reduce the number of episodes. Last season I could accept the fact that there were only 10 episodes because there had been a writers' strike. Big Love's first two seasons consisted of a dozen episodes a piece. However this season, there will only be nine, meaning that 12 episodes worth of drama has been crammed into a paltry nine, so much so that there's no room for any of the characters or storylines to breathe.

Big Love characters are racing all over the place that I wonder how they have time to do it all. They're going from Mexico (where rogue, violent polygamists detained some of the Henricksons in an ostrich cage and they escaped by slicing off one of the bad guy's arms), to Washington, D.C. (where Bill was lobbying a congressman for political support), to the family's new casino (they're always driving off there and always getting back home in time for dinner), to state political conventions, to TV interviews and debates, to the Juniper Creek compound and from one campaign scandal to another. There's no time to contemplate, no time to see the impact of the events on the characters.

Remember how long it took Margene to deal with her mother's death last season? There were several episodes of her being unusually quiet and withdrawn, followed by her private grief manifesting itself with her decision to dye her hair blonde. Soon after that, she started getting aggressive selling her jewelry and making something of her life. It was a natural, gradual progression.

But this season Margene kissed her teenaged stepson, who's had a crush on her, and admitted to Bill that she had romantic feelings toward Ben. Under normal circumstances, this would be a revelation of nuclear proportions and its effects would be long lasting. But instead, characters talked about it for roughly two episodes and then, poof, all that was over in a snap, forgotten and we've moved on to the fact that Margene married Bill's ex-lover's fiance to keep him from being deported. Sure, Ben was asked to leave the house by his father, but after Bill put his life on the line for Ben in Mexico, it's all water under the bridge.

And how about Nicki's betrayal of Henrickson family last season, where, under orders from her parents, she got a job working in the DA's office for the purpose of sabotaging her father's prosecution. Then she dated the DA when she was supposedly married to Bill. Such treachery should've had Nicki in the dog house a whole lot longer than she was this season. It didn't take long for her shocking behavior to be trumped by something else, like her dead father, or her mother being married off to her ex-husband or her saving her teenaged daughter from becoming the latest bride for a Juniper Creek geezer.

I could go on and on with the storylines that haven't gotten the treatment they deserved or seem to have been abandoned altogether:

-- The Church of Bill that, in the season premiere that Bill and Don were building. It's now just collecting dust? Bill has replaced religion with politics I guess.

-- The "firing" of Don Embrey as Bill handed his closest friend over to the media and publically outed him as a polygamist. What happened to him, to his family? And who's taking care of Home Plus while Bill's busy with a campaign, a casino, a baby mama, a kidnapping in Mexico, the state take-over of the polygamist compound's books and three wives?

-- Alby who fell in love with the Juniper Creek trustee, was the happiest he'd ever been. Now he's grief stricken in the aftermath of his lover's suicide. This storyline needs much more time than it's been given as Alby has been vacillating between being desperately sad and trapped to being evil, like assigning Adaleen to J.J. which has resulted in an Adaleen pregnancy and denouncing his sister as a whore.

-- Joey, who's gone nutty, killing Roman and then going after Hollis Greene and putting the lives of the rest of his family in danger. One minute he's smiling at his brother's campaign kick off event, the next he's holding a gun to Hollis Greene.

I get the feeling that next week's season finale will be so overloaded that it'll be anticlimatic. Every episode has felt so much like a finale, because something shocking has occurred in nearly every one, that there's no way that the ninth installment will feel special, unless of course the Henricksons go public about their polygamy.

As for the most notable storyline in the recent episode, "Next Ticket Out," that belongs to Barb who's being broken, bit by bit, by Bill's single-minded pigheaded narcissism. I blogged about "The Compromises of Barb" over on CliqueClack TV.

What did you think of "Next Ticket Out?" Do you think this fourth season has been too short, the episodes, too packed?

Ep. 42: Next Ticket Out - Recap

'Big Love's' 'Miracle' Pregnancy More Shocking Than Lois the Terrible

*Warning, spoilers ahead from the latest episode of Big Love.*

So there was a boatload of wildly insane moments in the latest episode of Big Love, enough nuttiness to go around for nearly every character. With a bounty of drama jam-packed into "Blood Atonement," two things topped my list:

1. Adaleen is pregnant.

As if last week's eeriely lit scene of Adaleen's wedding night to J.J., her former son-in-law (and father of her granddaughter) wasn't disturbing enough for ya, this week we learned that Adaleen is pregnant with his child. This means that Nicki's daughter, Cara Lynn, will be 15 years older than her aunt or uncle, an infant who'll also be her half-brother or half-sister. Kind of. Ick.

2. Lois can wield a machete with the best of 'em.

After running around trying to make amends with everyone held hostage in the room with her because she was certain she was going to be killed by the Greenes and would have to face God soon, Lois ultimately rose to the occasion. She came to the defense of her son Bill, something she wished she'd done when Bill was exiled from Juniper Creek when he was a young teen. Taking a machete from a nearby table, Lois dramatically sliced off Hollis Greene's arm as blood spattered across her face like something out of Braveheart and gave her family the chance to escape. Don't mess with Lois.

Ep. 41: Blood Atonement - Recap

To read my episode review of "Blood Atonement" on CliqueClack TV, go here.

What was your favorite/least favorite moment from Big Love this week?

Now a Contributing Writer at CliqueClack TV, Dishing on 'Big Love'

Whenever I talk to people about the pop culture work that I do on this blog and in my weekly columns at Mommy Tracked, I usually get asked, "How do you have time to watch all that TV?" My typical snarky response is, "I've given up sleep." (Hence my reliance on copious quantities of caffeine.)

Well now I've got one more reason to keep atuned to the TV landscape: I'm a contributing writer to the web site CliqueClack TV (CCTV), or, in the venacular of the site, I'm a "clacker." The web site creators describe CCTV this way:

"We're the clique that clacks about TV, so if you want to chatter about all things television, you've come to the right place . . . We like to think of CliqueClack TV as a playground for us writers to post about anything we want and to cover what excites us."

My current assignment there is to muse about HBO's fourth season of Big Love, among other subjects. My post about the recent episode of Big Love, "Sins of the Father," talks about how the eppy pursued two, parallel storylines this week: One about Bill Henrickson's public campaign to overcome the political baggage associated with his background as a "Lost Boy" who was exiled from the Juniper Creek polygamist compound when he was 14 and had to resort to some criminal behavior in order to survive (including being busted for assault). The second was about Bill attempting to handle the private fall-out from his recent decision to encourage his own teenaged son to leave the family home because Bill was threatened by the sexual attraction between Ben and Bill's third wife Margene, the one who kissed her step-son two episodes ago.

I found Bill's attempts to pretend he hadn't really asked Ben to leave the house utterly slimy, almost as slimy as asking Don Embry to take the fall for him and admit he's a polygamist in last week's episode. (Last week on CCTV I compared Bill to John Edwards.

For those of you who missed the latest episode, which was heavily centered around Bill's attempts to get his state Republican party's nomination for State Senate, here's HBO's brief recap:

Ep. 39: Sins of the Father - Recap

My favorite moments: The Ronald Reagan dance party, Nicki/Daphne/spy asking Bill why she's always asked to do the "morally ambigious" things (like spy on the rival GOP state senate candidate's campaign), Barb in the sweat lodge and Joey telling his brother that he's going down the wrong path. (What was up with Lois siding with and protecting Frank the Vicious? That puzzled me.)

What did you think of the recent installment of Big Love?

'Big Love' Implodes

*Warning, spoilers ahead from the recent episode of Big Love.*

There were so many stunning aspects to the latest episode of Big Love, "The Mighty and the Strong," that I can't decide which one took the cake as the weirdest, most over-the-top thread:

-- Margene and Ben (Margene confessed to Bill that she has non-maternal feelings for 18-year-old Ben, Bill agreed that his son should leave the family home -- which reminded me of the other boys who were sent away from Juniper Creek after they coveted older polygamist men's assigned spouses, plus Margene's painfully tearful rant on the home shopping channel about being "abandoned" by her husband which is CERTAIN to draw media attention, how could it not?)

-- Don the Doormat. (Poor Don Embry took the fall to preserve Bill's political career by outing himself and his family as polygamists so Bill's political rivals would back off claims that Home Plus was employing polygamists.)

Barb and the Casino. (She hit an Indian woman with her car, Barb's daughter Sarah was secretly caring for the woman's baby and was then reluctant to give the baby back to his meth-addicted mom on the reservation because she was still mourning her miscarriage from last season.)

J.J. and Adaleen. (*speechless*)

Love-struck Alby broke into a house and cooked dinner. (I cannot tell if Alby is playing this guy or wants to make a secret life with him, or both.)

What did you think was the weirdest element of the new installment of Big Love?

Ep. 38: The Mighty and Strong - Recap

Did Ya See 'Big Love'? Seriously . . .

* Warning . . . really big spoilers from the recent episode of Big Love ahead*

Ep. 37: Strange Bedfellows - Recap

That ending with Margene and Ben, her kissing him at the TV studio, the live TV camera shot of his stunned face as he was announced as "Mr. Margene Heffman." Well, in the words of the Henricksons, "Holy cow!" or, perhaps I'll invoke another one of their favorite exclamations, "Good night!"

After last season's declaration of Ben's love and desire for his step-mom Margene -- which she rebuffed out of hand during that family road trip from hell -- I thought that would be the end of the whole Ben-Margie flirtation. There was a bit of the flirtation way back in season one, when the two of them had a water fight in the pool and with the hose and Ben was staying over at her house and hanging around a lot. That all ended when Barb intervened and told Margie that Margie's behavior was inappropriate.

In the meantime, I've been waiting for Margie to act out in some fashion given that she has no friends, her two sister-wives are too preoccupied with other things and her husband's busy chasing down people to support his State Senate campaign. She has no one to talk to and was vulnerable. Remember the depression that plagued her at the end of last season after her mother died? That didn't just evaporate. And here she is, enjoying the most financial and career success of her life, and she's got no one to support her, cheer her on and say, "You go girl!"

Couple that with the fact that when she was physically threatened by Nicki's ex-husband J.J. -- when he pushed her aside and behaved menacingly -- it wasn't her husband or her sister-wives who rallied by her side, it was Ben who put himself between J.J. and Margie, and you've got a recipe for all sorts of drama.

Looking at those factors, it isn't totally shocking that this happened, that Margie stepped over that line as she reached out for an emotional connection with someone (and he happened to be there), although the way in which it happened, in public and with a TV camera, was jaw-dropping.

HBO hosts Margene's blog on its show's web site and on it the character said, in a post entitled, "I Messed Up. . .:"

"This all looks SO bad, I have to find a way to get them to understand the situation beyond the basic facts. The basic facts will make people's toes curl, mine included. But I promise it's not as world-ending as it sounds. It doesn't have to be, at least."

What did you think of the Margene/Ben twist on Big Love?

Getting Political on 'Big Love' and 'Brothers & Sisters'

*Warning, spoilers ahead from the recent episodes of Big Love and Brothers & Sisters.*

"I know we used to talk about public service, it was something we dreamed of, but Bill, that was three marriages ago," Barb Henrickson to her husband Bill who’s thinking of running for State Senate despite the fact that they’re married to two other women.

Caught up on some Sunday night TV – watched the first two hours of 24, but hours three and four are still sitting on my DVR – and noticed that election fever has not only gripped my home state of Massachusetts (Have you heard that there’s a Senate race today in the Bay State?), but has popped up as a big theme in the recent episodes of Big Love and Brothers & Sisters.

Bill Runs for State Senate

Big Love’s second episode of its fourth season was a substantial improvement over the premiere, which seemed too enamored of the idea of toting the Romansicle all around the southwest in his white hat (a la Weekend at Bernie’s) and was drowning in gallows humor. This fresh installment assuaded my concerns over the direction of the show in the wake of its stellar season last year, going a little deeper and providing more meaningful storylines.

In the new episode, “Greater Good,” everyone, it seemed, has grown very tired of hiding -- their lifestyle, their beliefs, their ambitions -- and are opting (in a few cases) to openly own their own choices and to live in the light, as Bill “Church of Me” Henrickson would say.

For Bill, living in the light means, somewhat incongruously, running for State Senate in order to improve the image of polygamist families and to protect their rights against other politicians who’d like polygamists to be rounded up and imprisoned. Though Bill’s initial campaign plan was to pretend as though he and Barb were going to return to the LDS church and deny that they were living in polygamy for the entirety of his term if he's elected, Bill had a change of heart, mostly because his eldest daughter Sarah decided not elope because her mother disapproved. Sarah opted to stand tall and own her decision, marrying, at age 18, in her family’s backyard with a justice of the peace. Bill’s current campaign plan is to hoodwink Utah voters into voting for him and, once he’s elected, come out of the polygamist closet. Politically, that sounds like a disaster, but it’ll make for great TV.

Kitty to Toss Hat Into Ring

As for Brothers & Sisters, there’s always been a political component from the get-go. In the pilot episode, Kitty Walker (now McCallister) was a conservative TV political pundit who, in short order, was hired by Senator Robert McCallister to work on his presidential campaign.

That seems like a long time ago. Look at all that's happened since then: Kitty and Robert got married, Kitty penned a controversial political book, the duo underwent infertility treatments and then the adoption process, Robert had a heart attack on the day of his son’s birth, the two become estranged to the brink of divorce when Robert decided to run for governor without consulting his wife, Kitty flirted with having an affair, then Kitty was diagnosed with cancer, had an experimental treatment and is now in remission. (Gotta love soapy nighttime dramas.)

In the latest episode, “Run Baby Run,” Robert cited his heart attack and his wife’s cancer (plus his own lack of political fire in his belly) as his reason to withdraw from politics altogether after his Senate term is completed. And just as he’s exiting the tough world of politics, Kitty, who’s still sporting a head scarf because she lost her hair from chemo treatments, is considering jumping into the fray, considering a seat in the U.S. Congress. Robert thinks she should aim higher, like for his own U.S. Senate seat.

This could provide ample dramatic material, watching a cancer survivor and mother of a baby run for office alongside her ex-pol husband. As we’ve seen from recent political books (Game Change immediately comes to mind), these kinds of campaigns can be brutal, especially on families. To see a fictional female candidate who has a baby campaign for office could be illuminating, if the writers choose to go the ripped-from-the-headlines route. And with the Henrickson family likely to come under intense scrutiny on Big Love, we could see fascinating dramatizations of the impact of political races on candidates and their loved ones. Can’t wait.

Image credit: Ron Tom/ABC.

Pondering 'Big Love' Premiere, 'It's Complicated' and Midseason TV

What do I do when I'm not blogging here at Notes from the Asylum? Write and write and write, read, watch TV/films, consume caffeine and, on occasion, sleep. Here are some the recent pop culture musings I've recently composed:

Big Love Premiere: I was disappointed in the Big Love season four premiere because I felt as though it was consumed by dark, weird humor and not a sufficient number of meaningful moments. Likening it to Weekend at Bernie's gone awry, I wrote a guest column for the TV-centric web site CliqueClack TV complaining about how the Romansicle in the white hat which traversed the southwest in the back of various vans unfortunately dominated the night.

It's Complicated: After watching the delightful Meryl Streep in her light, enjoyable comedy It's Complicated (Alec Baldwin was fearless), I found myself asking in my Pop Culture column on Mommy Tracked whether it was just Baldwin's character or whether women who are in the midst of the heavy-lifting phase of childrearing are viewed as unsexy.

Midseason TV: Big Love isn't the only show that's kicking off a new season this winter. In another Mommy Tracked column I highlighted several TV programs which are premiering in the next several weeks. In addition to Big Love, I mentioned 24, Lost, Nurse Jackie, the United States of Tara, and the new NBC show starring Gilmore Girls Lauren Graham and Six Feet Under's Peter Krause, Parenthood.

What mid-season shows are you looking forward to watching? Any on-going shows (Grey’s Anatomy, Private Practice, House, etc.) for which you’re eagerly anticipating new episodes?

Image credit: HBO.

Home Shopping Success, State Senate Bid, Rolling Dice W/Casino All in a New 'Big Love' Trailer

This first substantive Big Love season four trailer was released by HBO yesterday and it was loaded with potentially intriguing and explosive stuff:

Bill (creator of the backyard Church of Bill during last season's finale) wants to move forward with his scheme to become a casino mogul AND run for state senate? That's a lot of work he's got on his plate: Running two home improvement stores, launching a new casino, having three wives, parenting tons of kids, running your own church AND running for statewide office. And this guy doesn't even use caffeine. Marg is doing well with her home shopping business, there's another trial involving polygamy and, in the wake of Roman Grant's death, there's a struggle over that white prophet's hat at the Juniper Creek.



The new season begins on January 10.

What storyline are you most interested in with the new season?

Creepy Christmas Greetings from 'Big Love's' Juniper Creek & Its Deceased Prophet

In an attempt to remind people of the dramatic goodness that is Big Love -- the show which netted three Golden Globe nominations this week -- in advance of its season four premiere on January 10, HBO has released a creepy set of Christmas videos/songs featuring the Juniper Creek prophet, Roman Grant, and his many wives singing in harmony.

But wait a second, didn't Roman die in the season three finale? The show's co-creator confirmed that Roman had passed away by telling the Los Angeles Times, and I quote, "Roman is 100 percent absolutely completely dead." I guess Roman came back from the dead for the sole purpose of delivering the likes of the video below, "A Juniper Creek Christmas."



In other Big Love news, TV Guide is reporting that the wonderful Amanda Seyfried -- who plays the disillusioned Sarah Henrickson who's repulsed by her parents' entry into the world of polygamy -- will be leaving at the end of the fourth season in order to pursue a film career. After making a big splash with Mamma Mia! last year, she's got two new films coming out soon, Letters to Juliet and Dear John.

HBO Releases Artsy 'Big Love' Promo, Premiere Jan. 10

Big Love is slated to return for a fourth season on January 10. The season three finale concluded with Bill Henrickson flying by the seat of his pants and forming his own Church of Bill in his backyard, handing out trays of bread and water for communion to his three wives and their offspring, as Nicki introduced the family to the daughter from her first marriage whom she'd left behind.

So what are we to draw from this promo, that the characters are free-falling through the air and can't quite reach one another, that everything's just a bit out of their grasp. Hmmm.

I also came across a disturbing season four spoiler recently about Margene and a Henrickson kid. (Don't read the Michael Ausiello report from Entertainment Weekly if you don't want a plot turn spoiled.)

'Big Love' Season 4 Teaser: All Talk, No Scenes

Big Love returns for its fourth season in January, in case you're in the market for a new show to help fill the vacancy of Mad Men. And HBO's starting to drum up anticipation by releasing a new promo. What's disappointing about it is that it contains no new scenes, only audio. I'm anxious to find out what happens with the new Church of Bill and Barb's fears about "outer darkness."