THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 4, 2013
MTV
Third season of Teen Wolf disappoints love-bitten fans
PAGE 7
At the end of the second season of "Teen Wolf," I was in love. The characters were dynamic and the plot compelled me to watch particular episodes over and over again in case I didn't catch all of the details. Character Stiles Stillski's monologue in the episode "Battle-field" was moving.
Writer and producer Jeff Davis won me over with the insertion of the Winston Churchill quotation, "If you're going through hell, keep going." I was thrilled for season three and the addition of the Alpha Pack. But while watching the first episode, I felt as if Davies laughed in my face and stomped on my wooing heart. As the season continued, my obsession with "Teen Wolf" dwindled.
Season three failed in one major way: storytelling. It started way too fast with way too many questions left unanswered.
Season two ended with the shapeshifting Kanima's defeat, thanks to Lydia melting Jackson's cold, cold heart. The power of love defeated Gerard and gave Jackson his long-awaited werewolf body.
Season three has jackson living in London, and we can all say "Adios!" to any shred of
a world-moving relationship. So, the finale of season two was marked meaningless.
From there, everything went downhill for me:
Erica dies.
Boyd dies pretty soon after.
Derek Hale's sister is alive? Oh,
darn. So is Gerard.
Someone is killing virgins. Great.
Allison and Isaac a thing? Stop. Please
All of this was handled with an amateur and sloppy hand. The Davis I knew, with his touches of subtle but understandable storytelling, was gone with the wind.
With all the new developments, everything just seems forced. I get that Davis can't control whether an actor leaves the show. But how he handled it made important character deaths seem flippant. Two of my favorite characters were killed off, just like that.
It only gets worse as the season progresses.
Why are Derek's eyes blue?
Because of another past tragic love story. Poor Derek had so much potential as a character, but instead he's defined by past relationships. And his fling? Yep, she's the one sacrificing the virgins. Derek is now the show's punching bag, which doesn't allow any real character development.
The only real redeeming plot point of this season is the revelation that Lydia is a banshee. That has potential to bring up lots of fun for part two of the season.
And I do have to admit that in previous seasons,the last couple episodes have been vital in regards to plot. But if you lose your audience before those episodes, what's the point?
Don't get me wrong. "Teen Wolf" isn't ruined. But Davis does need to work on his storytelling. Big time. Less fight scenes and more getting to know the characters.
Cherish the characters because that is why the fans keep coming back.
Edited by Kayla Overbey
MTV
MUSIC
New Neko Case album stirs listeners' emotions
DUNCAN MCHENRY
dmchenrv@kansan.com
The smallest nuances and touches of detail often make the work of a skilled artist great. Neko Case, American singer-songwriter known for a successful solo career and member of Canadian band The New Pornographers, crafts her music in the same way that a renowned painter approaches visual art.
Case's new album "The Worse Things Go, The Harder I Fight, The Harder I Fight, The More
But instead of a painbrush, she uses musicianship and poetic songwriting — a touch of piano or harp here, a carefully placed lyric there — to color many of her songs with a feeling rather than a specific message.
I Love You," isn't winning any brevity awards with its title, but the content is anything but longwinded. Most of the tracks are brief, sensory representations of Case's melancholy emotions when dealing with depression during the album's production. She described the feeling of breaking through these personal problems in a recent interview with NPR.
"Once I stopped fighting it, that's when it really started." Case said. "It's like a bottleneck broke open, and everything started to flow again and my circulation came back."
Many tracks on "The Worse Things Get" are tinged with feelings of sadness and depression, yet it never gets too weepy. For every song like the haunting "Nearly Midnight, Honolulu," a bitter anecdote about a mother who doesn't love her child, there is another like the punked-out single "Man," in which Case pokes fun at everyone with a Y chromosome.
The key to Case's unique and immediately recognizable style is her voice. Her singing is similar to that of another great singer-songwriter, Joni Mitchell, in its clear and captivating power, if not its exact sound. The song "Calling Cards" is an ode to communication between lovers in the pre-cellular era that practically bleeds trip nostalgia. She sings the lyrics "Every dial tone, every truck stop, every heartbreak / I love you more" as a subtle trumpet and soft piano keys accentuate the vocals.
Like many poets, Case rarely says exactly what she means, preferring instead to let listeners fill in
ANTI RECORDS
their own impressions. Make no mistake — Neiko Case is one musician who should be considered a recording "artist" in the truest sense of the word.
Edited by Kayla Overbey
TELEVISION
Time Warner Cable, CBS find solution to standoff
ASSOCIATED PRESS
NEW YORK — A monthlong standoff that prevented millions of viewers from watching hit shows like "Under the Dome" and "NCIS" — and threatened to interfere with the start of football season — ended Monday after Time Warner Cable and CBS Corp. resolved a programming dispute.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
The deal covers more than 3 million homes in New York, Dallas and Los Angeles that hadn't been able to receive programming from CBS or CBS-owned channels since Aug.2. Broadcasting resumed Monday evening on the East Coast.
This publicity image released by CBS shows Dean Norris as James "Big Jim" Rennie a town leader on the "under the Dome," airing Mondays at 10 p.m. on CBS
The companies had been fighting over how much Time Warner Cable Inc. would pay for programming on CBS and other channels, including Showtime Networks, CBS Sports Network and the Smithsonian channel. Terms of the deal were not immediately
disclosed.
Added pressure was on the two companies to reach an agreement with CBS holding deals to broadcast NFL and Southeastern Conference football, as well as the start of the U.S. Open tennis tournament.
The disagreement came at a touchy time for networks and cable companies as more and more Americans are turning to alternative ways to watch TV, including online or on Internet-connected TVs.
An estimated 1.3 million of 5.6 million households in Los Angeles were blacked out, along with 400,000 of Dallas' 2.6 million TV homes, CBS said. Those are three of the nation's five most populous television markets.
The blackout affected about 1.1 million of New York's 7.4 million television households that get CBS.
CBS estimated the blackout cut
"While we certainly didn't get everything we wanted, ultimately
the network's national viewership by about 1 percent.
we ended up in a much better place than when we started," Time Warner Cable CEO Glenn Britt said in a statement.
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HISTORY
White contours mark the spot where Nicolae Cavaescus and his wife Elena were executed. This site turned into a museum in Targoviste, Romania, Sept. 3.
Museum of former dictator's last two days alive opens in Romania
The museum is located in a military building where the trial and executions took place in Targoviste, a town 80 kilometers (50 miles) northwest of Bucharest.
TARGOVISTE, Romania — More than 20 years after Communist dictator Nicolae Ceausescu and his wife, Elena, were convicted of genocide and executed in Romania, the country opened a museum about the last two days of their lives during the country's pro-democracy uprising.
Ceaucescu had ruled Romania for nearly 25 years with an iron fist. Museum visitors will be able to see metal plates that he and his wife ate on, the beds where they slept, and a tiny improvised courtroom where they faced a hastily conducted trial before a special military tribunal. The place where they were fatally shot on Christmas Day, 1989, at 2:45 p.m.,
In 1989, Romanian forces shot and killed about 1,100 people conducting anti-communist demonstrations, most of them unarmed.
On Tuesday, Gen. Andrei Kemenci, the former commander of the garrison located in the building, took journalists on a tour of the museum.
He said Ceausescu was dissatisfied that he was only given brown bread and sweets to eat there. Kemenci also said the leader asked for a change of clothes and to borrow money to spend at a military canteen.
On Dec. 22, the Ceausescus fled Bucharest in a helicopter after they were booed by a crowd and hours later Defense Minister Vasile Milea apparently committed suicide. Abandoned by the helicopter pilot and most of the leader's aides, the Ceausescus then hitchhiked and ended up in Targoviste, where they were arrested by police.
On Dec. 24, provisional leaders who took over after the Ceausescus fled Bucharest decided the couple would stand trial the next day.
Associated Press
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