RIP Alan Rickman

Yes, he was Snape and Hans Gruber, but when I think of Alan Rickman, I think of his Colonel Brandon in Sense and Sensibility or his Jamie in Truly Madly Deeply or his Harry in Love Actually. I think of his tremendous on-screen partnerships with Emma Thompson and how he could play kings or sad sacks, villains or heroes with equal aplomb. He had a voice that dripped with honey or venom, depending on who he was playing. He was a giant of an actor and he will be missed.

RIP Alan Rickman.

What I'm Watching: "The 100"

Finally all caught up on The CW's The 100 and am officially obsessed with this show — it's such a remarkably deft exploration of morality and group dynamics, adroitly examining how sacrifice, faith, fate, and authority are tested by the need to survive in the dystopian setting of a future Earth blighted by nuclear radiation. Hard choices are made and hard battles fought and lost. Deep philosophical questions are posed: What does it mean to be human? To be civilized? To lead? To follow? What is the cost of surviving?

If you're not watching, you're missing out on a truly addictive drama that makes you think and laugh and weep and pick your jaw off the floor on a regular basis. (Plus, Lexa. I haven't even mentioned Lexa!) Bring on Season 3!

RIP David Bowie

"Do you remember a guy that's been
In such an early song
I've heard a rumour from Ground Control
Oh no, don't say it's true..."

That was my first reaction to the news. RIP David Bowie, a creative visionary in every sense of the word. You are and will forever be a legend.

Stray Thoughts: Alice Morgan Edition

Oh, you know, just continuing to pretend that Season 4 of Luther didn't happen and doesn't exist...

Best New Shows of 2015 (In Brief)

For as long as I can remember, I've pulled together a list of the best new television shows of a particular year. Even though this year my role with covering television changed significantly, I felt I would be remiss if I didn't scroll back through the mental catalogue I was keeping of the best new shows of 2015 and offer up my take.

Unlike in previous years, I won't be writing captions for this and this list will have to stand on its own without qualifications or explanations. While others tend to offer overall best of lists, I have always found that comparing, say, the final season of Mad Men to a freshman show was always a bit of an uneven playing field to me — like comparing pomegranates to apples or something. Instead, I've chosen to offer a best new shows list and this year is the same.

Here then is my list of the 19 best new televisions shows of 2015:

Mr. Robot
iZombie
Togetherness
Agent Carter
The Jinx
Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell
Poldark
Younger
Fresh Off the Boat
Empire
The Casual Vacancy
Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt
Daredevil
Catastrophe
Difficult People
Master of None
Jessica Jones
Crazy Ex-Girlfriend
And Then There Were None

**Note: I would also include Dickensian in this list as it technically premiered in 2015, but given that the vast majority of its 20-episode first season will air in 2016, I'm considering it a 2016 show. I'd also maybe include Season 2 of Fargo in this list as well, given that it offered a new cast of characters (largely), setting, and plot from its first season, but despite its anthology nature, it is an ongoing show...

What I'm Watching: "Broen"

Season 3 of Broen (The Bridge) deftly nailed its emotional ending. As Saga and Henrik, Sofia Helin and Thure Lindhardt were both incredible and erased any memory of Martin Rohde (no small feat, that).

Extraordinary television and proof positive that a third season show can punch you in the gut just as sharply as its first season. Well done all around. Here's hoping that there's a fourth.

What I'm Watching: "Jessica Jones"

Unstoppable meets unbreakable. Yes, Jessica Jones is just as incredible as you've heard. So hop on already.

What I'm Watching (Film): "Brooklyn"

I loved Brooklyn so much. Saoirse Ronan is outstanding and it's such a beautiful, bittersweet film about the journey away from home. Go see this film right now.

What I'm Eating: The NoMad's Chicken Pot Pie (New York)

The holy grail at the NoMad Bar: their heavenly chicken pot pie with fois gras and black truffles. A little skewer of additional fois arrives with a sprinkling of chives and more black truffles. The waiter bursts opens the pastry crust and gently adds the extra fois, a theatrical touch, and stirs, the steam cascading out of the achingly hot pie. The aroma of black truffles was intoxicating; the dish was transcendent and the most luxurious chicken pot pie ever to exist anywhere.

What I’m Eating: Sunday Roast at Birch (Los Angeles)

Sunday roast at Birch. The piece de resistance: roast pork loin with cauliflower cheese, roasted potatoes, Yorkshire puddings, carrots, English peas, roasted Brussels sprouts, gravy, and applesauce. Served family style. Incredible. Get there as soon as possible.

What I'm Cooking: Chicken Laksa

Because I am pretending that this isn't a fluke and Autumn has actually arrived in Los Angeles, I'm making some chicken curry laksa. Just because.

Of course, this isn't a traditional chicken curry laksa, per se: I sort of adapted a laksa recipe in my head and voila. Autumnal bliss.

Quick Mention: "Jane the Virgin"

I loved the Season 2 premiere of The CW's Jane the Virgin, which is even funnier/scarier/sweeter if you've recently had a baby of your own. This show is just so perfect in absolutely every way — the second season begins October 12.

Quick Mention: "iZombie"

Happily, the Season 2 premiere of The CW's iZombie, which airs in October, is so deliciously fantastic. I've missed you, Liv and Co. #‎brains

What I'm Cooking: Lamb Tagine

Just your ordinary weeknight dinner at home. I made lamb tagine with apricots and olives over lemon and pistachio couscous.

What I'm Cooking: Bread

My first ever attempt at making bread. It's a white loaf and it's just come out of the oven. The aroma is incredible!

Today's challenge for myself was baking bread by hand. I've never made bread before, full stop, but I was not going to cut corners by turning to the dough hook. Instead, the dough was formed, kneaded, proved, punched, shaped, all by hand. Exciting and so much fun to make. I wish I could bake bread all the time now.

What I'm Watching: "Mr. Robot"

Slogging through this year’s crop of fall broadcast pilots, it’s impossible not to feel disenchanted with television as an artistic form. For the most part, these latest offerings are largely devoid of creativity or ingenuity: it’s almost as though they’ve been constructed from leftover pieces of a factory assembly line. Considering that the broadcasters are waging a war on multiple fronts — now battling against and cable and streaming platforms — it’s a depressing state of affairs to see how dull most of these projects are. (There are, of course, some exceptions to that statement.) Forget about the winter of our discontent — autumn is looking pretty insipid.

Thank god then for USA’s Mr. Robot.

USA dramas have largely tended to be of a similar ilk: blue sky programming with double-entendre-laden titles that often make for sunny, easy viewing. But lately, the cable network has strayed into darker climes. With hacker drama Mr. Robot — which wraps up its first season later this month — USA has perhaps entered a territory of peak bleakness and reached a creative apex, one that is on par with the very best programs currently on television. (Hell, even Mad Men creator Matthew Weiner recently acknowledged that he was hooked on Mr. Robot.)

Created by Sam Esmail, Mr. Robot might just be the most dangerous unpredictable show to come along in a while, a keenly twisted morality play for the digital age. The show revolves around a group of hackers doing their best to wreak tech-spawned anarchy at a time of unprecedented cyber attacks and identity theft in the US. Elliot Alderson (Rami Malek), a damaged and paranoid cyber security engineer, finds himself recruited by the enigmatic Mr. Robot (Christian Slater) to join a team of talented hackers known as fsociety. (MINOR SPOILERS AHEAD!)

Rami Malek and Christian Slater. USA

The hackers’ target: monolithic multinational E Corp, a blend of Google, Apple, and the worst elements of corporate malfeasance, that is referred to by Elliot as Evil Corp., a codename that, like a hacker’s toolkit, infects everything it touches. 

Elliot is in the unenviable position of defending the company responsible for his father’s death in order to protect their bottom line. He’s paid to protect Evil Corp in his day job, working alongside his best friend Angela (Portia Doubleday) at an IT security firm. Worse still, Elliot, who suffers from social anxiety disorder, is addicted to morphine, which he uses in order to dull his fraught emotions. He speaks to the audience via an internal monologue with the imaginary friend he has created in his mind. Brilliant but deeply delusional, Elliot makes for an extremely unreliable narrator — and that’s where Mr. Robot truly begins to shine as it plays with notions of perception, reality, and fantasy.

Many viewers suspected that Mr. Robot was a figment of Elliot’s imagination, a version of Fight Club’s Tyler Durden, a theory that was thankfully proven to be a red herring. Instead, the truth of Mr. Robot’s identity, revealed in the show’s Aug. 12 episode, is even more troubling, particularly in light of the conflicting menace and charm Slater’s character has demonstrated towards Elliot since the show began.

Like Elliot and Mr. Robot, the show’s characters exist in a perpetual moral twilight, committing bad deeds in order to achieve specific ends that are either for anarchy or personal gain. Surly fsociety hacker Darlene (Carly Chaiken) steals scenes with her deadpan delivery and lack of personal boundaries, but she cares about Elliot deeply. Evil Corp’s interim CTO, Tyrell Wellick (Martin Wallström), a conniving social climber who engages in BDSM with his heavily pregnant Lady Macbeth-like wife (Stephanie Corneliussen), pays homeless people to beat them up in order to vent his anger, and seduces the CEO’s male assistant in order to hack his phone.

Martin Wallström. USA

Wellick wants to get ahead at any cost, a force of nature in a world of circuit boards. He’s all raging emotion to Elliot’s cold, clinical logic. The two seem bound together by fate, locked in an inexorable collision course with one another. 

Just what the season’s end game is remains tantalizingly unclear and the show continues to tunnel down the rabbit hole each week. Mr. Robot excels at infecting the viewer with the characters’ paranoia, resulting in a taut thriller that is impossible to predict. In an era of Big Twist Television, Esmail’s Mr. Robot is a deeply intelligent drama that pulses with possibility. This is a show that makes you believe in the medium again: populated by complex characters fighting their inner demons, whiplash-inducing plot twists, and a gorgeous use of music to heighten the innate tension.

Malek and Wallström are at the top of their respective games, each delivering a staggering performance that pushes the two men well past the point of breaking for ordinary mortals. As the titular character, Slater exudes an unpredictable danger that encapsulates the essence of the show itself.

Mr. Robot can be viewed as a high-stakes suspense thriller about coding and corporate greed, but at its pulsing heart, it’s also a heartbreaking tragedy about identity and memory. Ultimately, this is a dark drama that embodies the risks that television needs to be willing to take in order to achieve true greatness — and a reminder that there’s still potential for the medium to surprise me.

Mr. Robot airs Wednesday at 10 p.m. on USA.

Carly Chaiken. USA

Random Musings

This is not going to be a television blog.

I launched Televisionary in February 2006 at a very different time for both media and for me — and this is not going to be Televisionary 2.0, but rather a place to organize and share some of my thoughts, whether they are about television or food or or what I'm working on next, that are longer than 140 characters or what one can reasonably put in a Facebook status update.

So, yes, while the topic may occasionally be something I'm watching on television (as in the first official post which will succeed this one), this is more of a personal blog than a collection of critical reviews or writings. 

I've been so focused on completing my novel (read more about that here) that I realized that I missed blogging, but not necessarily it being a major part of my daily routine. Novel writing is, by its nature, a solitary activity. I missed getting my thoughts down on (virtual) paper and immediately sharing them and interacting with readers and commenters.

So that's what this is: a collection of my random musings. Thanks, in advance, for reading.

The novel is done!

The novel is done! Well, to be fair, a novel is never really done, now is it? I did, however, finish writing the third draft of my novel earlier this week and am allowing myself the luxury of celebrating even getting this far.

In the spirit of the last update, I thought I’d stick to the Q&A format.

Question: So what does it mean when you say that you’ve finished?

Answer: I’m done with the actual writing for now. The draft is locked. My alpha-reader’s very extensive notes and edits have now all been implemented within the manuscript.

Question: Wait, what the hell is an alpha-reader?

Answer: A saint, really. It’s someone who gives up a considerable amount of time and energy to read through your manuscript with a fine-toothed comb and offer suggestions, edits, and notes on the entirety of your draft. For me, it comprised an intense couple of weeks of back and forth dialogue with my alpha-reader, who offered really intelligent and precise edits and some stellar suggestions.

Question: What does it feel like to have reached this stage?

Answer: Incredible, really. I never thought that I’d actually write a novel, much less finish writing one. The magnitude of it hits you when you are standing in front of the printer. Printing out a manuscript makes it feel somehow more real, as though the characters and words on the screen have coalesced into something tangible. A printed manuscript is a bit like a monolith. At 340 pages and more than 86,000 words, it feels like an accomplishment in and of itself just to hold the damn thing in my hands.

Question: So has anyone else read it yet?

Answer: Funny you should ask that. Since the third draft was completed, I sent it to a few beta-readers who kindly volunteered their time.

Question: What’s the next step then?

Answer: Okay, so here’s the big news, slightly buried: This week, I began querying a small group of agents for representation. I’ve already gotten some encouraging responses and the fact that the manuscript — in its entirety or a smaller sample — is even being read and considered by literary agents is exciting and terrifying in equal measure.

Question: Can I get any clues to what the novel is actually about?

Answer: Sigh. You asked me this last time and I wouldn’t budge. I’ll narrow it down slightly more and call it a high-concept speculative thriller. Anymore than that and I’d be spoiling it.

Question: Spoilsport. Anything to say to those people who have helped you reach this point?

Answer: To those of you who have offered your guidance and advice these last few months, thank you. To those who have listened to me talk endlessly about this book, thank you even more. I couldn’t have gotten this far without the support of my family and friends, to whom I owe a monumental debt.

Question: While you’re waiting to hear back from agents, what’s next for you in terms of writing?

Answer: I’ll likely be taking on a few freelance assignments, outlining the second book in this trilogy, and solidifying some fiction and non-fiction book ideas that I’ve been turning over in my head.

Question: Any clue then about what those might be?

Answer: If you know me at all, some of the ideas — both on the fiction and non-fiction side — make perfect sense. These ideas are a logical conclusion to what I’ve been working towards for the past 10 years or so.

In other words: stay tuned.

Wait, so you're writing a novel?!

Yes, I am writing a novel! Often that initial question leads to a number of follow-up queries about the book and what I'm up to these days, so I thought I'd collect them in one place.

Imagine this as a question and answer-style interview with myself about this book — an FAQ Q&A of sorts. Here goes:

Question: So you're writing a novel?

Answer: I am!

Question: Wow, that's so cool. So... what is your book about?

Answer: Hmmm, how to answer that? I don't want to give away too many details about the plot, but I will say that it's a high-octane action-thriller with some grounded sci-fi elements. It's sort of high-concept, I guess.

Question: High-concept? Does that mean that things explode?

Answer: If I were being honest, I'd say that the book is really more mid-concept, if that were an actual thing, than strictly high-concept. The novel explores the psychological complexities of its characters and hopefully the characters grow and change over time.

Question: But... there are still explosions, right?

Answer: You and the explosions! I guess so.

Question: [Tense silence.]

Answer: Sorry. Um, yeah, things go boom.

Question: Sigh. How long did it take you write the book?

Answer: Well, I'm still writing it. Or, technically, I guess I'm rewriting it now. I'm almost done with my third draft.

Question: Does that mean you've already finished two drafts?

Answer: Yes, I'm nearing the end of writing the third draft. I'm currently going through the manuscript with a fine-toothed comb one last time. So it's not done just yet!

Question: How long did it take you to write the first draft?

Answer: I wrote the first draft pretty quickly, in about six weeks, working two to three days a week and writing for a few hours at a time. 

Question: That seems really fast! Is that fast?

Answer: I guess it is? However, I've always been a speedy writer. I wrote the first 30 pages on my first day. All in one go, without standing up from the computer.

Question: Wow, that's kind of intense. Is that a typical pace then for you?

Answer: I always try to write a chapter or two (or three) each day. I don't believe in self-censoring. I just write — I don't agonize over every single word or description on the first draft. I think it's key to get it on paper and then you can always go back and improve it. Some days, I'd write 30 pages in one go and other days it might only be 10 or 15 pages or I'd take a deep dive into a chapter from the day before and really rework it. I tried not to think about it in terms of pages or specific goals like that. 

Question: Still, that seems pretty fast. Was this an idea you had been thinking about for a long time then?

Answer: Not at all! It was an idea that came to me one day. I just fell in love with the concept and really wanted to tell this story and bring these characters to life. There were a few specific scenes that played in my head so vividly; it was about crafting a story that fulfilled the promise of those initial dreams.

I printed out the second draft of my manuscript a few weeks back. Yes, that is a lot of paper. A lot.

Question: So what's your writing process then?

Answer: Basically, I start each day by reading what I wrote the day before. Then I tweak it as much as I feel it needs to be at this stage before moving on to write something new. Now that I'm in the rewriting/self-editing phase, that means going back through what I've written and really cutting and expanding where I need to and taking a more holistic look at the work. Oh, and I always edit on paper with a pen.

Question: How long is the book?

Answer: Right now, it's clocking in at a little over 85,000 words. 

Question: Is that a lot?

Answer: Well, it's recommended that a first novel be around 80,000 words so it's in the sweet spot for a novel of its sort. If that's difficult to visualize, it's 330 pages in manuscript form.

Question: So what's the next step with this book then?

Answer: Once I finish this pass, I need to start to send out the manuscript to agents.

Question: Oh, so you don't have an agent yet?

Answer: No, not yet. I really wanted the manuscript to be as close to perfect as it could be before I started to submit it to agents. Hopefully, a literary agent will want to represent me and take it out to publishers for consideration.

Question: And then what?

Answer: Hopefully, it will get published. Fingers crossed, anyway.

Question: Is that the end result then?

Answer: Well, partially... This story would also make for a really great big-budget movie, should a studio want to develop it and purchase the rights.

Question: Ooh, that's sort of exciting! Are you excited by that?

Answer: Let's just wait and see. First things first.

Question: Are you going to write another book then after you finish this one?

Answer: Let's not get ahead of ourselves! I do have some other ideas for books, both fiction and non-fiction, that I'd love to sink my teeth into. If this book is successful, I'd also love to revisit these characters again.

Question: Oh, so there might be more with these characters?

Answer: Hmmm. I'll be definitive: It's intended to be the first book in a trilogy featuring the two main characters.

Question: Wow, that's awesome! You're sure can't tell me what this book is about? Not even a hint?

Answer: No hints for now. I will say that it's unlike what I had envisioned that I would write (if you had told me that I would have written a book), and it's been such a joyful process to fall in love with these characters and watch them come to life on the page. 

Question: Do you have any advice to give other people out there who might want to write a novel?

Answer: Just write. Every day. Even if it's just a sentence. And write for yourself: write something that you would want to read.