Detective Stories: Broadchurch

When I survey the modern TV landscape, I find there are two genres I don't often connect with: Reality TV and the Procedural (probably more accurately the Police Procedural).  We'll leave Reality aside for a bit (as that's worth another post or three).  The Procedural, with its general "of the week" setup has rarely had a pull on me.  Of course, there are exceptions.  In my case, they are Psych (because it's funny), Castle (because I'm still grieving Firefly), and White Collar (because Kelly Kapowski).  I'm sure some of you will want to point me to some stalwart example of the genre that has successfully incorporated season-long arcs, etc., but with rare exception, once I find the procedural underneath, I'm out (also, I doubt I need to watch *more* TV).  Others of you will pick a bone with me for naming the shows I do as procedurals; please pick that bone with Wikipedia, instead (all 3 have the genre listed on the sidebar).

All of that is a long winded introduction to say how perplexed I was recently to realize how many detective stories (or crime dramas) I was not only watching, but absolutely loving.  For a time, I suspected my love of Sherlock was mostly Moffat-related spill-over from Doctor Who.  Now, however, I believe it's another link in the chain of outstanding crime dramas out there that I'm enjoying.  The three most recent (and strongest) links, though, are probably Justified, True Detective, and Broadchurch.  I'm going to leave aside any discussions of the first two until after their seasons finish and focus on Broadchurch today.

Much like Sherlock, my entry into Broadchurch was through Doctor Who.  While Eccleston was my first Doctor, David Tennant's portrayal cemented my love of the franchise.  Add to that my sudden interest in the detective story, and you have a perfect recipe for a Saturday binge watched show.  Broadchurch sets up with the mysterious death of a young boy in a small English town.  After 4 episodes, I thought I was going to stop for the night, as it was a rather bleak story, if compelling.  I walked away for maybe 30 minutes, looking for cheerier entertainment and changing the laundry.  I had just hit Start on the next dryer cycle when I thought, "Nope, I've got to know," and sat back down to polish off the remaining 4 episodes.  The ending wasn't happy, of course, but it was cathartic in a way that TV (especially a single season) rarely can be.

One thing I'm often impressed by in British TV is the ease with which they integrate the church into their shows.  Religion is often a third rail in the US, and so we only tend to get trope-filled church references, or no church presence at all.  Broadchurch shows the Reverend Paul Coates as a part of the town in a way that feels natural.  He is a suspect for the same reasons many of the townsfolk are, and he doesn't walk around spouting religious platitudes without provocation.  The scenes showing a normal Sunday service with only 19 people, contrasted with a post-tragedy service full to bursting felt well crafted, too.  Sadly, TV writers are not sermon writers for a reason, and thus the pieces of sermons in the show mostly serve as exposition or plot advancement.

I'm reluctant to say much more about the plot for fear of giving things away.  The mystery was well paced and the dead ends revealed by the detectives properly do more harm than the actual revelation of the killer, which always makes a story interesting.  I didn't figure it out by the end, and I at least partially blame that on the binge watching.  Stopping for even a day before the last episode might have given me time to process, but, on the other hand, it was like watching an 8-hour episode of Sherlock.

I do hope Tennant returns for the second series, as the story leaves us with an ambiguous "Broadchurch will return" (as opposed to, say, "DI Alec Hardy will return").  For now, I'm looking forward to Gracepoint this fall, the US adaptation, with David Tennant playing the same character (with a different name).  Given how inevitable the ending felt after seeing it, though, I'm curious how they'll mix it up.  The bigger question, I think, is why do we even need American remakes of British shows at all?  Just go watch Broadchurch.

High Hopes

I've often been pretty hard on Born in the USA as an album.  As a collection of songs, it's great. Seven of the twelve tracks charted as singles, and the ones that didn't probably should have.  With the E-Street Band behind them, those songs move and shake on stage in a way that is second only to cuts from Darkness like "Badlands." But when you hold the album as a whole up against the Boss's great albums, the songs don't tell as much of a story, and the overarching theme of "America" is a bit too broad.

So it seems somehow fitting that 30 years after that release, I'm thinking the same things about Springsteen's newest effort High Hopes.  Taking each track singly, I find a lot to like about this album.  I'm excited to hear almost every track on it live, and I really hope these songs last deep into the tour (because apparently now I expect to see him twice per album?).  The middle of the album especially stands out as it leaves the early covers and remakes behind and reminds us we're still listening to a Springsteen album.  Much like BitU before it, these songs that comprise the meat of the album won't get widespread play, even if this was still the era of putting on seven singles from a twelve song disc.  "This is Your Sword" had me from the word go, and "Frankie Fell in Love" is an ear-worm that grows on you.  "Just Like Fire Would", despite its origin as a cover, definitely feels like a Bruce classic.

The album's problems are only in taking it as a whole, which I understand is probably something about 2% of music listeners do these days.  The movement from the early, crunchy tracks into the more melodic middle is jarring, and then again as we pop back out to "Tom Joad" near the end.  As I told some friends on Facebook, I think tracks 4-9 and 11 would have made a great Springsteen EP.  Maybe keep the other tracks at the end as bonus material?

Overall though, the merit of a Springsteen album is hard to gauge for this fan, because the album itself is overshadowed by one single thought: "When does the tour start?"  If I'm actually excited to hear any of the new tracks live (which I am), then I just count that as a bonus.

Musical Theology: Adeste Fideles

Before we get too far from Christmas, I wanted to mention one of the seasonal hymns I find most interesting: "Adeste Fideles", or "O Come, All Ye Faithful" as most of us know/sing it.  While it has an interesting backstory on its authorship and possible other interpretations of the song (start at wikipedia and click on the references), I want to talk about the text of the song, specifically, verse 2 (in the United Methodist Hymnal).

Verses 1-3, and 6 are the traditional verses, and 1, 3, and 6 have always felt of a type to me, telling a story of a call to celebration.  I always picture it not necessarily as a call to the manger on that first Christmas (because where were "all ye faithful" then?), but rather as the call to some massive Kingdom birthday celebration, and we are taking on the roll of the announcer.  We invite folks to Bethlehem, strike up the heavenly band, and greet Christ, the guest of honor, as he enters.  (Yes, I do a lot of world-building while I sing.)

But then there's verse 2.  We're barely out of the gate, and suddenly, we're singing the key part of Nicean Creed.  It's a brilliant piece of sung theology; in fact it may be in my top ten all-time pieces of sung theology (placeholder link to that article, which I can't wait to write now).  Like many songs with smart lyrics, though, it has issues with its own musical setting.  At that most theologically crucial line, "Begotten, not created", the song has to add in an extra syllable to make it work. Despite my love for the song, ever since I first saw Love Actually, the voice of Billy Mack creeps into my head during this verse every time I sing it: "And particularly enjoy the incredible crassness of the moment when we try to squeeze an extra syllable into the fourth line."  I don't actually find it crass, but if you see me smirking while singing next Christmas, you'll know why.

Eat a bigger salad

As we roll into 2014, I'm working on making a list of goals, instead of resolutions (as advocated by Brian Brushwood here).  One of them is to get back to writing something at least weekly.

I am always looking for the best deal.  I used to walk around Best Buy and divide hard drive sizes by costs.  That's what always used to get me in trouble at fast food restaurants.  Why get the regular size, when super-size is only 50 cents more?  If the foot-long sub is $6 and 6-inch is $4, why would you ever get the 6-inch?  I don't frequent those types of places much anymore, so I don't have those worries anymore, but I found a new calculation: calories to fullness.

Whenever I hear about losing weight or eating better, portion control usually comes up early and often in the conversation.  Generally, I buy in to that.  I tend to weigh my meat, measure my spoonfuls, and generally watch how much of everything I put on my plate.  I even log everything in an app to help me keep track.  However, I have one big exception to the smaller portion rule: Salad.  A few months ago, I would make myself a "small" salad with a meal.  The calorie counter would be almost full and I'd still be hungry soon after.  I took a closer look at my meal, and found that a full salad (minus the dressing) added up to about 40 calories.  So the next day, I pulled out the big bowl, and made a massive salad, and logged it as 80 calories.  In the grand scheme of a day, that's not a big calorie difference, but it a huge difference in how full I feel for the rest of the day.

I know it's not a shocking revelation, but it's one of many little lessons I've learned in making a shift.  All of them seem to fall under the heading "Add, Don't Subtract".  Much like Lent, every time I tried to diet before, I was "giving something up."  This time, I get to fill up my day with whatever I want, but when I cap out, that's it.  I like to say that nothing is off-limits, as long as I log it.  I know that's not strictly true (I'm looking at you, horribly sodium-filled casual dining restaurant menus), but when I'm cooking my own food, it pretty much is.

I'm not completely cured of my food-value searching though.  I can't ever see a time when I'll get the half-salad at Panera, but that's probably OK.

I don't actually want to avoid the internet, ever.

When I was in college, I tried for a while to take a Sabbath from technology.  Being the world-wise college student I was, I had avoided Friday classes, and so I attempted to shun all tech - TVs, Computers, etc. - from my life from Thursday dinner-time until Friday dinner-time.  Of course, I made some exceptions for a group project meeting, or a friend, or I did some work so I could be gone all weekend, and little by little, it faded away.  At the time, I don't think I was on Facebook yet, and I doubt I'd ever sent a text on my black-and-white screened bar phone.

I haven't ever tried that experiment again, partly because my livelihood is now so tied to tech.  Also, the online space is where my creativity flows.  Not so much here (yet), but in the mad alchemy that is coding: taking a pile of data and organizing it, reworking it, until it takes my desired shape.

All this is preamble to discussing Paul Miller's final piece about his year-long sabbatical from the internet.

I remember reading about Paul's journey early on, and being a bit skeptical of it, but reading his final wrap up brought me back to the college experience I opened with.  His descriptions of his first few months away reminded me of the beginnings of Lent and the start of a New Year.  I came out like gang-busters this past Lent with a "no french fries" rule, designed to keep me away from fast-food joints, however, mid-way through, I decided that if I went to Wendy's, but got the salad with my burger I'd be OK.  A few weeks later, I got the baked potato....

His closing paragraph reminded me of an even earlier college experience, as he tries to explain to his niece why he hadn't been Skyping with her.  At the Wesley Foundation, I remember Alex telling us about the early church's Desert Fathers, and how they would break a fast when hosting visitors, because hospitality was more important than their asceticism.  If I walked in the door on Friday and a buddy wanted to play a video game, I was there (I use the term "hospitality" loosely).  I danced around fry-based options when hanging with other people rather than limit their choices, too.

Being a early-adopting child of the 80s technophile who programs for a living, I am skeptical of people who analogize simplification with less technology or less internet.  Throughout my life, I heard over and over that the things I loved the most were "bad" for me.  Video games, the web, video games, cell phones, social media, smart phones, and did I mention video games?  Technology is important to me, and the ways it connects folks is important.  My first two best friends were made through the weekly ritual of Friday afternoon Nintendo.  The web sparked a creative fire in me that continues to this day.  And, I know that I would most likely have lost touch with most all of my college friends were it not for Facebook (I'm bad at calling).  I know there are ways to overuse or misuse all these innovations, but the good should outweigh the bad.  Paul gets there too, when he says, "But at least I'll know that it's not the internet's fault. I'll know who's responsible, and who can fix it."

He doesn't stretch any farther than that, though.  There is acknowledgment of failure, but no reaching beyond.  I had a similar feeling at the end of my little techno-Sabbath experiment.  Just an "Oh well, back to drawing board" mentality, which is certainly a feature of the geeky set.  We're rooted in the scientific method, which is good, but we come on too strong sometimes.  Maybe I shouldn't be too hard on him though.  I got an email the other day reminding me my 10th college reunion is on the horizon, so it did take me a while to start rethinking this.

I tried to get myself exercising for years by setting lubriciously early alarms or coming up with crazy schemes.  Finally one day, I got up after dinner and went for a walk.  It may not be the best time to go out, but it's certainly better than nothing.  And the reasons I'm still doing it: an innovative piece of tech on my wrist that doesn't let me lie about what I did today, an app on my phone that knows how fast I'm moving, and connections to those same Facebook friends who keep me motivated.