Castle: Season Three

Read my other reviews from Castle! -Season One -Season Two -Heat Wave Castle very quickly climbed to the top of my list of favorite shows. But even as I was watching season two, and seeing how much the show could make me laugh right before making me cry, my friends warned me about season three. No warning they could have given would have really been enough. There are a few episodes that really aren't up to snuff, but for the most part it's just a very long, very good ride.

When I left off talking about season two, I said that I didn't like the way the show handled the "we must separate them for a little while" plot line. I still don't like the way that season ended, but I do like the way season three picked up that thread and ran with it. Especially because it gave us not just Beckett's reaction to Castle forgetting to call, but also the rest of the team. The show always makes sure to give Esposito, Ryan, and Montgomery plenty of time to flesh out the story, and I love them for it.

Season three also makes sure to give Stana Katic enough to work with so that we can see what a phenomenal actress she is. Her performance in "Under the Gun" is nothing short of amazing. Somebody start giving her some awards already. Nathan Fillion gets to have fun too, and of course his interactions with Alexis and Martha are always wonderful. But this season really belongs to Beckett.

I could have done without the episode "Close Encounters of the Murderous Kind" really, even though it was funny it just didn't feel like it was keeping the pace the rest of the season was setting. I was pleasantly surprised though to see how the show handled Beckett and Castle's alternate romances. Despite Castle being obviously a bit jealous of the new guy in Beckett's life, he handles it in a really mature way, and it was really nice to see after how much I disliked the Demming storyline.

I also have to say, the first half of the episode "Nikki Heat" where we meat the actress playing a character based on Beckett started out kind of embarrassing and hard to watch, but quickly became one of my favorites. I'm a sucker for behind-the-scenes type stuff and the jokes in this one were pretty spot on. The same goes for "One Life To Lose," which had a crazed fan character that I'm pretty sure I've bet at some point in my life.

I did like parts of the episode "To Love and Die in L.A." for the same reasons, but the fact that it was almost entirely built on the old trope of "I'm not really investigating this thing you told me not to do and now I'm working against law enforcement even though we have the same goals because nobody can just communicate" really killed it for me. It was good, but it wasn't great.

But the writing really shines with "The Final Nail," an episode where Beckett and Castle have opposing opinions about a murder suspect, who happens to be one of Castle's old friends. When I was watching it, I was convinced there was no good way for the episode to end, because they had set up the conflict far too well. If the man was guilty and Beckett is right, then Castle's faith and humor take a hit, making him less like the character we love. If Castle is right and the man is innocent, Beckett's instincts and dedication to policework and doing her job at all costs is seen in a bad light. Neither is good, because it was each character's best qualities that were making them disagree. The fact that the writers managed to resolve the conflict without knocking down either one, and still make it heartfelt and upsetting is a testament to how good they are.

The thing is, this all leads up to the season finale, "Knockout" which does not let up and does not let you go. Even when you think the episode has destroyed your emotions enough for one hour of television, there's more. The character development, the plot development, everything about it is astonishingly good. If I had watched this when it aired and had to wait through an actual hiatus for it to start up again, I would have wanted to throttle the writers.

And I mean that as a compliment.

Being Elmo

I really, really wish I had watched this movie ages ago when it first came out. But I didn't, so oh well. I put it off even further because I was convinced that recent events would color my opinion, but I actually don't think that was what happened. Let's pretend I managed to write this review a year ago. I would have opened by saying that I really admire Kevin Clash, the puppeteer behind Elmo on Sesame Street. I would have pointed out that while I never really warmed to Elmo, I never really hated him either. He was a well done character, I just prefer Oscar or Grover, because that's what I grew up with. I also would have said that I saw Kevin Clash once, at a book festival, and watched the way he and Elmo interacted with the kids that came for him to sign copies of his then-new book, My Life as a Furry Red Monster. There was something great about it, the way the kids reacted, the way he talked to them.

I probably would have mentioned how I thought that Kevin Clash was a great example of the sheer amount of inspiration there was in Jim Henson, and how great a mentor and creator Henson was. Clash has always talked with great respect about Henson, and that made me respect him, no matter what I thought of Elmo.

Then, of course, Clash recently turned out to be a little less respectable than everybody thought (no matter how the court cases shake out, what truths he's admitted to are still disconcerting). Which makes me sad, and I thought would make me view Being Elmo in an unfair light.

But the thing is, Being Elmo is a good documentary, but I wouldn't say it's a great one. To me a great documentary is one that reveals things you never knew, or where it could be about a person no one has heard of but still be fascinating. A great documentary could take your neighbor and make them fascinating. Being Elmo was handed it's topic on a silver platter, and it did well, of course. Technically, there's nothing to complain about. It's an interesting film and I'm glad I watched it.

Maybe I just know too much about Sesame Street and Elmo. Maybe I know too much about Henson from being a lifelong fan. Maybe it's because I have at least skimmed Clash's book. But the only revelation in the film is the very brief discussion of his relationship with his ex-wife and his daughter, which the film touches on quickly and runs away from like they were afraid of saying something unkind about their subject.

Which is another aspect I didn't think worked with the film, because everything in it was glowing adoration of Clash, it came across like he had produced the film himself. Everything was just so nice that the film became so very even that it stopped being emotional very quickly. You don't get excited when he gets to start working in New York because everything was already so good, you weren't worried that it wouldn't turn out great. Where were the trials? Where were the struggles? Well, apparently still to come, but that's not the point.

I suppose that is the one thing that colored my viewing of the film, because now we know that Clash's life is not, and probably never has been, perfect. So having this very pleasing portrait of him isn't just a little bit boring like it would be if I didn't know, but it feels more like a lie.

So in the end, the film is interesting, especially if you don't know too much about Sesame Street or Henson so that the information would be a little more new and fresh to you. If you want to learn more about Clash, perhaps this will give you a different viewpoint. If you just like biographies and learning about different people's lives, it does a fairly good job of that.

But if you're looking for something in depth, hard hitting, or with a good bit of conflict, this isn't a good place to go.

Photographer's responsibilities to their subjects

Ages ago, I was a newspaper reporter and a photographer. Basically, pretty much any given day for just under a year there was a picture I took on the front page of our local paper. Which means I took an awful lot of pictures.

So this recent article by NPR caught my eye - What It Feels Like To Be Photographed In A Moment of Grief.

The article is well done, so I suggest reading it first because this will be entirely in response to that. Anyway, the point of it is that a woman was grieving at a religious statue in Newtown, Connectictut after the Sandy Hook shooting and a photographer took her picture. The picture was then sold and licensed to several news services, and published pretty much worldwide. All without the woman being contacted or talked to in any way.

Understandably the woman, Aline Marie, was upset about this. But to my surprise, she reacted very reasonably, saying that she didn't want to photo taken down, and she wasn't offended. But she did want people to understand her perspective on the situation and that she felt that somebody should have asked her permission.

The comments that come withe the article range across the board, but several said that photographers should "always" ask permission BEFORE taking a picture. Most agreed that photographers should speak to the subjects of their photos at some point. Though no one I saw really takes in the most important fact of the photo to me - which is that the "private" moment of grief is already heavily observed by cameras int he background, both photo and video. Which is part of what makes it a powerful statement, in my eyes.

Okay, so here's the way I see this. First - asking permission before taking a photograph isn't a good idea. While I never really took controversial pictures for the paper, my favorites are almost always candid ones where the subject doesn't realize I'm there. People act differently the moment that a camera is involved. Even if you tell them, "pretend I'm not here," "do what you were doing," "just act natural." Nothing will get you as good a picture as that candid moment before they realize you're there. I will never say that photographers should speak to their subjects before the picture.

However I will point out again that in this picture, Marie is already being observed on all sides and was likely aware of it. Which, again, is partially why it's a powerful image about this moment in our history. It can be a note about many different aspects of the moment. So again, I don't feel the photographer should have spoken to her before he took the picture.

But then we get to the question of after. Listen, when I was a photographer I was the world's WORST about talking to people after I'd taken the picture, even when they saw me. It was a benefit that my local paper was relatively well known and my picture was in it once a week so people probably knew me (and if they didn't know me from that, more than one of my subjects turned out to be people who knew my family, it was a small town). But on at least one occasion I had a man come into the newspaper office yelling and screaming because he was in a picture I took at the local fair that we had published in the paper. He threatened to sue, got belligerent, and generally made me want to hide. My desk was easily visible from the front desk of the paper, so I was in full view the entire time, though he thankfully didn't connect my name with me sitting there.

The editor came out and took care of the situation with a simple fact that most people don't realize: if you are in public or visible from a public area then any photographer is allowed to take a picture of you and use it. Especially newspaper photographers, they do not need your permission, they do not need your name, they can use it "to sell papers" and so on. This is a matter of legality, and most photographers know the ins and outs of it pretty well. I'm not as well versed in it anymore, but back then I was well aware of exactly what I could and could not do.

So, legally, this photographer is well within his rights. The AFP is within their rights to publish and sell the photo. And I, for one, don't want to see this changed. But was it moral or ethical? Is it moral to take a picture of somebody grieving? Or to be taking pictures at all at a time like this?

The photographer should have spoken to the subject. He should have gotten her name, found out if she knew anyone at the school, and shown her the picture (digital cameras give us that power) so that she could see first hand that his picture was respectful. He didn't because he was embarrassed and because he didn't want to intrude, and those are very valid feelings. I felt them constantly when I was at the paper, and in an instant like this those would only be heightened. Even passing her his business card would have been nice. Ethically, he could have done better. But in a situation like this, I can't give him an awful lot of fault for it.

But as for taking the picture itself? I believe we need to take pictures at times like these. We have to, because in ten years, twenty years, thirty years, this is what we'll have. Photography is how we record our history and we are a better people for it. These photos are able to capture more than words can, because they not only show you the emotion on the part of the subjects but they create an emotion in the viewer. We must take these pictures.

So lastly, I want to make a point about how people in these situations treat the photographers. I remember once I was sent to take pictures of a particularly bad car accident on the interstate, because that kind of thing is front page news in a small town. There were miles of people slowing down to stare as they drove past, and there were victims being airlifted out by helicopter from the scene of the accident. I went to a nearby service road, which was also backed up with onlookers and even people pulled open to stare and watch. But the second I took out my camera, I started getting heckled, honked at, insulted, and even flipped off.

Those people maybe didn't realize I was with the press, but even if they did I bet they would have thought it was disgusting. Though I don't see how it's any more or less disgusting than slowing down to gawk, especially considering I made sure to stay on the service road and no one working the accident was even aware of my presence. Maybe they didn't realize that we had a policy at my paper to never publish a picture of a victim, and so when I came back with my images I went through and deleted the ones where you could see even an arm or a leg that wasn't covered. We published a picture of the stretcher being loaded onto the helicopter where the patient was blocked from view by emergency personnel, even though I had better shots, because it was the most respectful one.

Did they send me on that assignment out of respect? No, they did it because pictures of wrecks sell papers and they wanted to sell more papers. But was there a way for us to do it properly and did we do that? Yes. So what should those onlookers have done when they saw me with my camera? First of all, nothing, there was no reason for them to say anything. But if they absolutely must speak, they should have simply said, "excuse me, do you really need to take pictures" or "I'm sorry, but why are you photographing this?" And I would have replied, "I'm with the newspaper, we'll do our best to be respectful of the victims. I would be happy to give you my editor's information if you'd like to speak with him more about it." We all could have moved on with our lives and maybe contemplated sensationalist journalism over our dinners that night instead of being insulted on the side of the road.