The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com
Friday, April 16, 2010 - 5
He's like a Doctor in a bowtie store.
Lord of time and TV
Tromooner.
Tremendous 'Treme'
Latest incarnation of
'Doctor Who'
dazzles with stellar
cast and storytelling
By CAROLYN KLARECKI
Senior ArtsEditor
"Because it will change your
life."
This phrase, which the Doctor
utters to his new-
est companion, is
the very essence
of "Doctor Who." r
Many have been
skeptical of the Saturdays
reported bril- at9 p.m.
liance of BBC's BBC America
famous series,
which is the lon-
gest-running science-fiction show
in history, but after taking a leap of
faith, they find themselves enam-
ored and captivated by the timeless
classic. The latest season is sure to
continue in this fashion, pleasing
old fans while acquiring new ones.
The Doctor is not a doctor by
regular conventions. This doctor is
a Time Lord, an alien species with
time traveling capabilities, and he's
the last of his kind. Through 31 sea-
sons of "Doctor Who," the Doctor
has journeyed through time and
space in his blue police-box time-
machine, known as a TARDIS
(Time And Relative Dimensions In
Space), protecting the universe and
saving humankind with the aid of
a companion and his sonic screw-
driver. Each time the Doctor or his
time machine gets seriously hurt,
it regenerates into a new form. The
31st season marks the beginning of
the reign of the 11th Doctor (rela-
tive newcomer Matt Smith) and his
quest to repair the Universe, mend-
ing mysterious new cracks in time
and space.
Playing the iconic role of the
Doctor is an incredible challenge.
With die-hard fans full of every
criticism imaginable scrutiniz-
ing every move, it's not a task most
actors would be up to. But Smith's
portrayal is absolutely stunning.
He manages to maintain a love-
able quirkiness, yet also balances
eccentricity with a believable fear-
lessness and thirst for adventure.
Concerns that "Doctor Who" has
strayed from its legacy by casting
the youngest-ever Doctor will be
forgotten after mere minutes of
Smith's performance.
The Doctor's newest companion
is Amy Pond (relative newcomer
Karen Gillan) who was once visited
by the Doctor as a girl, and spent
most of her life obsessively wait-
ing for his return. When he finally
does come back, she runs away with
him on the night before her wed-
ding. Gillan is just as charming and
talented as her co-star, making the
cast nothing less than magnificent.
Today's science fiction shows
are often cluttered with innumer-
able CGI sets and characters, and
a large part of the charm of the
early "Doctor Who" series is its
old-school effects. The latest sea-
son strikes a balance between old
and new. We're given breathtaking
shots of Starship UK - 29th-cen-
tury Britain, floating like an island
through space - and intricate and
elaborate ancient tombs, as well as
the tried-and-true clunkiness of
our favorite evil robot-aliens: the
Daleks. Though the modernized
"Doctor Who" has undergone some
aesthetic changes (the TARDIS
interior no longer looks like a game
show set and is now reminiscent of
Willy Wonka's chocolate factory),
the series abstains from any over-
the-top effects that would serve
only to show off how far technology
has come.
However, the most remarkable
aspect of "Doctor Who" is neither
its beautiful yet restrained visuals
nor its stellar cast. What sets "Doc-
tor Who" above the rest is - and
has always been - its superb story-
telling prowess. Inonly anhour and
a half, the premiere creates a narra-
tive that introduces the new Doc-
tor, unites him with his companion
and launches him into an adventure
where he has only 20 minutes to
capture an escaped shape-shifting
alien prisoner and return him to
the inter-galactic police force, the
Atraxi, who are threatening to
incinerate Earth. Somehow this
complicated plot is introduced,
developed and resolved at a natu-
ral pace with plenty of humor and
excitement.
Due to excellent writing, the
dialogue is snappy and the stories
are complex, engaging and sus-
penseful; a single episode of "Doc-
tor Who" accomplishes in an hour
what most movies cannot accom-
plish intwo. And "Doctor Who" has
done this hundreds of times. Natu-
rally, it can't be expected that each
and every story has outdone box-
office'hits, but the sheer magnitude
of individual tales this series has
produced says a lot about the legacy
we're witnessing.
Any TV show that can withstand
758 episodes, 47 years, 31 seasons
and 11 lead actors must have some-
thing incredibly special at its very
core. This isn't just a TV show, it's
a British national phenomenon that
has created its own culture.
The journey on which we are
about to embark with our 11th Doc-
tor will not only live up to the stan-
dard set by years of excellence, but
will likely accrue many new fans if
they're willing to make the leap of
faith and trust the Doctor. Maybe.
"Doctor Who" won't change your
life, but at the very least, it should
change the way you think about TV.
The creators of 'The
Wire' strike again
with HBO drama on
New Orleans
By JEFF SANFORD
SeniorArts Editor
In some circles, "Treme" could
be the most anticipated television
show ever. These
ever-growing *
circles encom-
pass those who trm
have vocally
declared creator Sundays at
David Simon's 10 p.m.
previous series H60
"The Wire" to
be one of the
greatest of all time - member-
ship includes a smart multitude
of critics, writers, professors and
even President Obama. It's good
company.
For those uninitiated to the
"David Simon is'God Club," let's
get this out of the way: "The
Wire" truly has good claim to be
the greatest ever. It's a richly com-
plicated, superbly written por-
trayal of a city's decay, examined
from the perspective of the police
force, the criminals it hounds and
the corrupt tangle of bureaucracy
that's supposed to oversee it all.
Still, that's only half the picture.
The real brilliance of "The Wire"
is that it exposes the how and why
behind real-life problems through
an impressively thorough, com-
plexly human, Great Books-esque
narrative. It is unequivocal True
Art.
So for "Treme," the bar is
stratospheric. But is it even pos-
sible for Simon's new show - or
any TV drama for that matter
- to live up to the institution-
cracking, perspective-altering
"The Wire?"
Well, the beautiful part is that
for Simon and his loyal nation of
Simonites, "Treme" doesn't have
to. The show, while occasion-
ally evoking the muckraking,
let's-look-deeply-and-critically-
at-this-mess sentiments of "The
Wire," exists on an incomparable
plane. Sprawling, ambitious and
painfully true to life, yes; but
"Treme" is about exploring one's
intimate and spiritual relation-
ship with his or her city. It's a
largely optimistic narrative, with.
adversity and the human spirit as
its subjects and music in its soul.
"The Wire" was about bureaucra-
cy, government and institutions.
"Treme" is about the individual.
The show is set in New Orleans,
three months after Hurricane
Katrina, and the pilot includes
plenty of heart-sinking shots of the
city's decimation. It follows a group
of musicians, business owners and
other locals who are reconfiguring
their lives after the disaster.
Like "The Wire," there's a
troupe of characters who could be
called the show's "stars." There's
Antoine Batiste (Wendell Pierce,
"The Wire"), a trombonist who
gets by on a gig-to-gig basis and
can barely pay his cab fare, and
Davis McAlary (Steve Zahn, "Sav-
ing Silverman") is a charmingly
obnoxious, spliff-smoking guitar-
ist and radio DJ.
Non-musicians include Creigh-
ton Bernette (John Goodman,
"The Princess and the Frog"), a
rabble-rousing college professor
and proud New Orleans native,
and Albert Lambreaux (Clarke
Peters, "The Wire"), a Mardi
Gras Indian intent on restoring a
destroyed bar as well as his tribe's
presence in the Big Easy. And the
list goes on.
Obviously, for a show so dense,
the 80-minute pilot had to take
pains to introduce the labyrinth
of characters and their situations,
and in so doing, was a little light
on plot development. But brilliant
flashes that hinted at the show's
promise were .readily apparent.
The production itself is done
right; it's directed beautifully,
with both the city's grandeur and
destruction captured through the
lens. Music informs every scene,
whether it comes out through the
Sun Ra poster beaming from the
wall of McAlary's bedroom or the
trombone that Batiste puts up for
collateral when he doesn't have
cash for the cabbie.
Still, behind the ebullient tra-
ditional New Orleans music and
Simon's trademark humor, there
is real sadness. The seemingly
simple recurring question "How's
your house?" takes on a special
resonance for those who lost
everything after the levees broke.
Restaurateur and chef Janette
Desautel (Kim Dickens, "Fri-
day Night Lights") twice replies
"Don't ask me about my fuck-
ing house," communicating that
among all things lost or destroyed,
the devastation of the home is
particularly painful.
"Treme" features essentially
personal stories - sad, hopeful,
angry, carefree and otherwise.
We've seen what Simon can do
when tackling big-city organi-
zations. Now, he has turned his
sights on something much more
intimate - the human soul. It
looks to be similarly compelling.
Basement farming Learning the hard way with The Dap-Kings
By BRAD SANDERS
Daily Arts Writer
What happens when farm ani-
mals become tired of their caretak-
ers? Naturally, they revolt.
The Base-
ment Arts Animal Farm
play "Ani-
mal Farm," Tonight at 7 p.m.
derived and 11 p.m.,
from George tomorrow at 7 p.m.
Orwell's Walgreen Drama Center
original Free
communist
satire, is based on Joseph Stalin's
Russian revolution of the mid-20th
century. Not finding the pleasing
result they expected after their
uprising, the animals begin to
question whether life was better
when they were subordinates.
The show's director, Lou King,
a junior in the schools of LSA and
Music, Theatre & Dance, found
inspiration to put on the play after
reading an article with a similar
story.
"I read an article about this tent
city that developed in Providence,
R.I., where a group of homeless
individuals had created this uto-
pian society where they had their
own rules and their own code of
life," King said. "Everyone worked
for the good of the community
and they would kick people out if
you were to do anything that was
against their code."
"Eventually, the people revolted
against their leader because they
thought his codes were becoming
ridiculous, and it reminded me of
reading 'Animal Farm' junior year
of high school," King added.
The play contains many of the
same points that Orwell made
about political society as a whole.
"I was really drawnby the novel
about what the human says in the
end when the pigs are meeting
them, that you have your lower
animals to contend with and you
have your lower classes. That was
the inspiration of the production
and how we ended up performing
it," King said. "The play in general
discusses ideas of health care for
the elderly, retirement, the strong
protecting the weak; these rules
that would be in the ideal society.
We see how it plays out, and it
doesn't play out in a utopian way."
King worked with many stu-
dents in the School of Music, The-
atre & Dance as well as the School
of Art & Design to create an enter-
tainingvisual and auditory experi-
ence for the audience.
Staging Orwell's
masterpiece.
"The play ended up being very
sculpturally based. The costumes
are made out of recycled and found
materials," King explained. "The
music that you will hear was com-
posed directly for the show, and it
features puppetry."
Erin Murray, a junior in the
See FARM, Page 7
By JOE DIMUZIO
Daily Arts Writer
I Learned the Hard Way is a tough album to
critique. On one hand, it does exactly what it sets
out to do: It's sequenced, written and produced
well; it's filled with excellent arrangements, per-
formances and slick musicianship; it's got style,
swing, everything.
And it's boring for all the same reasons.
ILearned the Hard Way, like The Dap-Kings, is
a curiosity. Led by Sharon Jones, The Dap-Kings
is a tight, professional band with a compulsive
desire to record songs that sound like lost soul
classics, (or at least songs worth inclusion on a
PeanutButter Wolf compilation). Under the lead-
ership of Jones, the
band issued its first **
LP in 2002 on their
own label, Daptone Sharon I
Records, which has TheD
since put out records
by a smattering of I Learned,
similarly intentioned Daptone Ret
groups. Over the
course of four albums,
Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings
Jones &
-Kings
the Hard Way
cords
's music has
last 50 years; JB-style funk, Philly, southern and
northern soul, Stax-styled horns, Muscle Shoals,
Motown, the list goes on. The Dap-Kings play as
though hip hop and disco never happened.
This commitment in style wouldn't make a
difference if the tunes weren'tenjoyable. Luckily,
I Learned the Hard Way has some of the group's
strongest work yet. With a sound more polished
than ever, Way is crisper and more polite than
The Dap-Kings's previous albums. Every solo,
echo and drum break is purposefully sequenced
for maximum impact. Each call-and-response is
tuned and timed to high heaven. Rumor has it
See SHARON, Page 7
evoked numerous black music touchstones of the
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Class of 2010!
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