Wednesday, October 25, 2006

Logan + Logan = ????

Thoughts on, in order, "Veronica Logan," "Logan Girls" and "Friday Night Logans" just as soon as I Logan my Logan with some Logan, and possibly top it with an order of Loganberry pancakes...

So what exactly are the differences between VM-Logan and GG-Logan? Both are sons of privilege, with abusive (or, at least in the case of Mitchum Huntzberger, emotionally distant) fathers, they surround themselves with obnoxious rich friends, know how to be polite in front of adults but generally behave like asshats except when they're around their respective girlfriend -- and even there, it can be iffy. Genetics aside, if Jason Dohring and Matt Czuchry tried to pull the Prince and the Pauper gag and traded places for a week, would anyone be able to tell?

Which, of course, made casting Czuchry as VM-Logan's long-lost half-brother on last night's "Veronica Mars" seem like such genius casting that it didn't occur to me that he was an impostor until he mentioned that he surfed. (The episode was called "Charlie Don't Surf," an "Apocalypse Now" tribute.) A nice showcase for Mr. Dohring and a better Logan/Veronica story than last week.

The "Just Shoot Me" reunion gave an interesting twist to the usual private eye infidelity case, in that Keith's client badly wanted her husband to be a cheat -- and not just because she liked having barefoot pizza parties with Keith. Looked like Keith wanted that, too. I am unspoiled on this, and am curious to see if she returns down the road.

The heavier focus on the rape storyline was welcome, though the amount of time spent on Logan Squared robbed it of some urgency, particularly at the end. I'm sure we'll deal with the mysterious Asian guy in the photograph next week, but it felt off to have Veronica clear the frat and then immediately go back to helping Logan without making any apparent effort to track this guy down.

Speaking of our mystery man, there was a "Lebowski" shout-out in that scene where Veronica said "The Chinaman is not the issue here," but the censors cut it. So we had to settle for the "Careful, man, there's a beverage here!" In other Things That Got Cut, the girl with the rat trap idea was at one point going to be Alia Shawkat's character from "The Rapes of Graff," but they couldn't get Shawkat to come back for some logistical reason. And I have to assume there were more Wallace scenes that wound up on the cutting room floor, because I know how carefully Rob and company try to dole out appearances by the non-Veronica/Keith/Logan characters, and they wouldn't waste one of Percy Daggs' episodes on a single scene, would they?

On to the show where the other Logan actually plays Logan, "Gilmore Girls" continues the hard sell on the Lorelai/Christopher relationship, arguably past the point they needed to. I think I understood Lorelai's point in the scene where she contrasted Chris abandoning Rory with Sherry abandoning GiGi, but it came across as her absolving him of all guilt because he was just a stupid kid. (As opposed to him continuing to float in and out of Rory's life through all of his 20s and most of his 30s...) And I'm surprised Lorelai or Sookie failed to mention the other pitfall of sending GiGi to Paris on her own: if Sherry suddenly becomes so gripped with maternal feelings that she doesn't want to give her back, Christopher's going to have a much harder time re-asserting custody across international borders.

While GG-Logan doesn't make me want to punch him in the face quite as often as when he was first introduced, I still don't care much about him or his relationship with Rory. But once again I'm relieved that the Rosenthal regime has characters actually expressing their feelings immediately instead of passive-agressively stewing for half a season. And wasn't that the Orbit gum girl as Logan's leggy colleague?

For me, the highlight of the episode -- outside of the look of pure, Stanley on Pretzel Day glee on Richard's face at the prospect of seeing the Emily in jail photos -- was the bad pickle smell, which was silly and broad but got just enough screentime that I didn't get sick of everyone's horrified reaction to it.

Finally, we have our one non-Logan-related drama of the evening in "Friday Night Lights." (And I tried really, really hard to find some kind of Logan-ish element. Closest I came was the fact that the actor who plays Voodoo is also on "The Game," which airs on the same network as both of the Logans.)

I don't know that this episode was quite as gripping as the first three, but I liked the extended focus on Saracen, as well as continued realistic friction in the Taylor marriage -- and the meeting of the two stories when Coach realized he had just suggested that his quarterback get his daughter into the back of a Volkswagen (or similarly uncomfortable place).

Questions: Is there any way the Street rehab storyline doesn't turn into "Murderball: The Series"? Will the writers need to make Voodoo commit some particularly heinous act to justify Saracen's continued status as QB One? And whatever happened to the good old days when high school sports rivals just stole each other's goat mascots?

What did everybody else think?

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