Written by Mark Verheiden
Directed by James Head
“You didn’t think the fleet was just going to evolve into some type of utopian fantasy, did you?”
I wish I could like Black Market…but I don’t. It a distillation of far too many gangster films, with heavy splashes of film noir. It’s like watching an ugly hit-and-run accident between Orson Wells and Martin Scorsese.
It tries very hard. It’s filmed like a crime novel, to within an inch of its life. Jamie Bamber acts his socks off, giving us one of his best outings as Apollo: tortured, determined, conflicted…and lethal! It deals with a suitably interesting topic about life in the fleet, and it offers another chance for Richard Hatch to be suitably enigmatic and oily as Tom Zarek. He naturally gets the best line of the episode.
And yet I feel extremely unmoved by this episode, one way or another. It doesn’t affect me the way it wants to, and when it pushes even harder, it falls flat on its face. Nowhere is this more evident than in the flashbacks to Lee’s relationship with his Caprica-love. It wants to be big and important and devastating…but I have no emotional investment in this sudden revelation from the past. It’s totally inferior to the careful, in-depth evolution of the Starbuck-Zach-Adama flashbacks of season one — we learned to CARE about that dead-and-gone character, in a way totally opposite to this weak attempt at doing the same for Apollo.
And the less said about the sudden, out-of-the-blue comfort-woman relationship, the better…
It’s a failure…albeit a gorgeous-looking failure…and the shock ending is effective. But it all comes down to “I’ve seen it all before”…and it’s been done better elsewhere.
5
Written by Eli Attie & Deborah Cahn & John Wells
Directed by Steven Shill
“Everyone keeps thinking I have something to say…and I don’t seem to be coming up with anything.”
“You don’t have to.”
Five reasons why Requiem is a bona fide classic:
(1) The teaser managed to encapsulate a moving, gorgeous, touching funeral service in the space of five minutes, without a word from any of the regulars, or the stupendous assembly of returning guest stars that filled the pews of the church. It was classy, it was powerful, and it was pure West Wing magic.
(2) The episode managed to sandwich transition politics in between levity and tears at Leo’s wake. It was flawless done, and choreographed to the hilt — the scenes with visiting guest stars (just watch those stunning moments with Mary-Louise Parker as the returning firebrand, Amy) flowing smoothly into scenes relating Santos’ first tentative steps into the biggest job in the world. There wasn’t a single mis-step anywhere in the script (one of the finest ensemble pieces of writing on television for years!) or in the precision-perfect direction by Steven Shill. When his camera moved, we watched art in progress. Keep an eye out especially for the gorgeous scene in the Presidential limo, complete with powerful flash of sunlight-through-back-window, and camera low to the ground…
(3) An in-hiding Toby, and a brave & proud Charlie…walking out of the church together. Watching it will make you gape at what Dule Hill can do with a single, poignant scene.
(4) C.J. and Danny, conspiring to have sex. It’s a series of sensationally funny scenes, in which Allison Janney and Timothy Busfield channel the souls of Lucielle Ball and Desi Arnez. It’s a comedy masterpiece — they should have their own spin-off show!
(5) Martin Sheen…who says only one word during the first 25 minutes of the episode…consumed with pain and grief…suddenly switching into Presidential mode, greeting friends, toasting the dead, sharing stories…and the entire time, only his wife (a gorgeously shell-shocked Stockard Channing) knowing just how much of an act he is putting on, for the sake of everyone else. It’s a performance touched with god-like magnificence!
Requiem is everything The West Wing was, is, and will be in its final outings. It’s a precious jewel we should all cherish.
10
