Heads up for new Showtime series that looks good

[AuntiePam]

It's called Sleeper Cell, and Edelstein on NPR's Fresh Air raved about it today.

It starts Sunday. Edelstein says it's well-written, well-acted, intense, exciting, and that some major characters won't survive.

This might be my drama fix until The Sopranos comes back.

I think the new season of Wanted starts up again on Monday. It stars Gary Cole and Lee Tergeson (Beecher on Oz) and it's on TNT. It's pretty decent, for a show about an elite crime-fighting unit.

[Push You Down]

My problem with Sleeper Cell, and this is just from what little I have heard, is that unlike other shows about the villains (The Sopranos, to some extent Deadwood).. the villains aren't actively seeking to destroy a society. You root for Tony S because he's fucking the system. Am I going to root for the the guys planning to blow up a court house?

[AuntiePam]

You root for Tony? I do, but only when he's up against Johnny Sack or somebody who's trying to get him. He's "fucking the system", but it's just for him, for wealth and power, and to put his brat kids in good schools.

I hadn't thought about the message of Sleeper Cell. But then again, I'm not a particularly deep thinker. It fries my brain, when I find myself liking despicable people like Tony Soprano.

So, are you going to watch it?

[Otto]

Per the previews I've seen, the focus appears to be on an agent who's infiltrating the cell, so rootong for the bad guys doesn't seem to be an issue.



fixed spoiler tag. -- Uke

[Otto]

Aw shit. Sorry about that fucked up spoiler tag, but it is from the previews so I hope it's not that bad of a spoiler.

[AuntiePam]

Didn't spoil me. I haven't seen any of the previews, but it figures that there'd be an infiltrator.

[Tapioca Dextrin]

I've told TiVo to record it.

[Push You Down]

Oh okay. When the show was first in development the word was that it would solely follow the cell and there wouldn't be a "good guy" to root for.

I see Showtime changed it since then.

I don't have cable let alone Showtime so I won't be watching it. When the time comes I'll get HBO for Deadwood season 3 and the new season the Sopranos.

[AuntiePam]

I don't have cable let alone Showtime so I won't be watching it. When the time comes I'll get HBO for Deadwood season 3 and the new season the Sopranos.

You have good taste. :)

The Sopranos comes back in March. Not sure about Deadwood -- I've heard August 2006 and January 2007.

We don't normally subscribe to Showtime, but we signed up for Weeds, which I thought was pretty good. I stayed subbed for the Masters of Horror series, which has been a bit disappointing.

I would have dropped it but hubby likes the softcore porn.

[Otto]

I would have dropped it but hubby likes the softcore porn.
You mean The L Word?

[AuntiePam]

That'd be one of them. :)

[Push You Down]

Deadwood is supposed to come back either at the same time as the Sopranos (It will run right after the Sopranos) or it will be the Sunday night show after the Sopranos run is over.
They have already filmed season 3 so I think we will see it sooner rather than later.

[AuntiePam]

Okay, who watched the first installment?

I liked it enough to keep watching, although parts of it turned my stomach.

The Cell has at least one character who's almost a caricature -- the skinhead-looking guy who tackled Darwyn when they were playing football. He's almost too fanatical.

I'm surprised that Showtime is doing new episodes so close together -- Sunday through Wednesday? That calls for some dedicated viewing for anyone who doesn't have TiVo.

[Otto]

I missed, like, the first minute so some of the interaction between the Mole whose name I forget already so he'll be "Mole" until I can, and the librarian. But I still got the gist. One minor point that didn't quite ring true was the former skinhead. No swastika tattoos? I suppose he could've had them removed, but somehow his skin seemed a little too unblemished to have been tattooed and untattooed. One major point that rang untrue was the idea that the FBI, even post-9/11, would sanction one of their agents putting a bullet into someone's head. I get that Mole knew there was no way the guy was walking away from the stoning (although now that I think about it I have this vague memory of reading a news story about a stoning victim surviving the stoning and being released) and Mole was looking to put him out of his misery, but still.

But it was engaging enough that it looks like it'll be incorporated into my Sunday viewing habits. Just what I need, another damn show to watch Sunday nights. I'm already up to like eight.

[AuntiePam]

Otto, if you wait until Sunday, you'll miss three episodes.

I just finished watching the second episode, and it was at least as intense as the first.

I'm not sure Christian is really a skinhead. I called him that because he didn't have any hair. :)

I want to know why the FBI hasn't already rounded up the cell. Seems like they have enough evidence on them, and Fariq appears to be a worthwhile snatch.

I wonder if the writers will allow any of the cell's plans to succeed.

[AuntiePam]

I just checked the schedule -- they're repeating the first three episodes starting Thursday, then three more new eps starting Sunday, repeats again, and then the finale the following Sunday.

[Otto]

Otto, if you wait until Sunday, you'll miss three episodes.
Was there mention of this last night following the premiere? I sure as hell don't remember hearing about it. I guess I'd better let my Sunday night companions know to try to watch the shows between now and then. What a stupid way to kick off a series.

I'm not sure Christian is really a skinhead. I called him that because he didn't have any hair.
Fariq said that he was a former skinhead who came around to their side. Those racist skins I've known are all heavily tattooed (except for that one skin chick who heard a Bob Marley song and went from skin to rasta overnight). Of course I would be more than happy to examine Christian in more detail...

I want to know why the FBI hasn't already rounded up the cell. Seems like they have enough evidence on them, and Fariq appears to be a worthwhile snatch.
Either Mole or his boss said in the first ep that they want to infiltrate deeper into the network and bring down bigger targets.

[AuntiePam]

What a stupid way to kick off a series.


I'm not sure how I feel about it. It's almost like having the DVD set, being able to watch four episodes in four days.

Good point about the tattoos then. Does Islam have rules about tattoos? We did see quite a bit of Christian's skin, didn't we? That's some fine French he was speaking to his wife -- I'm no linguist but it sounded natural.

I hope we get some more back story on these guys before they're all dead.

I could do without the romance between Darwyn and whoz-iits. Why do you think that story line is there? Is it to show us that Darwyn is new to this and doesn't know better, or just so she and the kid will be put in danger at some point? It'd be more effective if we never saw her again.

[commasense]

I could do without the romance between Darwyn and whoz-iits. Why do you think that story line is there? Is it to show us that Darwyn is new to this and doesn't know better, or just so she and the kid will be put in danger at some point? It'd be more effective if we never saw her again.I suspect that from the dramatic point of view, the romantic storyline is intended to 1) make Darwyn seem more human, 2) keep female viewers interested, 3) provide opportunities for a little T&A.

But IMHO from the realism point of view, it's an incredibly bad move for at least as many reasons. 1) The last thing a trained undercover agent in such an important operation would do is pick up a babe, 2) especially one who happens to be a friend of one of the agent's target. And 3) Darwyn is portrayed as a devout Muslim, and I believe this tryst violates Islamic precepts. (Yeah, I know he made some kindf excuse after the fact, but see items 1 and 2.)

There's also been what seems to me to be sloppy tradecraft on the part of Farik, e.g., all these meetings they have in public places where they are more subject to surveillance (or just plain being overheard saying something suspicious) than if they just met in someone's apartment.

AuntiePam, I suspect you may be right that Gayle and the kid will be in the wrong place when the Big One goes down, so that Darwyn has to make a choice between saving them and foiling the mission. That would certainly be the stereotypical big ending to an action movie/mini-series.

My suspicion: Based on how quickly she moved to pick him up (even after learning he's an ex-con), I strongly suspect that Gayle's an agent herself. The big question: on which side?

[AuntiePam]

That's a good suspicion. I'll be surprised if, when the series is over, everyone is who we thought they were at the start.

The show is certainly well written and edited. I'm riveted, even when nothing much is happening.

I'm confused about the French guy. In the first episode, I didn't notice his accent, so I was impressed with his French. Looks like he's French. :smack:

I liked the Security Council woman in the meeting. I think the question she asked and the answer she got were real. Scary to think that people are making these kinds of decisions. So far, the agents appear competent and on top of things. Can we hope that's realistic too?

[commasense]

I had a problem with the whole child pornography subplot, and Darwyn's reaction to it. IANAUndercover agent, but it struck me as stupid to imagine that, after all Farik's talk about following orders and not asking questions, Darwyn would again challenge his authority in such a forceful manner, and that Farik would stand there and take it. I think it's just the scriptwriters trying to make Darwyn more sympathetic and less morally ambiguous. But in that situation, the agent would have to behave just like the group he's infiltrated, not push to turn them into good guys. It just strains credulity.

And then they're all standing by, watching and smiling as the place is raided. Give me a break!

One reason I like some of HBO's original series, most notably The Wire and Deadwood, is that the characters are not simple good guys or bad guys. Most are complex mixtures of good and bad, competent and incompetent. In other words, realistic.

And what about the deus ex machina at the end of Tuesday's episode? The bureaucrats shut down the operation, but at the last minute Signint saves it. C'mon. We all know how organizations work: you don't shut things down instantly, nor can you resurrect something that's scheduled to die ten minutes before the zero hour. And we're supposed to believe that NSA intercepts a sat phone message and then routes that intel instantly to just the right guy in the FBI? Those guys hate each other more than the Sunnis and Shi'ites!

Sleeper Cell has potential, but it's annoying me by being too simplistic.

[commasense]

Oh, and another thing: that scene in the subway where Darwyn saves the Sikh from the rampaging punks? What a cliché! How many Clint Eastwood/Bruce Willis actioners have used that exact scene?

The more I think about it, the less I like this show.

[AuntiePam]

I was okay with Darwyn challenging Fariq, because he used religion to do it. If I were Fariq, I'd be suspicious of a new guy who went along with everything, especially if it was against the basic tenets of Islam.

The scene with the Sikh on the train -- I took that as the writers trying to educate. Not every dark-skinned person who wears strange headgear is a Muslim. Muslims hate Sikhs? I didn't know that.

I agree that the characters aren't as realistic as in Deadwood, but it took awhile for Swearengen and Bullock to show us more than one side of their character. I'm hoping Sleeper Cell will do more of that, but I'm not sure they'll have the time, with just 7 eps left.

[carnivorousplant]

Well, that went well.

[AuntiePam]

Weather knocked out my TV reception last night, so I missed it. Good thing they're repeating later in the week.

What happened? I don't mind being spoiled.

One of the highlights for me was when Darwyn went to his girlfriend's sister's house for dinner. What was the BIL's line? "Only a member of the Taliban would compare eating bacon with cheating on your wife." Something like that.

He gave Darwyn something to think about, and I was anxious for last night's ep to see if the comment had any lasting impact.

[carnivorousplant]

What happened? I don't mind being spoiled.



[spoiler] A kid allegedly from Afghanistan who was wrongly confined ti Gitmo shows up at the garage.
Daryn's control tells him the GF is married to a guy in prison.
Daryn dumps GF adultry being seriuos stuff to him and tries to turn the kid over to an exGF who works at State.
ExGF calls FBI. Control shows up and takes the kid.
Kids cut's Control's throat. Control shoots kid.
Meanwhile back at the ranch, GF tells the cops she thinks Darwyn is a terrorist.
[/quote]
Like I said, that went well.

[AuntiePam]

Wow. Did either the control or the kid survive?

What happened that Darwyn's girlfriend thinks he's a terrorist? Is she just mad that he dumped her and wants to cause him some trouble?

[carnivorousplant]

Wow. Did either the control or the kid survive?
Nope.

What happened that Darwyn's girlfriend thinks he's a terrorist? Is she just mad that he dumped her and wants to cause him some trouble?
Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned. I think she believes it, but she's literally f--ked up at the time. She recunts his unexplained abscences when he was, well, with the terrorists. :rolleyes:

[Dewey Finn]

I hadn't heard of this miniseries prior to reading this thread, but spent Thursday and Friday watching the first eight episodes on Comcast On Demand and really got into it. I just saw the last two episodes on Showtime, which were tense, to say the least.

One question about it, though. The IMDB listing for it has the guest stars for each of the ten episodes, plus for an episode called "Scholar" that's listed as having aired in August. Did anyone see that?

Sorry, but one more question. Who was the Tower Records clerk who met "Steve" (aka Ilija)? She looked familiar.

[carnivorousplant]

Scholar (http://www.sho.com/site/sleepercell/episodes.do) was episode 4.
Outstanding program with a realistic ending. No swinging from a helicopter with one hand while defusing a nuclear weapon with the other. :)

[carnivorousplant]

Nope.

She recunts his unexplained abscences
Wow. What a Freudian slip. Recounts. :)

[AuntiePam]

Outstanding program with a realistic ending. No swinging from a helicopter with one hand while defusing a nuclear weapon with the other. :)

Oh yes. I only hope the FBI is half as competent and smart as what we saw, especially with the technical stuff.

Tommy's mother -- I wonder if her reaction would have been different if Tommy's last words had been conciliatory. Her reaction -- if that happened in real life, the pit threads would crash the board. Sue the Pentagon because your son had a bad experience in the military? You go girl. :rolleyes:

I'm up for Sleeper Cell 2. Ilyea (sp?) is still out there.

[carnivorousplant]

Oh yes. I only hope the FBI is half as competent and smart as what we saw, especially with the technical stuff.
Of course not. It's TV.
Well, someone must be doing something right since this sort of thing hasn't happened.

Tommy's mother -- I wonder if her reaction would have been different if Tommy's last words had been conciliatory.
There are lots of things going on there. Protest is what she did in her youth. Being an ass and wealthy, she sues over things. Denying that Tommy was a psychotic asshole and she made him that way. Supporting Tommy when she hadn't in the past when needed. I have a dog named Tommy.

I'm up for Sleeper Cell 2. Ilyea (sp?) is still out there.
No. Great series. End it now. Don't screw it up. Quit while you're ahead.
Darwyn may or may not get the girl. "You sent us tickets knowing there would be an attack?!" The bad guys got their just deserts. In one case we can even hear the lamentations of their women. Illya will probably get a really, really, serious social disease.

[AuntiePam]

No. Great series. End it now. Don't screw it up. Quit while you're ahead.
Darwyn may or may not get the girl. "You sent us tickets knowing there would be an attack?!"

Yossi (Fariq) sent the tickets.

Good point. Let it end on a high note.

Ilya's heart wasn't in it either, I don't think. Maybe he has a future in karoake. :)

[carnivorousplant]

Yossi (Fariq) sent the tickets.
Thanks, but it's still, "You let your friend..."
"He wasn't my friend, he was one of the terror..."
"You let one of the terror..."
"How could I stop...."
"They don't give FBI agents guns, already?"
anyway...

[QUOTE=AuntiePam]

Why did Tommy shoot up traffic, was he trying to block escape routes so more people would be exposed to the gas?

When you look up "asshole" in the dictionary there is a picture of Fariq.

[AuntiePam]

Yeah, that could be a fun conversation.

But I think Darwyn's in the clear about the tickets. He didn't know Fariq sent them to her.

I wondered if Tommy decided on his own to start shooting, but I think you're right -- he was another distraction for the cops to deal with. There was no other reason to send him off by himself.

[Dewey Finn]

The guy who owned the warehouse they took over was correct when he described Tommy as a loose cannon, so I think Fariq was right to send him off on his own.

I thought the scene when Christian and Tommy met the street corner Christian missionary was amusing, particularly when Tommy described him as a "f***ing religious fanatic." Christian gave him a look because Tommy seemed incapable of recognizing the irony.

[AuntiePam]

I thought the scene when Christian and Tommy met the street corner Christian missionary was amusing, particularly when Tommy described him as a "f***ing religious fanatic." Christian gave him a look because Tommy seemed incapable of recognizing the irony.

Fanatics don't get irony, do they?

That was a powerful scene, Darwyn telling Fariq, "What I do today, I do for Islam."

Damn. Darwyn had to kill two people that he didn't want to kill. Bobby Habib and Christian. It really showed in his face at the end -- the guy's gonna need counseling. So different from the strutting and posing that we're used to seeing, after someone beats down the bad guys.

[Dewey Finn]

Darwyn also had to watch the truck driver die, and he was completely innocent. Plus it was a horrible way to go.

[carnivorousplant]

I muttered, "Poor Tommy. What a loser." when he tried to make his last stand and got shot everytime he tried to shoot. That's not a bad thing, of course, but what a loser. :rolleyes:

[commasense]

All in all, I was disappointed by Sleeper Cell. I was hoping that it would live up to the standards of HBO's original series, like The Sopranos, Deadwood, and my particular favorite, The Wire. But IMHO, it missed the mark by a wide margin.

One of the great things about The Wire is its realism: the good guys and the bad guys both have a few sharp, dedicated people on their side, as well as a larger number of clock watchers, losers, and idiots. The competent ones try to push the others in the right direction, but as often as not, stupidity, politics, and bad luck keeps them from succeeding. I don't know about your life, but this is how the real world seems to work most of the time. There was a little of that in Sleeper Cell, but not enough.

The show had some good points, chief of which was that it portrayed Islam in a nuanced and realistic way. Darwyn and others were shown as serious, devout, and sympathetic Muslims who are good Americans but have to put up with bad Muslims and people who believe that all Muslims are terrorists.

But the show's biggest problem, IMHO, was that the producers were trying to make Darwyn too likeable. In doing so, they had him do LOTS of things that no real undercover agent would ever do. Like the following:

Have a girl friend. Especially one who happens to be a friend of one of your fellow terrorists. Rule Number One for UCs has to be: No picking up babes just as you start a new operation (unless she's a target). It's just idiotic. It was so stupid that I predicted earlier in this thread that she must be a UC herself. That would have been an interesting twist, especially if it wasn't clear which side she was working. Sadly, Sleeper Cell wasn't that subtle. Gayle served merely as an ordinary romantic foil to show Darwyn's warm and fuzzy side, and to implausibly be put in danger (with her kid) at the big climax. (BTW, good call in post # 18, AuntiePam!)


Constantly question and challenge the boss bad guy. Terrorist organizations aren't democracies. In the first few episodes, when Darwyn should have been following orders without question to establish his credibility, he was constantly asking Farik what he was doing, suggesting other plans, and generally being a pain in the neck. Dumb.


Constantly do good-guy things that could blow your cover or jeopardize the mission. Saving the child prostitutes; trying to get the Gitmo guy out, etc.


At the very end, when he and Christian are about play their parts in the Big Bang, he could have just taken his gun, and as Christian walked off, shot him in the back. But nooooo! He tries to arrest him, engages in a fist fight that he easily could have lost, and ultimately kills him with that neck twist move. (Can you really kill someone that way? I have my doubts.) He's just as dead at the end, but he tried not to kill him. Yeah, right! And there were lots more examples.

The point is that an undercover agent has to be just like all the other bad guys. Outwardly he's not going to seem like a warm-hearted, sensitve guy, he's going to behave like a terrorist. But the producers apparently were afraid that if they portrayed him that way, we wouldn't care about him. Or we wouldn't be sure that he really was a good guy unless he tried to right every wrong he saw along the way. It struck me as unrealistic.

Okay, IANAUFA (undercover FBI agent), but in addition to all the spy movies we've all seen, I have done a fair bit of reading about how spies and other undercover operatives actually work in real life. And Sleeper Cell was just full of incredibly bad tradecraft on both sides.

As I mentioned previously, the cell frequently met and discussed their plans in public places. Why would they take that risk?


Darwyn's control used a 24-hour porn shop as a meeting place. Isn't that a strange place for a supposedly devout Musilm to be seen?


In the final episode, the bad guys following the tanker truck just pull into the motel behind him. Okay, they may not be worried about him noticing that two vehicles were following him (although they should have been), but then the big black FBI van pulls up just outside the fence to keep an eye on them. D'oh!And there were lots more examples.

Another thing: the FBI was unfailingly, amazingly competent.

They set up a big road block, complete with Hazmat gear and SWAT teams, to stop the tanker truck, then instantly pull it completely out of sight when they conveniently find out on two minutes' notice that the truck's wired.


They get Farik's satphone, take it to their magical electronics van, and within seconds have found the coordinates for the other cells, zipped them off to NSA so the (unprepared) teams in DC and NY can intercept those cells with no casualties whatsoever. And there were lots more examples.

The whole series would have gained a lot in my eyes if they hadn't arranged such a completely unlikely, totally casualty-free ending. More implausibility: at the very end, outside a huge stadium that 50,000 people were leaving, Darwyn just happens to find poor little Marcus, and carries him about twenty feet straight to Gayle, who hadn't found him in half an hour of frantic searching. How sweet.

In short, Sleeper Cell was just an ordinary action film/cop show in miniseries form, with almost none of the subtlety or realism that has made HBO's series so great. Too bad; it had some potential. I was hoping for more.

(Sorry to go on so long.)

[Dewey Finn]

Also, why was Darwyn visiting his mother, who knew he worked for the FBI? What if the terrorists were tailing him?

[carnivorousplant]

Also, why was Darwyn visiting his mother, who knew he worked for the FBI? What if the terrorists were tailing him?

Maybe because it's a TV show, you reckon? :)

[Dewey Finn]

Of course I realize that. I was just adding it to commasense's list of inconsistencies in the plot. (Actually, I expected them to do more with his mother, like for the bad guys to put her in danger.)

[carnivorousplant]

Of course I realize that.

And I realize that you realize that...
wait a minute.

My point being that it wouldn't be terribly entertaining without a love interest and some back story provided by Mommy.
Let's face it, a realistic story would be boring in places and folks would turn over to watch "Jurrasic Park" and not turn back.
Yeah, I wanted him to shoot Christian in the back, or at least aim at his back and say, "youhavetherighttoremainsilent" BANG!
And there always has to be a child, from 24 to Monk.

The question remains, would Jack Bauer have been able to save the truck driver? :)

[AuntiePam]

Your criticisms are all valid, but I don't know how it could have been done differently and still been watchable. Except for getting rid of the girlfriend -- my attention wandered whenever she was in the story. The subplot with slutty Christian was unnecessary too.

To be perfectly honest, of Oded Fehr wasn't so damn hot, I might have stopped watching.

I'm sastisfied with it, for a couple of reasons you've already mentioned. The story gave us some insight into Islam without trying to make the terrorists too sympathetic, and it ended without someone dangling from a helicopter while dismantling a nuclear weapon.

[carnivorousplant]

To be perfectly honest, of Oded Fehr wasn't so damn hot, I might have stopped watching.


Iiteresting. Mrs. Plant refused to watch untill I pointed out that he is Israeli. (http://www.sho.com/site/sleepercell/characters.do)
;j

RE Mrs Plant: Who covered your eyes when they killed the dogs?