Predictable Exposure: "The Big Feast" Seems Like Far Too Much Of A Standard To Buy!

The Good: Moments of humor, Very few moments of character
The Bad: Moments of predictability, Nothing stellar on the acting front, Light on character
The Basics: Terribly disappointing, "The Big Feast" starts with a contrived plot, fails to add character development and is performed blandly by the entire cast.


As I reach the final individual episode of Northern Exposure on VHS for me to review, I have to say I am happy. Northern Exposure is a series that came to me highly rated and I have discovered it to be far more mediocre than extraordinary. Having watched the entire series (I'm on my second viewing of the final seasons for review), I find that it is hard to get excited about going through the later seasons and final individual episodes that are available when there are so many other, better products available for me to review.

With that, I find myself at "The Big Feast," a fourth season episode of Northern Exposure that even the die-hard fans would have to admit is predictable and more of a standard plot than a truly original episode of supposedly groundbreaking television that Northern Exposure claims to be. Instead of being intriguing or interesting, "The Big Feast" could have been written by a high school student and yielded pretty much the same results as we have on screen.

Maurice is in the mood to celebrate and he has chosen to honor the twenty-fifth anniversary of Minnifield Communications. He decides to throw the biggest party Cicely has ever seen, a feat that is guaranteed to be quite extraordinary given the references to prior events. He sets to slaughtering a virtual herd of cows for a reduction sauce, imports some extraordinarily expensive bottles of wine and hires an army of chefs and servers. And everyone is invited . . .

. . . except Joel. Joel builds up his sense of outrage, resentfully confronting Maurice when the feast begins and Marilyn falls ill during the shellfish course. Shelly breaks a bottle of wine that costs more than she makes in three years and she struggles to replace it with something drinkable without Maurice knowing, and Adam returns to take over the kitchen as an imported French cook fails to meet Maurice's standards. In the course of his whining, Fleischman and Maggie are forced to deal with their feelings for one another, especially now that they have had sex.

"The Big Feast" has far too many obvious plot conceits to be considered truly original or even interesting. First, there is the Joel plotline. When Joel is excluded, his pride prevents him from confronting Maurice directly and the roundabout way he tries to find out if he was purposely excluded or omitted by accident is obvious and predictable. Moreover, that the missing invitation forces him to confront O'Connell is disappointing especially for Northern Exposure.

In a move that makes one think that the writers of the episode were thinking, "the audience thinks we're going to zig or zag or otherwise do something surprising, so let's surprise them by doing what everybody else who has ever had a television show has done!," Shelly knocks into a bottle of fabulously expensive wine moments after discovering how costly the bottle is. Naturally, this forces her into a wacky run-around trying to find a way to acquire it (Holling doesn't even have that much money), replace it (no one in town has a bottle of it) and ultimately, forge it. This overlaps well with the final plot conceit as Adam returns and he is known to be a connoisseur of fine things and - apparently - an enophile.

The problem with the plot peaks with the return of Adam. Don't get me wrong, I am a fan of Adam and actor Adam Arkin who portrays him. I am always delighted to see him. The thing is, whenever there are so many chefs in the kitchen and an event of such momentous proportions in Cicely, involving fine food and drink, the viewer comes to expect that Adam will pop up. This is especially insulting after the long-belabored string of chef's who come through the kitchen with impeccable credentials and . . . oh, no! It turns out they are completely bloody incompetent. Isn't it handy that Adam just happens to be in the area to save the day?!

Yes, "The Big Feast" could have been written by the most formulaic hacks in Hollywood and on the off chance that writers Mitchell Burgess and Robin Green are reading this - or director Rob Thompson - shame on you! Seriously, did you guys just open the "Classic Television Plots" book laying around the studio?!

The only thing more insulting than the standard and obvious plots in "The Big Feast" would have to be the character development. Joel's plotline is the closest the show comes to character development, but the sad thing is there is no real development. Joel runs around whining. Wow, what a surprise. It's what he does virtually every week! Joel feels legitimately hurt by being excluded and it's hard to blame him . . . save that every week he is an elitist who tries to be above everyone else in the Alaskan wilderness. So, it's not like Maurice would be unjustified in excluding the doctor.

No, Joel does not grow and learn a very valuable lesson in this episode. In fact, in the Joel plotline, it is Maggie who grows a bit and she realizes that how she has been treating Joel might well be unfair and wrong. Good for her . . . it only took three and a half years for her to get there. But, at least there is an epiphany to be had and the show takes the viewer there.

The Shelly plotline, the Adam plotline, even all of the time Maurice spends on screen, these elements involve nothing in the way of development or growth, they are simply the characters running around doing what they always do. This is disappointing and does not distinguish "The Big Feast" from any number of other episodes of Northern Exposure. This is a bit of a disappointment for anyone who wants to sit and watch a decent drama.

Equally pathetic is the acting. It seems the actors have the sensibility that they are doing something that is tried, true and has been done at least a thousand times before on television. None of the regulars sparkle and even Adam Arkin phones in his performance. There is not a single spark in this episode and none of the regulars seem at all enthusiastic about working this one.

Ultimately, "The Big Feast" is one of the more forgettable episodes of Northern Exposure and it is a true disappointment to the fans.

[Knowing that VHS is essentially a dead medium, it's worth looking into Northern Exposure - The Complete Fourth Season on DVD, which is also a better economical choice than buying the VHS. Read my review of the last worthwhile season by clicking here!
Thanks!]

3/10

For other television reviews, please visit my index page by clicking here!

© 2011, 2008 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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The Alternate Universe Storyline Of "Cicely" Is A Northern Exposure Winner!

The Good: Fun, EXCELLENT Acting, Decent plot/execution, Interesting characters
The Bad: Minutiae (A bit on-the-nose)
The Basics: When Joel accidentally hits one of the original settlers of Cicely, the town is treated to the full story of how the Alaskan frontier was settled!


One of the hallmarks of Northern Exposure that always worked well for the series was how it tried to have fun with narrative techniques. In the otherwise mediocre second season (reviewed here!), there is a remarkable moment in the episode "War And Peace" where the show suddenly turns on a dime and goes in a completely ridiculous and wonderful direction. In its third season, Northern Exposure was much more on episode to episode and it is somewhat surprising that it ended its season with an episode that did not advance any of the main characters. Instead, the producers tell a very different story, the story of "Cicely," the town in Alaska that the show takes place in.

When Dr. Fleischman hits an old man with his truck, he is mortified and deeply apologetic. He brings the man back to his cabin where he discovers the man is over a hundred years old and he was in Cicely when it was established around the turn of the century. Ned, the old man, begins to tell the story of how Cicely was founded.

What makes "Cicely" work so beautifully is that as he tells his story, Joel and his friends imagine it, transposing themselves into the roles of the residents of the area. And despite having heard about how Cicely was founded in prior episodes - Chris infuriates Maurice in an early episode discussing the sapphic love of Cicely and Roslyn on his radio program. Here, the viewer finally sees the story of Cicely and Roslyn (who are portrayed by guest actors while the rest of the cast takes over the other roles) as they band together, inspire locals who are living in the Alaskan frontier and settle the town to form a community.

Ned, a young man and aspiring poet, is virtually illiterate and carving out a living on the frontier as a virtual beggar where he is abused by the local crime lord, Mace Mobrey and his lackey, Kit. Cicely and Roslyn arrive in the area, fleeing the intolerance of the southern United States and they instantly treat Ned with kindness. Cicely, who is ill, and Roslyn, who is nurturing her back to health, instantly bond with the locals in Abe's pub. They include: Franz Kafka, a missionary names Mary O'Keefe, and Sally, Abe's young love. Roslyn and Cicely inspire Ned, Abe and the others to rise up against Mace and his oppressive tactics and claim the land as their own without paying patronage to him.

The regular cast is fit easily into the roles of their frontier counterparts and while the concept is not terrible heavy, it gives each of the actors a chance to step outside of their usual role. Rob Morrow (Fleischman) takes on the mantle of Kafka, Janine Turner (O'Connell) becomes O'Keefe, Barry Corbin (Maurice) is transposed into the villainous Mace, John Corbett (Chris) basically plays the same character as Kit (he's a bit highbrow for a thug's lackey!), John Cullum (Holling) becomes Abe, Darren Burrows (Ed) has a chance to stretch his acting legs as the young Ned, and Cynthia Geary (Shelly) tags along as Sally. The 1909 versions of each character are clever, though they seem to utilize many of the character conceits of the character who is imagining the story the older Ned is telling.

"Cicely" works (perhaps not as well as a season finale, but as a general episode) because it gives the viewer a real sense of a ride. The story is one that is pretty predictable: whatever happens in the impending shootout that Cicely and Roslyn arrange, we know Ned survives it and the town of Cicely is established. But this is one of those episodes where the journey makes all the difference. In other words, it's just fun! "Cicely" is a chance to watch a virtual actor's studio for a group of remarkably talented actors and unlike some episodes of Northern Exposure, which fall short on time and end up having filler, this is an incredibly tight episode (indeed, on the DVD version of it, this has possibly the greatest number of deleted scenes of any episode of the series!). In this way, "Cicely" becomes something of a gift to the fans.

The acting challenges that the cast live up to are almost impossible for the non-fans to appreciate because without the frame of reference, the performances as just roles that the actors are playing. And while it's easy to see someone like John Corbett playing the rogue Kit or Barry Corbin playing a character stripped of all ambiguity to be an outright villain, some of the cast gives shockingly good performances.

The highlight of these is Darren Burrows as the young Ned. Burrows has taken some slack from me as I review Northern Exposure episodes because it's hard to tell how decent an actor he truly is. Burrows plays Ed Chigliak as slow and subtle and his early performances were awkward and sometimes painful to watch because it was impossible to tell if Ed was supposed to be mildly handicapped, suffering from a language or cultural barrier or just off in his own little world. But in "Cicely," Burrows comes completely into his own.

In this episode, Burrows does not have any slowness to play, he is confident in the role and he takes the viewer on a wonderful character journey of a beaten boy who slowly gains his confidence and comes into his own. Burrows evolves the character with his performance such that by the end of the episode, the young Ned is speaking with the same cadences as the old Ned, played by Robert Blossom. That's a great acting challenge and Burrows lives up to the challenge well.

Robert Blossom gives a wonderful performance to lend credibility to the episode and Jo Anderson and Yvonne Suhor give good performances as Roslyn and Cicely, respectively. I was familiar with Suhor from her guest shot on Star Trek: Voyager's "Prime Factors" and was suitably impressed with her performance in "Cicely." She's a decent character actress and she plays off Anderson perfectly to create a believable couple.

"Cicely" won a boatload of awards for Northern Exposure and rightfully so. The episode takes chances, but it holds the attention of the audience and provides an entertaining story of people casting off their oppressors and fighting for love. That's a pretty classic story and it is told with humor and spunk on this episode.

While the acting and character quirks that transfer from the primary characters to their 1909 personas are likely to be more appreciated by fans of the show, this is a fun episode and a great entry point into Northern Exposure. Indeed, I'd recommend bypassing the first two seasons and starting with the third and because this episode establishes the setting of Cicely, it's a weird, but appropriate place to start. Worth it for any fan of dramadies!

[Knowing that VHS is essentially a dead medium, it's worth looking into Northern Exposure - The Complete Third Season on DVD, which is also a better economical choice than buying the VHS. Read my review of the third season by clicking here!
Thanks!]

9.5/10

For other television reviews, please visit my index page by clicking here!

© 2011, 2007 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Another Tough Sell Episode In Northern Exposure's Third Season Is "Burning Down The House."

The Good: Moments of concept, Performances, Moments of character
The Bad: Entirely predictable a-plot, Ridiculous b-plot, Utter lack of anything superlative.
The Basics: In a sadly average (at best) episode, three weak plots are combined to try to fill the time, with none of them being truly satisfying.


There is something fun about going back and watching television shows from the '80s now, especially as some of the people who were in shows then age or, unfortunately, die. I first caught the Northern Exposure episode "Burning Down The House," shortly after the death of Bibi Besch, who I had enjoyed in Star Trek II: The Wrath Of Khan (reviewed here!). Sadly, this is not one of her more remarkable performances and honestly, this is a tough sell episode (it's one of my razor decisions that ended up falling short in the coin toss.

The fundamental problem with "Burning Down The House" is that it is weakly plotted. There are three mediocre ideas that are lumped together into a single episode and none of the three ideas is enough to carry the episode on its own. The title of the episode puts the focus on Maggie O'Connell, though. It helps to have seen "Seoul Mates" (reviewed here!) because there Maggie learns she is not being recalled home for Christmas Vacation as she is used to.

"Burning Down The House" finds Maggie being visited by her mother, Jane, who promptly reveals that she is divorcing her husband, Maggie's father. Apparently Jane and her husband spent Christmas traveling to rekindle the spark between them, did not find it and have decided to split. Unfortunately for Maggie, Jane finds a spark while in Cicely and she burns down Maggie's house.

Elsewhere, Chris becomes obsessed with creating a cow catapult and, separately, Fleischman becomes obsessed with the chimney sweep in town, who he recognizes as a famous golfer who blew a putt in the Majors some years before. Sadly, these one line descriptions of the plots that take up the other two-thirds of the episode are about that substantial. Fleischman antagonizes Bob into admitting he is, in fact, golfer Larry Coe, and Chris pursues his art and wastes any free moment of the episode with attempting to find a cow to fling through the air to its death. That plot is just plain stupid until the end.

The problem with a weakly plotted episode - other than giving me very little to review - is that the show suffers because it is taking the shotgun approach to storytelling and "Burning Down The House" definitely suffers from that. Because none of the plots are sufficiently developed, the episode pretty much goes anywhere in a desperate attempt to fill the fifty minutes. The problem, in this case, is that the only moment the show is remotely clever is when the Chris and Maggie plots resolve themselves together, though this forces writer Robin Green to contrive a completely new element to O'Connell that we've never seen before.

Jane O'Connell is nothing special and her appearance is somewhat baffling. Why? Maggie uses Fleischman in an earlier episode (in the second season) to impress her parents and Besch did not play Jane in that episode. In fact, it's like the writers forgot about "All Is Vanity," though admittedly Jane did not appear in it. The writers and directors of the two episodes were completely different, so they appear to not have conversed on making Jane into anyone who seems remotely compatible to Frank (Maggie's father). The short of it is, introducing Jane instead of revisiting Frank makes the episode seem a bit more convoluted in the big picture.

The idea that Jane is a pyromaniac is amusing, though it's a short-lived bit of humor. Her arrival and the news she brings is not at all surprising. The moment she appears - especially without Frank - the story she tells is pretty unremarkable. So, the viewer is left with a character relaying a story that is pretty dull and predictable for fans of the show, doing something amusing and then getting lost.

More important than Jane's pyromania is Maggie's dealing with it and the separation of her parents. Unfortunately, this does not come back up for some time in the series and the result of this visit does not move forward any of the bigger plots (I suppose I ought to be happy that the show did not go in a predictable direction and have Maggie and Fleischman move in with one another following her loss of a house!).

Fleischman's part in this episode is as simple as his plot. He pops up, recognizes the chimney sweep and does his usual annoying schtick. Nothing new here.

I wish I could say that the Chris plot challenges actor John Corbett, but he's pretty much standard Chris in this one. He's not as uninspired as he was in The Messengers, but he's nothing to write home about here either. Chris's need to do something artistic that has never been done before is admirable and certainly fits his character, but actor Corbett is not given anything new to play with the character in this role this episode.

So, what we end up with is mush that only Janine Turner (Maggie) makes work well enough to even bring the episode into remotely debatable territory. She plays the wounded adult who must deal with her parents' divorce quite well, though that whole conflict within her character is quickly sublimated to the fear that her mother is a pyromaniac. This does not give Turner a lot to work with, but she does what she can with it.

Ultimately, the episode is a failure to make something that holds up over multiple viewings and that is disappointing. The series does better and you can do better than picking this video up.

[Knowing that VHS is essentially a dead medium, it's worth looking into Northern Exposure - The Complete Third Season on DVD, which is also a better economical choice than buying the VHS. Read my review of the third season by clicking here!
Thanks!]

5/10

For other television episode and DVD set reviews, please visit my index page by clicking here!

© 2011, 2007 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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"Spring Break" On Northern Exposure Yields Little Of Interest For Viewers

The Good: Concept, Some of the acting, Moments of humor
The Bad: Holling's story is belabored, Silly, Surprisingly unoriginal, Overall tone
The Basics: In the days before Spring, the men of Cicely go crazy, picking fights, falling in love and becoming kleptomaniacs in a surprisingly disappointing episode.


Those who follow my reviews might know that Northern Exposure was a television series that it took me quite a bit to get into. Unlike most people who praise it for its quirkiness and originality, I find it to be remarkably dated and somewhat predictable. In its first two seasons, it retread itself and material it had already covered a disturbing amount considering that the seasons were only eight episodes long! In the third season, it hit a new stride and I enjoyed that. Unfortunately for "Spring Break," it falls within the second season and it suffers many of the problems and conceits of the second season.

As the last days of winter fall and the citizens of Cicely, Alaska await the arrival of Spring. This leads most of the residents to a communal form of stress which causes them to act out and act in uncharacteristic fashions. The mild-mannered Holling picks fights with whomever comes into the tavern, someone in town begins stealing radios from all over - including cars - and Maurice suddenly becomes affectionate. Meanwhile, Dr. Joel Fleischman becomes sexually frustrated beyond all reason or belief.

The situations all come to a head, with Holling preparing to box Minnifield's new Trooper love interest and Joel deciding to participate in the running of the bulls, wherein all the men of Cicely run through the streets . . . with a catch. And Ed plays detective to hunt down the radio thief who turns out to be someone few would suspect!

"Spring Break" is not a bad episode of Northern Exposure, but it is stiflingly average television. Instead of being truly original, it is often just silly and that tone does not work so well for this particular series. Northern Exposure works best when it is being ironic and insightful, not when it is being over-the-top silly with shades of ridiculous.

As a result, none of the regular characters are well-represented in this outing. Holling, who is usually evolved and subtle is a punchline who angry goading of customers makes him seem barbaric. This simply does not work for the character. Holling is fine and realistic when he is testy and actor John Cullum does an excellent job of keeping Holling edgy on the few occasions he reveals a temper. But in this episode, the script forces Cullum over the edge of good taste and into the banal and predictable as he becomes a ludicrous bully.

Fleischman does his usual complaining schtick and here the result is just plain annoying. Sometimes he has a point or there's some way that his discomfort with Cicely is amusing or poignant, in "Spring Break," he's just an annoyance and his part does not advance his character well.

And while Maurice has some interesting moments as the love-struck Maurice, the side of him revealed by his attentions to Officer Barbara Semanski is not as new as writer David Assael would like the viewer to believe. After all, when the show began (pilot episode reviewed here), Minnifield was still carrying a grudge against Holling who had "stolen" Shelly away from him. Thus, from day one the viewer has known that Maurice has the ability to love and be powerfully smitten. So, watching him moon over Semanski only makes explicit what was cleverly implicit before. His character does not suffer much as a result, but it does leave the viewer feeling a little cheated. Minnifield is quirky in his way as the conservative icon of Cicely and while this puts some chinks in his emotional armor, it still manages to work.

This may be because actor Barry Corbin is teamed up with the scene stealing Diane Delano. Delano, I recognized from the absolutely terrible remake of The Wicker Man (reviewed here!) but here she is great. Delano is understated and watchable as the gruff, efficient Officer Semanski. Semanski is portrayed as a feminine Minnifield and that works perfectly to establish her within the series. Delano's performance includes some of the same quirks and eye motions that define Minnifield's somewhat suspicious and conniving nature and that level of detail in the performance makes the viewer covet her return. But equally important, Delano and Corbin have wonderful on-screen chemistry. They play off one another expertly and the budding relationship for their characters works as a result.

But in the end, the fundamental problem with "Spring Break" is it's a one-line plot stretched into a forty-eight minute episode. "The men in Cicely go a bit nuts waiting for Spring." The episode does not ever become much more than that. Sure, there's a charming bit of dialogue between Ruth-Anne and Fleischman about erotic magazines, but the episode simply does not pop.

And outside the performance by guest star Diane Delano, the acting does not pop. The performers end up either going through the motions or playing at being a parody of their characters - as Cullum does with Holling. The result is an episode that underperforms and leaves the viewer ultimately disappointed, despite the being the first appearance of a new, memorable recurring character.

[Knowing that VHS is essentially a dead medium, it's worth looking into Northern Exposure - The Complete Second Season on DVD, which is also a better economical choice than buying the VHS. Read my review of the premiere season by clicking here!
Thanks!]

5/10

For other television episode, season and series reviews, please visit my index page by clicking here!

© 2011, 2008 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.

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