Saddling Up

By Thomas Willett

This past Sunday, we were met with the end. It wasn’t the end of anything life changing (though some would argue the Hunger Games’ success is just that), but it brought the end to something different for me. In my 22 years of watching television, I had never experienced it before despite my better judgment. Maybe it was because of the way my interests worked or my attention span not allowing me to experience the whole thing. I had come close to it before, but on Sunday, I finally watched an entire season of an hour long HBO drama.

I have said numerous times that I tend to lean more towards comedies. Even though I praise HBO, it’s mostly for giving me Bored to Death, Da Ali G Show, Flight of the Conchords, Eastbound & Down, the Ricky Gervais Show, Mr. Show, the Larry Sanders Show, Sex and the City, Enlightened, Curb Your Enthusiasm, Lucky Louie and next month’s Girls. All of these are half hour shows with fairly light premises. With exception to Real Time with Bill Maher (which I rarely watch, but have been known to), I have never given my attention to their longer programming.

The closest I came to doing this happened was Boardwalk Empire. Speaking as it was a hyped show with a pilot directed by Martin Scorsese and lead by Steve Buscemi (a move everyone cheered), there was little to hate about it. I didn’t have a problem with the pilot at all. It wasn’t until a few episodes that I gave up.

At the time I told my co-host Matt that it was because I don’t like period pieces, but there may be deeper context. Maybe it was a dull story or I didn’t care for prohibition. The bigger reasons are simple: it was too time consuming in a Sunday night TV session that already included the Simpsons, Bored to Death, Eastbound & Down, and at one point the Walking Dead. I had no time to watch that much TV, even if HBO featured numerous reruns throughout the week.

The four episodes I have watched of Boardwalk Empire were not terrible. I gave up because I became burned out. I discovered a personal weakness in my TV viewing hobbies and decided to exercise my eyes with a trip to Netflix. I knew that I was missing out on great hour-long programming and I needed to figure out how to tolerate it. For someone who grew up on a diet of half hour cartoons and sitcoms, it took a little time.

I started with Buffy the Vampire Slayer. That was a mistake. At a daunting 144 episodes, it took forever to finish and while I grew fond of the show, rapid viewing left some episodes forgotten. I’ve taken it easier since, choosing smaller shows like Terriers and Breaking Bad, the latter becoming my favorite show quickly. After dedicating that much time to what would traditionally be an hour long show, I was ready to challenge myself with the no commercial interruption world of HBO, which unlike everything I had watched up to that point, was actually a full hour of content.

The only question was what I would tackle. I was aware of the options and the reputation that HBO dramas had: cursing, nudity, violence, and whatever other perverse thing a non-censored show could get away with. Game of Thrones just didn’t interest me and there wasn’t really any shows that had a small batch of episodes to make my personal challenge easier. They all had a niche done in a very cinematic style. As they said in I Love You Man, “It’s not TV, it’s HBO.”

By some force of happenstance, it landed before me. The show’s pilot was directed by Michael Mann, featured Dustin Hoffman and Nick Nolte, and featured the Santa Anita racetrack. It was called Luck and I originally watched it to buff out a segment of the podcast. However, after reading an episode review on AV Club’s TV Club by Todd VanDerWerff claiming to stick with the show, I decided to try just that. By episode 4, I made it a goal to finish it and attempt to keep it a secret. I told friends who knew about it, but I tried to let myself unceremoniously do it.

What was it about this particular show that was different than Boardwalk Empire that could hold my interest? It didn’t have glitz, but it worked on a nostalgic level. While I don’t frequent racetracks, I do have vague memories of watching horse races as a kid. Unlike all of those baseball games I attended, there was something about races I enjoyed, which is odd since horses never had an impact on my life. Even the buildings and betting systems had this energy to them. Unlike cars (of course I never cared to be entertained by mechanical devices), watching animals run around a track seemed thrilling, if just for the prospect of a photo finish. There’s a whole art to it and with Luck, I was attempting to rekindle those experiences.

The timing of the show also impacted the way I looked at other media. The two notable features were Nick Nolte and War Horse. The latter may make sense, but how does Nolte feel different? In truth, his character in Luck and Warrior isn’t that different. The only difference is that I totally bought the sense of emotion when he was talking to a horse as opposed to Tom Hardy. That singular scene was more powerful than any of horse applied pathos in War Horse (which I saw about three episodes into Luck and was making snide comparisons of the use of horses). In fact, the only thing that War Horse has that Luck could have used was a John Williams score . Because when Joey ran through the battlefields to that music, it captured the emotional equivalence I had every week in the show, but only for a brief moment.

Did I care for the characters in the show? A little bit. I may not be able to recall every small detail that’s important to the plot, but I understood the reason horse racing was important. Some gambled, others bred them, and one raced. These were flawed characters and while I grew to enjoy small quirks from each of them, I didn’t hold as much interest in their stories as the one element that kept me coming back.

The gates go down and the announcer with a twang in his accent says “And away they go!” The next five minutes, set to either old blues with steel guitars or soul funk, was the part that amazed me. Because we had these different groups of people, there wasn’t a guarantee that one would win. It may seem cliché to cut from racing to people gripping betting slips, but it is pretty effective when you see it. The key is the brilliant way the cameras shoot the actual horses, sometimes in a claustrophobic manner. When one of them goes down, it’s surprising yet earned. If I had paid more attention to this show, I would rank the races. I haven’t seen any horse racing in cinema as great as those few minutes. Then again, I never cared to see Seabiscuit.

When it was announced that it wasn’t coming back , I felt a mix of sadness and common sense. While I didn’t love the show, I liked how they made the horses feel significant. They helped to bring out the humanity in the characters and for an animal that I typically don’t like, that’s an achievement. However, when it was announced that three horses had died in the entire shooting time, I felt fine with it coming to an end. I didn’t want the show to be reduced to stock footage of races. That’s not nearly as beautiful as those 9 episodes.

Most of all, it captured my interest and one day I plan to revisit Santa Anita racetrack for the first time since I was little. Maybe I’ll gamble a few bucks or reenact the Killing . I am oblivious to who are the great horses, but I wonder if that thrill will be with me with the real thing. If I got anything out of Luck, it was nostalgic escapism, and it succeeded in not only making me believe horses are quality sidekicks, but also making me feel like a sport mattered to me.

I wouldn’t ask this show to be 30 minutes. It would just seem wrong. In my challenge to watch my first full-on hour long program, I have succeeded. It feels rewarding and to know that I was invested in it as opposed to doing it out of necessity also made it better. Was it the best show ever? I’m sure that I’ll find a better show eventually, maybe even attempt Boardwalk Empire again. I have learned about patience and while I still have found numerous boring moments from Luck’s hour long episodes, the payoff was worth it. Hopefully this is the start in me diversifying my TV lifestyle, and maybe I’ll get invited to the jockey land under a fiberglass tree.

You can read Thom’s blog every Wednesday and hear him on Nerd’s Eye View every Tuesday and Thursday at nevpodcast.com . Send your thoughts to nevpodcast@gmail.com. You can also read Thom’s movie reviews for Cinema Beach at cinemabeach.com