Not Nearly Enough Graham Greene, Though

Reached the end of Being Erica and am actually a bit sad about it.

The show had too regular helpings of cheese, and the constant voice-over moralizing usually detracted from the story rather than developing it, but I can't think of another show which so regularly acknowledged the reality of human complexity and relationships.

It's not that it avoided easy endings, for the time and the platform I think that would be too much to ask, but I regularly found myself surprised somewhere between the set up of an episode's conflict and its too pat resolution at how complexity and true insight were allowed to bloom in the stories and characters.

And while I honestly didn't like most of the characters, Michael Riley's Dr. Tom was a treasure.

I Believed All Your Words

Overall, season 11 of the X-Files was an unredeemable mess, but episode 9, which itself was almost unwatchable, had a brilliant gem of a scene between Mulder and Scully as they stood in a Catholic church talking about some of Dana's internal struggles. I was particularly struck by Fox's response at one point:

"I don't know if any god is listening, but I am standing right here, and I am listening, right beside you, all ears . . ." - Fox Mulder, X-Files season 11 episode 9.