The Closer on TNT-HD - Page 3

Certainly a number of the shows in Season One of The Closer, in which Brenda was simultaneously fighting crime and establishing her turf while being undermined by the LAPD's Good Old Boy Network, were wonderful, at least as good as this season's first episode.

Actually, there may not be the "happy ending" that we thought we saw. I read in an article in the Chicago Tribune that hinted at tension between Brenda and Sgt Gabriel that will be ongoing throughout this season. I can imagine that she may not be elated that Gabriel went to Pope without her knowledge. I guess we'll have to wait and see...

I agree that there is a lot of potential for tension in the Brenda-Sgt Gabriel relationship. First, Gabriel had reason to question Brenda's loyalty when she offered him the chance to go to work for Commander Taylor. Second, when Brenda finds out that the bureaucratic legerdemain that saved everybody's jobs was Gabriel's idea and not Pope's, as she inevitably must, she will not be a happy camper. Finally, Gabriel has been frank to let Brenda know that he is probably not a career cop and has political ambitions. The writers can do a lot with all of that.

This is my FIRST time ever watching this show.. and I must say. EXCELLENT!

Great cast and everything.. The bonus was me appearing in the episode(well someone reminded me of ME)

The only problem with this show right now is there are too many likable/interesting (even if likably unlikable as in Capt. Taylor) characters. This means most of the characters don't get a lot of development outside those big squad-assembled scenes in the situation room.

Hopefully they will keep trying to find ways to spotlight different members of the team and keep the actors happy, because this is a show where really everyone in the credits is worth screen time.

I loved how G.W. Bailey's Lt. Provenza worked his butt off to show he was indispensable to the unit. He's such a pro.

That was funny, he's my favorite character on the show.

I also like how Flynn is always trying to mess up Provenza's desk. He eats there or sits stuff there or gets other people to set stuff there, knowing it will get under Provenza's skin....

BUT... those last episodes from season 2 where Provenza is on temporary leave from the gun incident, and Captain Taylor is getting crumbs on Provenza's desk... you see Flynn later cleaning up the mess.

Anyone catch last night's ep. It was a whirlwind. I loved the conflict with Gabriel. He really thought all would be forgiven. And the way Taylor took care of the problem Gabriel gave them was pure genius. That guy is a very interesting character. A very good episode, IMO. Maybe the best of the year so far.

I was not surprised Brenda would try to help... nor surprised that she would be disappointed in Gabriel. Also not surprised that Taylor helped out, nor in the way that he helped.

I was surprised, however, at how Gabriel seemed to have no remorse or feel bad for what he did... and surprised that even at the end he didn't seem to understand that something had to be done.

I 100% sympathise with what he did as a person. Who wouldn't? It'd be hard not to do what he did under the circumstances... but, as a police officer he simply has to understand that he cannot do the same emotional-reaction thing in that situation that he might do as an "ordinary" citizen.

The stuff Brenda and Taylor allowed to happen as a result, also put them on very shaky moral ground. Again, understandable under the circumstances... but nearly as wrong as what Gabriel did to create the situation.

In the real world.. such a cover-up would be likely to happen, so the show was realistic in most ways... but if the public ever got wind of this kind of thing.. it opens the doors to doubt credibility of the police. If this happened in your town, in real life, you would immediately wonder what else is being covered up... so its a bad thing when a cop, even in an understandable situation, gets out of control.

So I was not so much surprised that Gabriel did what he did... as I was that he felt nothing wrong about it afterwards. Maybe they will revisit that in a future episode.

I have liked all of this season's episodes and last night's was certainly no exception. They did their usual good job of blending a tense police procedural. in the form of the child molesting serial killer and internal bureaucracy problems, in the form of Sergeant Gabriel's, er, overzealousness.

I like Kyra Sedgwick a lot. Some have complained about her looks but I think she looks just fine. Sedgwick will certainly never be confused with Angelina Jolie or Catherine Zeta-Jones but she is attractive and her looks fit her well for her role as a deputy police chief.

Like most good shows, The Closer is blessed with great writing that has created a lot of interesting characters. I agree that Commander Taylor, who started out seeming to be a one dimensional heavy, has turned into a multifaceted and very savvy guy.

EDIT: Typo corrected.

They are subtle about it, but if you notice... the times they show Brenda going out to a formal dinner or something vs just going to work, Kyra is made-up completely different. They don't talk about it much (except last week with the lipstick thing and the plastic surgeon).. but I've always thought that the character Brenda dresses down somewhat for work to help enforce her authoritative role and not just be mistaken for a pretty face.

There was one episode, though, where she intentionally dressed to attract the suspect she was interrogating in order to put him off-guard... otherwise, at work she is not trying to be as attractive as she does during off-hours.


The actor that plays Taylor is good... It is really easy to hate Captain Taylor... but I have seen this same actor play a good guy role and he is completely believable there as well.

Incidentally... I sometimes watch Charmed repeats on TNT... and have noticed a bunch of the Closer actors were there.

Captain Taylor was on one episode... as was Daniels. Flynn was the original actor playing the part of the sisters on Charmed, but later the role was recast when it became a recurring part.

Just struck me as curious when I see a bunch of actors in a show that all passed through the same door of another show individually.

There has been a lot of talk about the recycling of actors in the John from Cincinnati thread. A bunch of the performers there also appeared in Deadwood. Both were David Milch creations, of course. A lot of TV show execs and movie directors like to do that, Christopher Guest comes to mind and the old time director, John Ford, was famous for it. I have never watched Charmed, so I was unaware that several of the actors in The Closer had also appeared in Charmed. I have no idea what the connection, if any, may be between The Closer and Charmed.

Great episode... LOVED IT

I also agree with you HDMe2, in the real world a cover up like this would likely happen, so this was realistic. But like you said, if this were to be released to the public, it would definitely hurt the credibility of the police force(what's left of it), and will question what else is hidden in the "closet".

But this was a great episode, in Gabriel's situation I would have done the EXACT same thing, but as a cop, sometimes you have to let go of your emotions. And try your best to control them. Of course with something like this, it would be very very difficult.

One thing that fascinates me about Gabriel is how he can be so smooth and politically savvy, such as when he was saving Brenda's ass over the budget issue, but then he let's his emotions get the best of him and he totally screws up a case such as in this last episode. That's not to say the writers are inconsistent; rather, I think they are writing a character who we all recognize could exist in the real world. That's what makes this show special. I think of David as a young man; very smart, well educated who wants to make a difference in people's lives. He is ambitious and is liked by those above him. He is politically savvy. He is dating a beautiful woman; they work together, so it is not all kosher but they keep it quiet. His boss is difficult at times, but he respects her and recognizes she can teach him alot. He gets emotionally involved in his cases; this is not only because he genuinely cares about people but also a result of his inexperience. And thus, he screwed up last week and let a suspect push his buttons and he lost control. He feels morally justified and thus feels he has the high ground. He recognizes that his actions were incorrect but feels petulant and angry when Brenda punishes him for it because he still feels it was the right thing to do and thinks that reasoning should give him a pass on his actions.

I'll stop there. Someone mentioned having too many interesting characters; however, I feel that they are developing them slowly. None of it feels forced, like now we have to watch the black cop lay into the suspect who makes denigrating comments about black women. So many shows have artificial characters who never feel quite right; you're always aware you're watching a TV program. With the Closer, everyone seems to act the way a human would. I'm never bored by any of the episodes; I guess that's all one can really ask of their entertainment choices.

After all the build up I was a little underwhelmed with the story line. I thought it was weak, predictable and plodded along. Compared to previous episodes I'd give it a C. I didn't think it lived up to last year. I still like the Character Kyra plays and will be watching for more.

I have the SA 8300HD DVR. When I FF through the commercials it makes a weird noise right before the Closer comes back on and the screen goes blank for a sec or so and when I hit play it picks up in the middle of the scene.

This only happens when I watch the Closer on TNTHD. TWC Charlotte.

Weird. I have E* with a VIP 622 DVR. I don't FF through commercials; I typically hit the skip ahead 30 seconds arrow to flick through them. It's faster. I've never had issues with doing that, but it may be the difference in the DVRs.

Thought tonight's ep was so-so. Not really all that exciting, but it was fun to watch Brenda and David get comfortable with each other again.

WTF - I set my Dish 622 to record tonight's ep at 6pm with a 10 min buffer at the end. At about 6:45 I noticed it wasn't recording. I quick tune to TNT and tell it to record the rest of the episode. Later I start watching and it is LAST WEEK's episode. I fast forward and at the end of the repeat they start showing the new episode which of course I only got 10 min of plus the 15min of whatever.
Luckily The Closer shows twice on Dish in the Bay Area - at 6 & 9pm. So hopefully at 9pm I will get to see the correct episode -- maybe?

It drops to SD at the end of the break to feed in local ads. The flicker is the box switching resolutions.

I wouldn't be surprised if the local ad spot is running over the TNT HD content.

The last couple of episodes I'm starting to get ticked off by TNT intentionally over running by two minutes., so that my recording keeps losing the last minute.

Last week's episode was aired at 8pm EDT and the new one followed at 9pm. Not sure what happened out there on the west coast as that should have been 5pm and 6pm, so it sounds like your timer was correct.

Another emmy nod for Kyra. Hope she wins this time, but sentiment may be for the Sopranos actors.

I was a great fan of The Closer, but this season's episodes are a very mixed bag. Having half the cast in space-suits last night didn't help.

Does anyone else find the sound mix very poor? It sometimes feels as though all the elements are fed into a compressor with little human intervention. Of course, the blame might lie with TNT's network processing of an otherwise good job.

I'm not sure what's going on with that either, whether it's TNT or my provider Dish, but the audio on these 3 programs, The Closer is not as bad, but with Heartland and last night's Saving Grace the audio is terrible, it's as if there is no intelligent mixing going on, everything is loud, from someone just breathing heavy to someone yelling. Even the foley-like stuff, something dropping on a floor, etc, way too loud, very annoying, even drowning out the dialog at times. I have to say that it detracted in a large way my enjoyment of Saving Grace last night.

Yes, the audio on Saving Grace was terrible: poorly mixed and out of sync with the video. I get my TNT feed via Cox OKC, so it's clearly not a satellite thing. The audio wasn't great on this week's The Closer episode, either, but it wasn't as bad as it was on Saving Grace. I would have thought that TNT would have been more careful about such a matter when it involved a very expensive new series starring an Academy Award winning actress. Silly me. TNT really needs to get its act together where audio is concerned.

Maybe it's to complement their stretch-o-vision, it's called stretch-o-audio, where everything is set to the same loudness, from ants walking to jets taking off.

Seriously though, TNT really needs to fix it, it's as if they're not processing the audio stream correctly as I'm sure it doesn't come from the content creator that way.

As annoying as TNT's bad audio is, it's not nearly as bad as their Stretchovision. I HATE that!

This season has had it's share of iffy episodes, but boy was tonight's exciting! A good case, a great personal issue and further evidence of the tension between Lt. Gabriel and Brenda. Next week's looks terrific as well. Gotta love it!!!

Can't/won't watch TNT HD out of protest of their ridiculous choice to have the TNT logo (and more) always visible in the lower right corner.

How can you stand it!!!???

I realize that a station has the right and need to ID itself but there's no reason it has to be present ALL THE TIME!

Other HD stations (like HDNET Movies) show the logo in the beginning of a movie and every 30 minutes or so...this would be acceptable but not incessantly displaying it like TNT.

IMO, everyone should contact TNT and advise them that that constant logo image thing they do should be done away with....before you know it, hi def DVDs will have their studio ID's consistently visible on theie presenatations!

End of rant.

Oh...too contact TNT via email: tnt@turner.com

TNT can care less what you think. They know their channel is part of a bigger programming package. They know you won't cancel your total package because of one channel. So, why should they change?