I continue my entirely entertaining TV Series break with eight more episodes of the fourth season of Dexter, the first nine episodes of the first season of Psych, and this week’s Rocky Horror tribute episode of Glee. But, the weekend wasn’t a complete television fest, I also picked up my Feed the Queue entry for the weekend: Stalag 17.

So, here is what I watched this weekend:

Stalag 17

As I traverse the complex and diverse history of motion pictures, frequently through the assistance of my contributors or readers, I find myself asserting my appreciation of several directors while turning myself off to others. I’m not a huge Vincente Minnelli fan, but I can’t count how many George Cukor films I’ve fallen in love with. And while I still consider Stanley Kubrick one of my favorites, I’m beginning to think that Billy Wilder may well be my second choice on the list. His films have a certain humanity and realism that involve you with the intensity of his settings. They aren’t transparently jaded, preachy or egocentric. They are that astounding blend of revelatory, entertaining and riveting. Stalag 17 is yet another of his films I’ll add to my list of favorites.

The film surrounds the inhabitants of one of the myriad prisoner of war camps established by the Germans during World War II. They have hope, they have camaraderie, they have a spy. Suspicion obviously falls on master trader Sergeant Sefton (William Holden), a charismatic soldier capable of convincing a sheep that it won’t need its wool in the winter. And what a winter these soldiers must face. Harsh, cold and bitter, it’s a perpetual metaphor for their difficult situation. Of course, we’re certain from the beginning that Sefton isn’t the guilty party, but it’s how the barracks, a close-knit band of enlisted men, react to his constant scheming, ill-timed bets and mysterious stash of goods, that makes the bulk of the film.

Perhaps it was the distance (eight years) removed from World War II, but the propaganda has been virtually drained from the film. Had the film been made at the height of the conflict, the Germans would have been sneering, soulless, mirthless men inflicting constant pain and suffering on their prisoners. The film does a much better job painting a more likely portrait of these men, obeying orders while still treating the prisoners with as much slack as their military superiors will allow them. The performances are all above par with Holden unsurprisingly outshining them all. A young Peter Graves also does admirably as the cabin’s security chief; and Robert Strauss and Harvey Lembeck play the humor with just the right tone of joviality and bitter frustration.

Wilder’s films are so crisply invigorating and detailed that you feel as if you are right at home with his characters. From the cramped, sparse cabin in Stalag 17 to the claustrophobic interior of an alcoholic’s apartment in The Lost Weekend to the austerity of the courtroom in Witness for the Prosecution. His sets are as important to the understanding of his protagonists as the plot and performances are. Everything is in tune like only a master of his craft can create. If you add those three films to Sunset Blvd. and Some Like It Hot, you have such a wonderful career and that’s not including all the other films of his I have not yet seen.

Stalag 17 may not be the kind of anti-war polemic I find so fascinating, but it’s such a significant achievement that anyone who wants to see how prisoner of war films should be executed, they need look no further than Wilder’s Stalag 17 for inspiration, though catching The Bridge on the River Kwai might also help.

DEXTER, season 4

What very well could be the best season of Dexter since the first, season four has been churning out the surprises and the most recent eight episodes firmly establish this as a show still fresh with ideas well into its fourth season. Since this is a sequential series that tells a combination of stories over the course of the season, it’s hard to discuss much without giving away significant spoilers. John Lithgow so far has delivered some of his finest, yet creepiest work to date as the multi-dimensional Trinity killer. We learn significantly more about his personal life, including information about his superficially perfect family, his tragic past and the closet of secrets he hides almost out in the open. In these episodes, Dexter continues to get close to Arthur while formulating his plan to perform his ritual on the serial killer whose string of murders has tracked across three decades. And when you discover the startling information presented in the most recent few information about who his victims may or may not be and you have a frighteningly intense and involving season.

There are plenty of other issues going on in the precinct, including the secret relationship between homicide supervisor La Guerta and Lieutenant Batista, the conflicted Deb and her emotional roller coaster life, and even the struggle Dexter finds trying to jungle the hats of criminal investigator, brother, father, husband and serial killer. The show doesn’t pull punches and refuses to sit on its rump as the season unfolds and there will hardly be a moment you aren’t trying to guess what happens next or ruing the idea that you may have latched onto something disturbing on occasion.

PSYCH, season 1

I’ll jump right off the dock first by saying that I love murder mysteries. I’ve been reading Agatha Christie since fifth grade and Murder, She Wrote remains one of my favorite ’80s television series. So, you won’t be the least bit shocked when I tell you just how much I enjoy the comic mystery series Psych. James Roday plays Shawn Spencer, a man who can notice every detail in a room, memorize it and put disparate facts together and solve crimes. He’s joined by childhood chum ‘Gus’ Guster (The West Wing‘s Dulé Hill), a pharmaceutical salesman with an unerring sense of smell and more than a handful of geeky bones. When Shawn is believed to be a co-conspirator in a robbery after phoning in his umpteenth tip, he uses his powers of observation and deduction to convince the police department that he is psychic. Despite being unable to convince everyone on the staff, he is given a handful of assignments to resolve which he does and earns himself some prestige but simultaneously annoys the real detectives working the case.

Shawn wants to be involved, his hyperactivity combined with his actual talent at putting pieces together, help solve every case in which he gets involved, often linking disparate and confusing facts until coming up with some miraculous discoveries. And despite using a lot of common detective story plot twists and narrative cliches, the series is kept fresh with its highly entertaining comedy elements. Shawn and Gus have a long history and their interplay assures the audience of this. They are inseparable but frequently on each others’ nerves, but never in a malicious or disastrous way. And when they are in sync and throwing out the barbs to one another or their straight laced foil Detective Lassiter (Timothy Omundson), you’re only momentarily distracted from the plot before being drawn right back in at a sudden deductive push. And then there are the clues. Like my favorite Murder, She Wrote, if you paid close enough attention to what was going on (in Murder, it was often what people said, not the items left behind at a crime scene that helped you solve the case), you could easily solve the case with our charming heroes.

And any show that can turn crimes committed at weddings, comic book conventions, spelling bees, Civil War re-enactments and more into involving and entertaining escapades deserves your viewership. It’s a light-hearted murder mystery series that takes the less fantastical elements of a show like Pushing Daisies and turns them into pure fun.

GLEE, episode “The Rocky Horror Glee Show”

When you’re familiar with the film The Rocky Horror Picture Show (for the episode is based primarily on the film version and not on the stage version), it becomes tough to judge an homage to the film without being a little jaded. So, watching this week’s episode of Glee was a difficult chore. On one hand, I had to temper my expectations against the sanitization the show would likely have to go through in order to make it on TV, yet I was rather surprised at some of the song selections like “Touch-a, Touch-a, Touch Me” and “Sweet Transvestite”. They are arguably good numbers, but more risque for television than I would have expected. Add in the scenes with shirtless Chord Overstreet (Sam), Cory Monteith (Finn) and Matthew Morrison (Will) and I was a bit more surprised than I would have thought going into the episode. So, while I applaud Ryan Murphy and Fox in particular for not shying away from more racy elements, I’m a bit perturbed at a couple of misguided choices.

The first is the paltry number of cameos from the original program. While having Barry Bostwick appear is solid choice, he did play the original film’s Brad Majors, Meatloaf as the highly peripheral character Eddie seems an ill choice for a tribute episode. Why not original show creator Richard O’Brien or even possibly Tim Curry who has been known to do TV or even a surprise Susan Sarandon appearance. You have to watch the budget of course, but were these the only two actors really willing to show up on the show? And the least said of the ludicrous, if minorly inspired, characters they played, the better. The other major issue I have is the song selection. “Time Warp” is certainly a given, but I don’t really want to hear “Whatever Happened to Saturday Night”, especially sung by an obnoxiously high pitched John Stamos. I’ll forgive that selection just because it’s fun seeing Stamos in musical mode. But what of the powerful third-act ballad “I’m Going Home” or the entertaining “The Floor Show”. The latter may be a bit tawdry, but no more so than virgin/dirty girl song “Touch-a, Touch-a, Touch Me”. They even managed to devalue the song “Sweet Transvestite” for apparently it’s ok to be a Transvestite, but not from Transsexual, Transylvania…and I’m still miffed at who they got to play Frank-N-Furter.

I may applaud a number of the choices, but I’m irritated enough to say this is not a return to form for the show and it continues the trajectory of the weak second season, which is in much need of some credible drama, believable situations and the soaring ecstasy we all felt watching the first.