Blue

There was a little note in The New York Times a few weeks ago about how Julia Stiles's side project, Blue, has gotten picked up for a third season. I've always admired Stiles's work --- she's done commercial work like the Bourne movies so she can do smaller things like the reworks of Shakespeare's Taming of the Shrew and Othello, and, now, Blue. Blue apparently started as a series of 8-minute web episodes about a mother of a teenaged son who makes ends meet by prostitution. It's brilliantly written and directed by Rodrigo Garcia. Uriah Shelton plays the son like a real teenager --- we first see him as his mother catches him watching porn on his computer. David Harbour appears in early episodes as a man she knew in high school now hiring her as a trick. Kathleen Quinlan is delicious as Blue's mother. The 8-minute episodes end up being extended scenes, which don't suffer from the usual TV symptoms of short, choppy cutting. The episodes are available on Hulu, aggregated into 45-minute chunks. Unfortunately, the third season are being born as 45-minute episodes for Fox's website, which I suspect will take away all the spontaneity and artistry.