“Have you heard about this new show, SHOW X? It looks terrible. Look at that stupid poster! Why is that guy wearing a hat? There’s no way this show is good!”
“Okay, the first episode wasn’t bad — the guy with the hat was actually pretty funny. But I still can’t believe they canceled SHOW W for this. SHOW W was so much better.”
“Are you watching SHOW X? I know it’s stupid but I can’t stop watching it.”
“SHOW X is the best show on television and I have always thought so. ‘GOOBER-NOOBER!!!!’”
“If you don’t like SHOW X, you’re probably just not smart enough to get it. Why don’t you stick to SHOW J? You seem like the kind of person who would love SHOW J.”
“Maybe this season has taken a dip, but bad SHOW X is still better than 90 percent of what else is on. #goobernoober”
“This show is unwatchable now. I can’t believe I’m still watching it.”
“Ugh, SHOW X, is that still on? They should have ended it three seasons ago, after CHARACTER X had the baby and that other guy stopped wearing that hat. I can’t believe I’m still watching it.”
“SHOW X will never be as good as classic SHOW X, but it’s not bad if you just think of it as like its own thing. It’s like New SHOW X.”
“New SHOW X is unwatchable now. Who writes this crap?”
“Have you heard about this new show, SHOW Y? They got rid of SHOW X for this?!?!”
For your vintage feel-good cry of the day — On Cheers, Coach tries to talk his daughter out of marrying a man who doesn’t love her.
I think Conover showed me this scene like a year ago, and even without the context of the rest of the episode it’s incredibly powerful. Sincerity is the hardest thing to pull off in comedy and a lot of shows don’t even try. Or they do try and it feels cheap and unearned. But when a comedy dares to just not be funny for a few minutes, and when they pull it off, it’s like nothing else.
Scenes like this one — this is what television is for.
“YES! WOW THEY REALLY NAILED IT WITH THIS ONE! WAY TO EXPOSE THE FALSITIES IN THIS DOCUMENTARY ABOUT YOUNG PEOPLE LIVING IN NEW YORK. THEY AREN’T STRUGGLING AT ALL THEY- WAIT, wait. what? It’s not a documentary? It’s a scripted half hour television show and it’s not trying to be anything but fiction? Um… well… still though… STILL UM IT’S NOT REALLY ALL THAT GOOD OR ANYTHING. IT’S UH, AAAAAH I’M SO MAD ABOUT EVERYTHING! ALL THE TIME” -the internet
HEY, DID YOU GUYS HEAR ABOUT THAT MOVIE TRUE GRIT, STARRING LLOYD BRIDGE’S SON, JAMES BROLIN’S SON, AND BEN AFFLECK’S BEST FRIEND? NEPOTISM, AM I RIGHT? YOU EXPECT ME TO BELIEVE THOSE GUYS ARE COWBOYS? MATT DAMON’S MOM IS A TEACHER! THAT MOVIE WAS BULLSHIT APPARENTLY.
Seriously, though, everyone agrees this is a dumb complaint to have with this show, right? Like no one really thinks the only reason Judd Apatow is where he is is because he’s Adam Sandler’s old roommate, right? I don’t want to just be part of the knee-jerk backlash to the knee-jerk backlash or anything (and I REALLY don’t want to post three blog posts in one day— if I don’t draw the line somewhere there’s no telling what I’ll become), but really I thought this (admittedly well put-together) photoshop job was an opportunity for a TEACHABLE MOMENT.
Quick grammar lesson:
When a plural is also a possessive, you drop the second S:
“my parents’ place” “the Hendersons’ dog” “the boys’ locker room”
When a non-plural word that ends with S is a possessive, you do not drop the second S:
Freaks and Geeks is my favorite TV show of all time — just the perfect blend of funny and sad. This week, The AV Club posted a five-part interview with creator Paul Feig where he talks in detail about every single episode. Mandatory reading for any fan.
Last night HBO released a trailer for its upcoming Aaron Sorkin drama The Newsroom. It looks smart and gripping and very Aaron Sorkin. But here’s the thing: The Newsroom is already the name of a TV show, and a very good one.
It’s a Canadian bone-dry comedy I first discovered in high school, when it was rerun on PBS, and it probably did more to shape my comedic voice than any other TV show I’ve ever seen. Created by and starring the prolific (in Canada) Ken Finkleman, The Newsroom is dark and cynical and gritty — it’s basically the Larry Sanders Show about a local Canadian newscast, but even darker. One episode ends with a major character dying of a gunshot wound, all played completely straight — and it’s hilarious.
One of my biggest pet peeves is when movies and TV shows reuse the titles of lesser-known really great things. I hate having to explain to people that one of my favorite movies is “Kicking and Screaming no not the Will Ferrell one,” and I’m not looking forward to having to do that with this.
If there’s a silver lining here, it’s this opportunity for me to spread the word about this fantastic fantastic show. I recommend you check it out, before it becomes impossible to google. It looks like a lot of it’s on youtube— you can watch the first part of the first episode here, and go from there. YOU’RE WELCOME.
MAD MEN TONIGHT! This jpeg is incredibly silly, but as they say, it’s a poor cook who can’t please himself.
I posted this a year and a half ago for the season four premiere and I think it got like one LIKE. I’m not going to lie; this deserved more.
Also a year and a half ago for the season four premiere I had a big party. I invited all my friends and we dressed up like it was the sixties. I played sixties music and I baked two pies, from scratch, because baking pies from scratch seemed like a vaguely sixties-ish thing to do.
Then we watched the episode and I just wanted everyone to get out of my house.
I love this show. I love how it makes me feel sad and alone. It worms its way into my heart and brain like no show ever has. Above all else, I believe Mad Men is about loneliness, the tender isolation that is the center of the human condition, and the things people do to not feel so lonely. The writer Brian Doyle, in one of my favorite pieces of writing Joyas Voladoras, wrote:
We are utterly open with no one in the end—not mother and father, not wife or husband, not lover, not child, not friend. We open windows to each but we live alone in the house of the heart. Perhaps we must. Perhaps we could not bear to be so naked, for fear of a constantly harrowed heart. When young we think there will come one person who will savor and sustain us always; when we are older we know this is the dream of a child, that all hearts finally are bruised and scarred, scored and torn, repaired by time and will, patched by force of character, yet fragile and rickety forevermore, no matter how ferocious the defense and how many bricks you bring to the wall.
We can argue about Don Draper, his vices and virtues, but in the end, we love him, we care about what happens to him, we want him to find peace, not because he’s a good human being (he isn’t), but because he, like us, is alone.
Fix Me A high-profile professional fixer (think Michael Clayton) can fix any problem, but the one thing he can’t fix? Himself. Lives with his sexy Native American cousin.
Matchless A cute flower store owner finds love for a different lonely heart every episode, but the one person she can’t find love for? Herself. Theme song by Jimmy Eat World.
Pay Up! An off-beat loan shark makes unusual deals with people to forgive their debts, but the one thing he can’t forgive? Himself. Set in Vegas, but shot in New Orleans.
Out There A scrappy NASA engineer solves the mysteries of the universe, amidst massive department cutbacks and intrusive government oversight, but the one mystery she can’t solve? Herself. Recurring guest appearances by Levar Burton as The Stranger.
Life During Wartime A military psychiatrist works with returning vets to help them readjust to civilian life and work through their post-traumatic stress, but the only wounds he can’t heal? His own. From the producers of iCarly.
Haunts A team of paranormal experts hunts ghosts, but the only ghosts they can never seem to exhume? The ghosts of their own father/husband/daughter/friend/friend-with-benefits/butler. Contains nudity and spooky ghosts, viewer discretion is advised.
The Premise-O-Matic 5000 A robot comes up with premises for TV shows about wounded people with ironic occupations. But the one person and/or robot it can’t make a TV show about is a robot who makes premises for TV shows about wounded people with ironic occupations but can’t make a TV show about a ro— ERROR! ERROR! ERROR!
“It’s interesting. We’re portraying women who are navigating a blatantly misogynistic world, time, and society. And we live in a society that is a thinly veiled misogynistic society. And we are women trying to navigate that. It’s interesting, because in some ways, while it’s nice that everyone pretends the world today is not misogynistic, in other ways, at least before, when it was blatantly misogynistic, it was a little bit more honest… They actually wrote down, ‘You have to be this weight. You have to look like this. You have to blah blah blah.’ These are unwritten rules we have now, but they certainly are rules that we have now. And certainly being an actress, I know that these are unwritten rules. There’s still physical requirements and guidelines. There were mandated behaviors for women that are now not mandated, but certainly expected. There’s different treatment for men and women. Back then, it was expected and probably openly talked about. Now, you know the same things still go on, but now we just pretend they don’t.
Great new video from Miles Fisher. I was going to deconstruct this video, as a jokey reference to my overthinking-it analysis of Fisher’s This Must Be The Place, but this is a catchy song and a hilarious video/sneaky tie-in to Final Destination 5 (a movie I still refer to by its amazing working title 5nal Destination), and there’s not really anything to get even pretend-upset about.
EXCEPT!!!!:
I am decidedly not a Saved by the Bell fan (probably because I most strongly identified with Screech and never understood why his friends were so mean to him/why he couldn’t find better friends), but did you ever notice that the main cast of the show featured both a Latino kid and an African American, making it more ethnically diverse than Beverly Hills 90210, Party of Five, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Freaks and Geeks, The O.C., and Gossip Girl put together? That’s pretty cool, and I never really thought about it until watching Miles Fisher’s weirdly white-washed version. In the video, Fisher lovingly pays tribute to all the things that made Saved by the Bell stupid/good-stupid, but by Dawson’s-Creek-ifying the cast, maybe he misses out on what kind of made it brilliant?
(I am fully aware that with this post, I have officially become a parody of myself.)
