Playing GM of television: 2010-2011 Season

I saw this post by Andy Daglas the other day, in which he plays out a hypothetical scenario wherein he can trade TV characters from show to show as if he were a sports GM.
http://www.chicagonow.com/the-vast-wasteland/2011/12/hot-stove-tv/

1.    Sheila Shay (Ana Gasteyer) from Suburgatory to Revenge in exchange for Nolan Ross

Ana Gasteyer will fit right into the Hamptons and imbue the melodrama with a little bit of humor. Nolan Ross will move across the street in Sheila's place and give Tessa a more competent partner-in-crime than the overly affable Malick. Against the monotoned Dahlia and the Dahlia-like girls at her new school, Tessa needs all the help she can get.

2.      Tate (Evan Peters) from American Horror Story gets sent to In Treatment in exchange for Adele (Amy Ryan). Constance (Jessica Lange) gets loaned out.

Tate needs someone effective to help cure his problems. Ben (Dylan McDermott) clearly can’t do the trick and is secretly enabling Tate’s ghost-murdering ways. On Dr. Paul’s (Gabriel Bryne's) turf, Tate will finally get fixed and if you throw Constance in for a few guest spots, it’ll be a fun family session. 

In the meantime, Dr. Ben needs some help himself. The striking Adele will jump in and fix the damage and, yes, the two will probably either bang or have an emotional affair, but that's the best thing that can happen to him. His marriage to his wife is clearly in trouble. His first thought when his wife wanted to move because of possible ghost sightings was to throw her in an institutionalize her. 

 3.      Annie, Senor Chang, and Pierce get sent from Community to Glee in exchange for Sue Sylvester and Quinn Fabray (pre-wheelchair)

Abed and Troy need a more superficial and acerbic girl (possibly one who they might have more sexual tension with) to pal around with. With the temptation of Annie out of the way, Jeff doesn’t get the scarlett letter for bedding a barely legal coed, and Annie, as a peppy student assistant to Mr. Schu, gets better storylines to people closer her age. Plus, most of the guys will have crushes on her and the potential shipping combinations will be mind-boggling.

Meanwhile, Sue is getting tiring with her redundancy in trying to destroy the Glee club. As a pregnant P.E. teacher, she becomes the gang’s new nemesis, while Pierce boasts an attribute even deadlier than what Sue had: Crankiness. He won't even let Mr. Schu get through half a song without telling him to shut up, throwing some old-timey racist insult at one of his students, and boring them with stories. 

Lastly, Sr. Chang will be Michael’s crazy uncle who will have a Holly-Holliday-like 3-episode arc as Mr. Schu’s substitute upon a bad case of food poisoning. Chang gets fired once it’s discovered that he doesn’t have substitute teacher credentials but it will have been a fun ride.

4. 3-Way Trade: Jonothan Ames (Jason Schwartzman) of Bored to Death goes to Community, the rights to  John Goodman go to The Office, and Ryan Howard and Kevin Malone go to Bored to Death

Community needs a nerdy intellectual guy like Ames for a foil. A professor a few years younger then Jeff Winger who thinks he's six times smarter than him will irk Jeff. He'll also majorly crush on Britta and never ever get anywhere close to winning over her affections.

I don't want whatever character John Goodman plays to go over to The Office but just John Goodman and his comedic gifts and allow the Office writing staff the opportunity to mold a good character for him. I've never been in love with Goodman but I think with his bellowing, hefty frame, he could be a tough guy akin to Idris Elba's character and I could trust him to restrain the manic unpredictable energy that the writers have tried to infuse every manager with post-Michael Scott (Will Ferrell is an unusually bad example).

Lastly, maybe the only guy in the Scranton branch of Dunder-Mifflin with a master's degree needs to figure out what to do with himself since he can't be a temp forever and still is too fearful of going to Thailand. So he moves to this hipster enclave of Brooklyn where people get him and works on writing a tell-all novel about his rise and fall from temp to CEO to temp again of the world's zaniest paper company. And the show goes all meta- because he will meet Steve Carell and Greg Daniels and try to persuade them to star in a TV show based on his book. Kevin Malone will also, by some coincidence too crazy for me to even come up with a plausible explanation for (although the Office writer's room will know how to handle this perfectly, transitions of power that make no sense seem to be their specialty lately), end up in Brooklyn too where he will reunite with long-lost brother Zach Galifianakis.

5. Twofer from 30 Rock gets traded to New Girl in exchange for Winston, Frank from 30 Rock gets traded to Don't Trust the B--- in Apartment 23 in exchange for Eli

I'd hate to see Winston leave the gang, but realistically, the chemistry between the other three is strongest, and the fussy Twofer might bring in a little more of a clash with the other roommates. Can you imagine the hidden resentment a law school dropout like Nick would have for a guy with the command of the English language that Twofer has? Winston wouldn't be the complete antithesis of Tracy Jordan that Twofer was designed to be. He wouldn't be the polar opposite of Tracy, but he'd add a lot of life and personality to the 30 Rock writers room

Meanwhile, Frank was born to play the combination  tambourine-playing health-inspecting simultaneously-creepy-and-non-threatening guy next door that Eli currently inhabits and Eli is the perfect compliment to Jenna who needs a stalker on top of his game.

6. Free agent Josh (Lonny Ross) from 30 Rock gets picked up by Up All Night

I've only seen two episodes of Up All Night, but it's a show about a TV show and Josh and his sex addict of an agent need another crack at a television show, so Josh becomes faux-Oprah's sidekick

7. Howard and Raj get traded from Big Bang Theory to 2 Broke Girls in exchange for Oleg and Han Lee. Stuart will be signed to a full-season contract.

Two Broke Girls has two strong leads with two appalling secondary characters while Big Bang Theory has...er, well, basically the same thing, but what if we could take Howard and Raj and exchange them for walking stereotypes Oleg and Han-Lee. As Daglas pointed out when he made an almost idential trade, said, we need a Lenny and Squiggy for this Laverne and Shirley. I don't think Oleg, Han Lee, Howard or Raj combined could equal one Squiggy in terms of mating desirability, but Raj and Howard would be a massive improvement over Oleg and Han Lee. Raj would keep his mouth shut a lot more than Oleg, and Howard would come onto the girls plenty, but at least Max will know how to handle him. She'll probably punch his lights out, which is what Howard would need. The caveat, Howard has to break up with Bernadette (maybe temporarily).

In the meantime, Han Lee will put a face on the restaurant that the guys and Penny order their Chinese food every other night, while Oleg will serve as the pervy landlord super.

Because you'll need to round out the gang, comic book geek Stuart will return to school to get a higher degree and become a lab assistant and fill out the three's lunch table conversations.




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Asexuals: Underrpresented on TV?

I just learned that there's a such thing as an asexual person when reading the biography of Janeane Gorafolo (http://splitsider.com/2012/02/saturday-nights-children-janeane-garofalo-1994-1995). They have a need for emotional companionship from the opposite sex like everyone else, but they apparently don't have a need for physical intimacy and this group makes up 1% of the population. They even have a support network online.


Now consider how various ethnic and sexual minorities have pressed for change in terms of seeing more of their kind on TV and how with enough pressure, TV shows have cast more gay, black, and Latino characters. I've read about black people recalling how seeing Uhura on Star Trek or the Cosby Show had a powerful positive effect on them. The flipside of that is what if you're asexual and don't have much interest in sex, it must make you feel very alone to be surrounded by images of people who's end goals are driven by relationships and sexual. A disproportionate number of TV character arcs are written that way because it makes for more compelling drama. Media studies classes (or at least, my media studies class) note that discrepancy between the end-point of stories always being love and real life. However, TV conventions still haven't changed too much.


Considering most TV shows (especially) gear their characters towards an endpoint of falling in love with someone or having a relationship, it would have been nice to have a character on TV who is asexual.

Sheldon on the Big Bang theory is a refreshing change to that, but they paired him up with Amy.  I love this show but I've really only seen the first couple seasons on reruns, so I'm not the expert, but I wonder if his relationship with Amy is representative of an asexual relationship.


If it isn't I'm pretty disappointed. It's probably fans saying "Sheldon should be happy and find love" and I don't think it was necessarily organic to the character, especially considering there are actually people like him.

[Update: I have yet to see a 4th season episode, but I understand from message board reactions that Amy and Sheldon's relationship is indeed asexual. So good for the Big Bang Theory for putting minorities on TV in more ways than one!]

Reviewing TV shows I've happily watched in the 08-09 season

Covered so far in last Blog Post
Sit Down, Shut Up, Fox
Burn Notice, USA
Important Things with Demitri Martin, Comedy Central
30 Rock, NBC
The Root of All Evil, Comedy Central

Other TV shows I've very much enjoyed watching this past year:
The Office, NBC-The Office certainly raised the bar with the introduction of three new characters on the sidelines and one massive reinvention of the existing dynamic:
-The introduction of Holly. The very sight of a female with as cringeworthy sense of humor was positively shocking.
-The introduction of Charles, who is truly Toby-like in that he represents the exact opposite of everything Michael stands for only he actually has power. Charles didn't just add an odd element into the office which raised the humor. Charles was genuinely scary and created a feeling of suspense. In other words, The Office was no longer just a comedy but a drama. You could have added psuedo action film music whenver Charles and Michael were in a confrontation and it would have fit together decently
-The introduction of Kelly "Erin" Hannon brought a reinvention of the Pam-Jim scenario in the form of Andy & Dwight-Erin, only with far less competent people in the art of romance doing the wooing. Jim and Pam were getting old anyway. I like how the writers on the Office had the audacity to give two characters the same name (I had long been wondering what might happen if a sitcom would ever get two characters with the same name) and then use it as grounds for a joke.
And the reinvention: Michael, Ryan and Pam formed an unlikely trio and all got closer to each other through an episode arc that tore the very safe confines of the show's premise apart. Michael quitting was not just one of the biggest things to happen on the show but it was clearly one of the biggest things to happen in the lives of the characters and the gravity shown through.

It goes to show that the writers of the Office are truly talented because they can move past that intiial spark of lightning to infuse something now.

It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia-FX

Big Bang Theory, CBS

My Name is Earl, NBC



Parks and Recreation-NBC-Parks and Recreation is an interesting show with potential and it's got some talented people in it. Rashida Jones serves as a great counterpoint to the zany characters in the Parks and Recreation department. Tom is an underdeveloped character who could be taken by Azziz Azziznari (don't have enough internet capacity to open up another window and see if I spelt that name right, sorry folks) in so many wonderful directions and having seen Audrey Plaza on the Jeannie Tate show (a web series), you can't wait to see how April's extreme brand will clash with Leslie's manic level of enthusiasm. On the dissapointing end, Amy Poehler has shown on her time with SNL that she can do dozens of characters well but Leslie Knopp isn't one of them. It's worth giving her a chance to develop it, but she's already defined her along such unbelievably buffoonis edges. Was Michael Scott really this bad in his first season at the Office? I'm tempted to say yes, so this is worth a chance too. The other problem with the show is there isn't much of a sense of place. An AV Club review of an episode of Glee noted that shows create a unique sense of place that we go back to week after week. This is highly ironic since Parks and Recreation is about local government, an organization who's existence and vitality is entirely tied to a sense of place. Yet, I know nothing about Pawnee, Indiana. Is it a charming small town? A medium-sized rust belt city? a suburb to something else? A growing yuppie community? The setting effectively serves as the star character in some films and especially TV shows (think futurama, northern exposure, e.r., dawson's creek, etc).

South Park, Comedy Central-This show is something where you take the good and the bad. It's crude and its producers still are stubborn about keeping unneccessary bathroom humor and cheap shots as their trademark even as the rest of their tastes and instincts have matured to points where they're the most effective satirists on TV.

Royal Pains, FX-The show stars TV sitcom regular Mark Feuerstein as Hank, a doctor who had his medical license revoked because he made a triage decision to save a kid against an adult. His brother talks him into taking a trip to the Hamptons and due to a strange paradox that causes medical emergencies to constantly occur in Hank's immediate vicinity (see the TV show Monk for another example of this), it doesn't take long for Hank to show off his mind-blowingly awesome medical skills when a girl at a happening Hamptons' party goes into cardillac arrest. Go Hank! Word gets out so fast about Hank's skills, that be weekend's end he is convinced by his shallow brother (Paolo Costanzo) and an aspiring medical practitioner (Indian actress Reshma Shelly) to open up his own business to cater to the rich clientelle as a "concierge doctor." The show reminds me of Las Vegas or many other shows I haven't seen in that it showcases a world of wealth and blong and we're supposed to be living a fantasy through the characters as they experience this glamorous world. I think Royal Pains doesn't fall into that trap because through the main character, the wealth and consumerism is saterized.

There are a million shows about doctors out there but this is the only one I really like watching. It's one of the few that even interested me enough to want to tune in in the first place and there was a lot to keep me going, once that happened. In the same way that something like Touched by an Angel and Joan of Arcadia serves as entertainment that reaffirms our faith in the world, there's something in Royal Pains that does that too in a very topical way. In the midst of this health care debate, Hank symbolizes what we all need: A doctor who is fully committed to doing good and is willing to put his career on the line for it. Hank is insistent on treating people whether they can pay for it or not despite the musings of his accountant brother who is concerned about the bottom line.

"Big Bang Theory" great show but could have been written a little differently

Big Bang Theory is a great show about the unlikely mix between geeks and beauties. A beautiful young girl, Penny (Kaley Cuoco) moves in next door to a pair of advanced theoretical physicists (Johnny Galecki and Jim Parsons), who are textbook examples of geekiness. With their two friends (Simon Helberg and Kunal Nayyar), they spend much of their time playing Halo, going on second life, watching sci-fi shows and collecting comic books. One of the two roommates (Johnny Galecki from Roseanne) is in love with the girl across the hall and a great deal of the show centers around this tension between this very shy and socially-akward guy and this girl who is out of her league.

The show is very entertaining for two reasons. The first is the hilarity that results from watching these nerdy geniuses and their two friends (Simon Helberg in fish-out-of-water situations where they are forced to interact with normal people (mainly in the form of Penny). Second, is the endearing and unlikely nature of the budding chemistry that develops between Penny and Sheldon. It might be a lost cause for him, but we're happy just to see sparks fly in the meantime.

One problem with the show, however, is that Penny spends an awful lot of time hanging around with Sheldon and his three friends when she has little in common with them in the first place. I understand that Sheldon is such a nice guy underneath with a desire to be sociable that she might form a friendship with them, but of the remaining three characters: Raj is too shy to speak when he's around her, Leonard is hostile and Wolfowitz is creepy. The writers construct situations where Penny is interacting with the "gang" instead of just Sheldon because that way she's not dating him yet and it keeps the sexual tension flowing, but how many situations can the writers construct before the "they're neighbors" excuse doesn't cut it anymore. This is especially true when she's actively annoyed with some of them (an example is when Leonard actively snuck into her apartment and cleaned her room). Sometimes, there are valid excuses that can make the interactions seem more plausible, like she's dropping off their mail or there's an episode where they're invited to her party.

Essentially what many unlikely storybook romances need, in both the movies and in real life, is for characters who wouldn't normally associate with each other to be stuck in some sort of confined situation where they have to do so. This reminds me of a film theory called the "Grand Hotel" or "Ship of Fools" theory that says when characters from different societal classes are forced to spend time in a confined space, they become a microcosm of society. If Leonard and Sheldon and Penny had daily schedules that forced them to unknowingly spend a lot of time with each other, step outside of their comfort spheres, and realize that the other wasn't so bad, I think that would be a great concept for a show.

What if the show was set in the physics lab where Sheldon and Leonard work?
If the show took place at their university and Penny was hired as a seceretary or clerk, all of their physics jokes would seem more natural since they'd be forced to talk more physics around her anyway. All the interactions would still be there but they'd also be more natural if she was spending what I currently see as excessive time with the gang of four.