Here's my review of Glee. On a side note, I'm learning when I write these reviews how hard it is to resist finding out someone else's opinion on the show right after you watch it. Fortunately I managed to stay entirely away from any message boards or sites until I formed an entirely original opinion on the show. For all I know, every other person who watched the show thought the exact opposite of me and that's the fun of it:
One good thing about Glee being erratic is you never know what to expect. The show might go in directions that are entirely self-defeating and stupid because the writer’s have done that before. This week, the shit really hit the fan. Over the course of the episode, Terri was back in Will’s life, Will was fired, Sue had taken over as principal, and Gwyneth Paltrow’s Holly Holiday was going to take over the Glee Club. You can’t accuse Glee of being predictable if at least one of these changes didn’t get reset to the status quo by episode’s end (who knows if that’s the last we see of Terri).
On the major changes to happen this week: Sue taking over for Figgins is at least where we are at episode’s end. I have no way of knowing how long this will last, but it obviously can’t or shouldn’t. Aside from Iqbal Theba being one of the better
actors on the show, the current power structure with Figgins-Will-Sue is far more effective than Will being at the mercy of Sue.
On Terri’s return: If I’m not mistaken, the general consensus last year was that Terri’s craziness was too much, even for Glee. I never felt she was particularly out of tune with some of the show’s other characters (see Rachel, Sue), but I love the new Terri and I can’t see the Terri haters of old legitimately not liking this new development. Which brings me to the point that it was a mistake for both Will and the show’s writers (if Will’s emphatic refusal is to be believed) to have Terri leave so soon. On-again off-again romantic pairings are what drama is all about.
As for the main plot, Gwyneth Paltrow was a perfect guest star. Yes, it was stunt casting. She´s an Oscar winner but she also added a lot and fit the tone perfectly. Most importantly, it was so apparent how much fun she was having that it became contagious. Gwyneth’s exaggerated caricature of a fun-loving Dead-Poets-Society-wannabe substitute was the perfect foil to exaggerated caricature of a bitter teacher Sue Sylvester and especially exaggerated prima donna Rachel. When Holly Holliday responded to Leah Michelle’s threat of going to the nurse, with “You suck!” that was the best moment of the show.
The premise that Holliday served as a genuine foil, on the other hand, to Will was a little bit harder to buy. The acting certainly sold it: Gwyneth Paltrow got “more real” (to quote Clone High) in her heart-to-heart moments with Will. I don’t remember Will being that much of a taskmaster as the flashbacks made him out to be, but since it was acknowledged at episode’s end in a realistic way, I don’t mind this at all. In fact, it ended in a happier place than I expected with Holliday at least getting her job back. Paltrow is probably too busy a movie star to make too many returns, but I at least liked that in the fictional universe, good things happened to good people.
With Glee the endings do not make or break the episodes. My (possibly outlandish) theory is that things generally get melodramatic and fantasical in the middle third of the episode and if the characters can shrug the drama off and become more realistic at episode’s end, it feels to the audience like we’ve been taken into and out of a fantasy and back to real life again. Musicals are all about fantasy so this kind of mirrors our TV viewing experience.
Other random notes:
-Do not know how to spell Prima Donna...the spell checker told me it was two words
-Harry Shum Jr. as Michael Chang is nicely coming around. It is very clear that he has more of a dancing background than the others and the duet was gold. Whether it was better than Joseph Gordon-Leavitt's version when he hosted SNL is a tough call.
-The Leah Michelle/Gwyneth Paltrow duet didn't really feel necessary. I've already forgot it.
-The writers are usually careful not to portray Will as a womanizer. He has had flings and relationships and gains points by admitting that some of the things he's done (i.e. Vocal Adrenaline Coach Idina Menzel, trying to romance Emma with the Rocky Horror Show) were mistakes. He also has used caution and discretion (i.e. Emma, April Rhodes). Tonight's episode was definitely a step backwards in that direction. The writing room should keep Will away from ill-fated romance for a while lest he lose more good guy points with the audience.
-Santana is regularly getting the best lines in the episode these days.
Wednesday, November 17, 2010
Friday, November 12, 2010
Looking at Outsourced and Community this week
Thoughts on "Outsourced" after this past week's episode "Home for the Diwalidays":
After just seven or eight episodes, the show has smoothed out the rough edges on its more two-dimensional characters. While these characters are often criticized for being stereotypical and culturally crude, from a functional episode, I think everyone in the ensemble brings something to the table and that’s rare.
For example, look at Madhuri. She fits into all sorts of conventions of a girl with little to no confidence: she’s shy, she’s less direct with Todd than Asha, she was the last to make an upsell, etc. We might even read into her character, some implicit feminist cultural about the nature of caste oppression and its effect on women in India, but the critical consensus is that the show is written by cultural boobs so those readings tend to get dismissed. As I’ve mentioned before, the show’s obstacles are a double-edged sword because if the show would look any more realistically than it already is at an oppressed woman like Madhuri, it would cease to be a comedy.
Even if we cut out the cultural aspects and judge Madhuri as a staple sitcom character, I’m impressed at her growth. Along with Gupta, she has been one of the slowest characters to grow on me, but she’s been used well the past few weeks. There was a good self-referencing gag a couple of episodes ago where she went to a Halloween party dressed as a lamp shade and her presence wasn’t noticed by the other characters or the audience either. This week, Madhuri showed some cunning by massively overcharging Rajiv for a sari. It was a direction consistent with what we’ve seen from her so far, it was a direction forward for her character, and it worked within where the episode was heading. All of these things deserve recognition.
What's also admirable is that the one character who's a little less than three-dimensional, Tanya, is used sparingly. She's regularly cut out entirely of episodes and only is used when she's important to the plot. Speaking of weeks in which Tanya is important to the plot, this week's episode answered a question that was previously irking me: Why haven’t Tanya and Todd gotten together already? She’s so ridiculously forward with him and the show dallied a couple episodes too long in not answering why he wouldn’t have responded to her. It wasn’t just a matter of Todd’s hang-up with Asha but he seemed a little unaware that this woman whom he clearly finds attractive was right there in front of him holding up a large sign that said “Please boink me.” Well, no worries. In any case, Todd and Tanya made up for all the sex they weren’t having in the last couple episodes here, so everything was squared away there.
On another note, I also am loving Rajiv’s character and his passive-aggressiveness last night. The gag where he caught Todd on camera but accidentally opened himself up to blackmail ran just a little long but it was pretty funny nonetheless.
Community: "Cooperative Calligraphy"
In contrast, Community is a show in its second season. The show felt a little bit awkward in its pilot but viewers have gradually warmed up to it. It's now being counted as a favorite by many viewers I've heard from. The strength of the ensemble has been cited as one of the show's major strong points.
I can't help but watching "Community" this season and just wondering what the hell these these guys are thinking during some of the show's stranger episodes. Last week's episode had a very trippy A-plot that seemed a little incongruous with a B-plot that was a bit melodramatic (Abed becomes a "Mean Girl"). At the same time, I thought "Messainic Myths and Ancient Peoples" was an amazing episode and it did push the envelope a lot, so being a little more outlandish has gotten the show places. This week, however, the show just got too rediculous for me.
I mean, let's be honest: They based an entire episode around Annie losing a pen.
I lose pens all the time. I don't even know where the hell my pens come from. If I see a pen lying around somewhere, I usually take it, it's the most inconsequential thing in the world. Some people might call that relatable, but this episode is asking is to believe that seven grown adults would strip themselves down and tear apart a room for a pen?
A lot of dramatic situations are based around people forced into confined spaces. I believe this is called the "Ship of Fools" theory in film/literature analysis which says when characters of different social classes are put together in a confined space it becomes a microcosm of society. This episode was a pretty lackadaisical attempt to create that effect. Any sane person would have just walked out of the room. Annie's craziness was, in fact, something they took a stand against in the penultimate episode of last season.
Some people might say it wasn't really about the pen but that the pen was just a launching pad to larger issues within the group. That doesn't take away the fact that the episode is already asking us to make a big enough leap in logic to accept that the pen could act as a launching pad in the first place.
How difficult would it have been to replace pen with something of value like wallet, credit card, wrist watch, or a locket?
My point, here is that "Community" is getting off pretty easily for its stumbling while the new sitcom on the block has to fight tooth and nail for any semblance of respectability.
After just seven or eight episodes, the show has smoothed out the rough edges on its more two-dimensional characters. While these characters are often criticized for being stereotypical and culturally crude, from a functional episode, I think everyone in the ensemble brings something to the table and that’s rare.
For example, look at Madhuri. She fits into all sorts of conventions of a girl with little to no confidence: she’s shy, she’s less direct with Todd than Asha, she was the last to make an upsell, etc. We might even read into her character, some implicit feminist cultural about the nature of caste oppression and its effect on women in India, but the critical consensus is that the show is written by cultural boobs so those readings tend to get dismissed. As I’ve mentioned before, the show’s obstacles are a double-edged sword because if the show would look any more realistically than it already is at an oppressed woman like Madhuri, it would cease to be a comedy.
Even if we cut out the cultural aspects and judge Madhuri as a staple sitcom character, I’m impressed at her growth. Along with Gupta, she has been one of the slowest characters to grow on me, but she’s been used well the past few weeks. There was a good self-referencing gag a couple of episodes ago where she went to a Halloween party dressed as a lamp shade and her presence wasn’t noticed by the other characters or the audience either. This week, Madhuri showed some cunning by massively overcharging Rajiv for a sari. It was a direction consistent with what we’ve seen from her so far, it was a direction forward for her character, and it worked within where the episode was heading. All of these things deserve recognition.
What's also admirable is that the one character who's a little less than three-dimensional, Tanya, is used sparingly. She's regularly cut out entirely of episodes and only is used when she's important to the plot. Speaking of weeks in which Tanya is important to the plot, this week's episode answered a question that was previously irking me: Why haven’t Tanya and Todd gotten together already? She’s so ridiculously forward with him and the show dallied a couple episodes too long in not answering why he wouldn’t have responded to her. It wasn’t just a matter of Todd’s hang-up with Asha but he seemed a little unaware that this woman whom he clearly finds attractive was right there in front of him holding up a large sign that said “Please boink me.” Well, no worries. In any case, Todd and Tanya made up for all the sex they weren’t having in the last couple episodes here, so everything was squared away there.
On another note, I also am loving Rajiv’s character and his passive-aggressiveness last night. The gag where he caught Todd on camera but accidentally opened himself up to blackmail ran just a little long but it was pretty funny nonetheless.
Community: "Cooperative Calligraphy"
In contrast, Community is a show in its second season. The show felt a little bit awkward in its pilot but viewers have gradually warmed up to it. It's now being counted as a favorite by many viewers I've heard from. The strength of the ensemble has been cited as one of the show's major strong points.
I can't help but watching "Community" this season and just wondering what the hell these these guys are thinking during some of the show's stranger episodes. Last week's episode had a very trippy A-plot that seemed a little incongruous with a B-plot that was a bit melodramatic (Abed becomes a "Mean Girl"). At the same time, I thought "Messainic Myths and Ancient Peoples" was an amazing episode and it did push the envelope a lot, so being a little more outlandish has gotten the show places. This week, however, the show just got too rediculous for me.
I mean, let's be honest: They based an entire episode around Annie losing a pen.
I lose pens all the time. I don't even know where the hell my pens come from. If I see a pen lying around somewhere, I usually take it, it's the most inconsequential thing in the world. Some people might call that relatable, but this episode is asking is to believe that seven grown adults would strip themselves down and tear apart a room for a pen?
A lot of dramatic situations are based around people forced into confined spaces. I believe this is called the "Ship of Fools" theory in film/literature analysis which says when characters of different social classes are put together in a confined space it becomes a microcosm of society. This episode was a pretty lackadaisical attempt to create that effect. Any sane person would have just walked out of the room. Annie's craziness was, in fact, something they took a stand against in the penultimate episode of last season.
Some people might say it wasn't really about the pen but that the pen was just a launching pad to larger issues within the group. That doesn't take away the fact that the episode is already asking us to make a big enough leap in logic to accept that the pen could act as a launching pad in the first place.
How difficult would it have been to replace pen with something of value like wallet, credit card, wrist watch, or a locket?
My point, here is that "Community" is getting off pretty easily for its stumbling while the new sitcom on the block has to fight tooth and nail for any semblance of respectability.
It's Always Sunny review
Review of It's Always Sunny:
"Dee Reynolds: Shaping America's Youth"
Knowing that the show always returns to the status quo at episode’s end, it was somewhat of a guilty pleasure seeing the possibility play out that Dee and Charlie might have turned their lives around for the better last week. Although the gang’s meant to be dislikeable in every possible way, Dee and Charlie tend to be a little easier to root for because they’re both stuck at the bottom of their group’s social hierarchy to some extent. Dee is regularly seen by the guys as Dennis’ tag-along sister and, due to his illiteracy, Charlie accidentally shut himself out of management.
Last week, Dee met up with her high school acting teacher and was encouraged to take a position as his assistant. She didn’t necessarily get the theater class jumping for joy with her impromptu presentation of Frankenstein but she got them to participate and to my surprise, she wasn’t fired by episode’s end.
Similarly, Charlie stumbled upon the discovery last week that there’s an actual job market for “Charlie work” called janitorial work. The combination of a power waxer, respect, and minimum wage proved too irresistible for Charlie to leave when the gang wanted him back.
This week’s episode was all about anticipating how long this high life would last before things fell apart and exactly how they would fall apart. As anyone who’s ever substitute taught at a public school with all its rules and regulations knows, there was no better possible setting for this scenario to play out. Dee and Charlie’s general disregard for anything and everyone around them practically makes them ticking time bombs and that made it a lot more fun.
Dee’s desire to be liked by her students (as a former substitute teacher, I can attest that’s more of a necessity than the administrators will ever acknowledge) led to her spontaneous announcement that she would take the class to Broadway which gets a quick veto by the principal (guest star Dave Foley) because she’s just a substitute and the school has no arts budget. Meanwhile, Charlie starts mentoring a kid who dons face paint and the principal quickly vetoes Charlie’s solution to bathe the kid or even talk to the kids in general.
As a backup plan to win the favor of the kids, Dee takes them to Paddy’s Pub for a movie screening hoping that they’ll find it cool to physically be in a bar. This is where the B-plot takes over the episode somewhat abruptly: Mac, Dennis and Charlie filmed a movie sequel to Lethal Weapon 4 in which Mac donned blackface to play Murtaugh and they hope that showing it to an audience at Paddy’s will squelch the debate over whether blackface is acceptable.
The movie itself was ridiculously entertaining but the whole side plot was sloppily tagged on and robbed us of what could have been a winning third act involving Charlie and Dee. When you have material that good and Dave Foley to work with on top of that, a B-plot isn't even necessary.
Instead, there is quick little coda wrapping things up. The gang gets reunited via Dee and Charlie getting fired and to their credit, our heroic janitor and substitute theater teacher accept their fates pretty well. An added twist I enjoyed is that Principal Dave Foley is probably also getting fired himself. Like Jason Sudeikis last week, Dave Foley is pitch perfect casting as the only sane man in the room. He practically defined the role for American audiences in Newsradio and he played that last scene perfectly. He's such an endearing schlub, that I'm hoping this isn't the last we see of him on Sunny.
"Dee Reynolds: Shaping America's Youth"
Knowing that the show always returns to the status quo at episode’s end, it was somewhat of a guilty pleasure seeing the possibility play out that Dee and Charlie might have turned their lives around for the better last week. Although the gang’s meant to be dislikeable in every possible way, Dee and Charlie tend to be a little easier to root for because they’re both stuck at the bottom of their group’s social hierarchy to some extent. Dee is regularly seen by the guys as Dennis’ tag-along sister and, due to his illiteracy, Charlie accidentally shut himself out of management.
Last week, Dee met up with her high school acting teacher and was encouraged to take a position as his assistant. She didn’t necessarily get the theater class jumping for joy with her impromptu presentation of Frankenstein but she got them to participate and to my surprise, she wasn’t fired by episode’s end.
Similarly, Charlie stumbled upon the discovery last week that there’s an actual job market for “Charlie work” called janitorial work. The combination of a power waxer, respect, and minimum wage proved too irresistible for Charlie to leave when the gang wanted him back.
This week’s episode was all about anticipating how long this high life would last before things fell apart and exactly how they would fall apart. As anyone who’s ever substitute taught at a public school with all its rules and regulations knows, there was no better possible setting for this scenario to play out. Dee and Charlie’s general disregard for anything and everyone around them practically makes them ticking time bombs and that made it a lot more fun.
Dee’s desire to be liked by her students (as a former substitute teacher, I can attest that’s more of a necessity than the administrators will ever acknowledge) led to her spontaneous announcement that she would take the class to Broadway which gets a quick veto by the principal (guest star Dave Foley) because she’s just a substitute and the school has no arts budget. Meanwhile, Charlie starts mentoring a kid who dons face paint and the principal quickly vetoes Charlie’s solution to bathe the kid or even talk to the kids in general.
As a backup plan to win the favor of the kids, Dee takes them to Paddy’s Pub for a movie screening hoping that they’ll find it cool to physically be in a bar. This is where the B-plot takes over the episode somewhat abruptly: Mac, Dennis and Charlie filmed a movie sequel to Lethal Weapon 4 in which Mac donned blackface to play Murtaugh and they hope that showing it to an audience at Paddy’s will squelch the debate over whether blackface is acceptable.
The movie itself was ridiculously entertaining but the whole side plot was sloppily tagged on and robbed us of what could have been a winning third act involving Charlie and Dee. When you have material that good and Dave Foley to work with on top of that, a B-plot isn't even necessary.
Instead, there is quick little coda wrapping things up. The gang gets reunited via Dee and Charlie getting fired and to their credit, our heroic janitor and substitute theater teacher accept their fates pretty well. An added twist I enjoyed is that Principal Dave Foley is probably also getting fired himself. Like Jason Sudeikis last week, Dave Foley is pitch perfect casting as the only sane man in the room. He practically defined the role for American audiences in Newsradio and he played that last scene perfectly. He's such an endearing schlub, that I'm hoping this isn't the last we see of him on Sunny.
Sunday, November 07, 2010
Shows with Great Guest Stars Updated: Part I
I've done this a couple times before, where I look at guest stars who've been on comedy shows. Here's a more thorough listing I'm working on. I am also hoping to mine some good article fodder out of this raw data.
Key:
^-Very minor part/Cameo
In Bold=Recurring role (There's not a set number of episodes for a role to be considered recurring. It's a judgement call)
*=Stars who played themselves
Arrested Development's Notable Guest Stars:
The Roster: Alan Tudyk (Dodgeball), Amy Poehler, Andy Richter, Bob Oderink, Ben Stiller, Christine Taylor, Charlize Theron, Carl Weathers*, Dave Atell, Ed Begley Jr, Frankie Muniz*^, Henry Winkler, Heather Graham, Ian Roberts, Jane Lynch, Judge Reinhold*, Judy Greer, Julia Louis-Dreyfuss, Jeff Garlin, John Michael Higgins, Justine Bateman, Jack McBrayer^ (30 Rock), James Lipton , Liza Minnelli, Martin Mull, Marty Shore, Mo Collins (Mad TV), Russell Simmons*, Ron Howard*^, Scott Baio, Simon Helberg^ (Big Bang Theory), William Hung*, Zach Braff
Stars who played themselves:
1. Russell Simmons appears in a flashback commercial for the highly dangerous cornball cooker contraption
2. Frankie Muniz has a brief cameo on the studio lot
3. Carl Weathers serves as an acting coach to Tobias who'll do anything for free food
4. Ron Howard has a cameo as an executive in the last episode.
5. William Hung is involved in a courtroom episode for the sole reason of being able to use the gag "Hung Jury"
6. For the same reason, Judge Reinholdt is used as a judge in the same episode
Stars who possibly played themselves:
7. Andy Richter plays various fictional brothers of the real Andy Richter. It's possible that at one point in the episode he was the real Andy Richter.
8. Jeff Garlin plays a studio executive who mentors Maybe. Garlin does work in Hollywood so that could possibly be him.
Notes: The show was so good at inserting stars in the right places that they were able to create meta-jokes based on casting alone: James Lipton is a prison warden who aspires to be a pretentious screenwriter. Amy Poehler, the real-life wife of Will Arnett, gets involved in a haphazard marriage to Gob. Scott Baio succeeds Henry Winkler as attorney just as Baio succeeded Winkler as the star of "Happy Days." Lastly, Justine Bateman (Jason's sister) stars as a mysterious woman who might or might not be Michael's sister.
The show's writers also had a lot of fun with naming characters. Aside from using Judge Reinholdt and William Hung solely because their names could set up a running punchline, Scott Baio was called "Bob Laublau" and to add icing to the cake, it was later revealed that his primary hobby was blogging on the "Bob Laublau Law Blog." Giving Liza Minelli's character the name "Lucille" also led to a lot of Freudian ambiguity between Buster's girlfriend and his mom (later compounded by the fact that Buster named his turtle Lucille).
The best: Charlize Theron plays a love interest to Michael in a six-episode arc who may or may not be a spy for a British rival. Later is revealed she may or may not be mentally disabled. Theron played the ambiguity with finesse.
If there was some type of popular vote by AD fans, the winner might be Henry Winkler or Judy Greer as George's flirtatious secretary and mistress who is often introduced on talk shows as "Judy Greer from Arrested Development" despite a pretty lengthy career.
Frasier's Notable Guest Stars
The Roster:Aaron Eckhart, Anthony LaPaglia, Amy Brenneman, Bebe Neuwirth, Bill Campbell, Brian Cox, Brian Stokes Mitchell, Bryan Callen (Mad TV), Christine Barinski, Felicity Huffman, Harriet Samson Harris, Jane Adams, Jane Kaczmarek, Julia Sweeny. Kristin Chenowith, Laura Linney, Laurie Metcalf, Mercedes Reuhl, Millicent Martin, Patrick Stewart, Patricia Clarkson, Rene Auberjonois, Rita Wilson, Saul Rubineck, Sela Ward, Tea Leoni, Teri Hatcher, Teri Polo, Victor Garber, Virginia Madsen, Wendy Malick, Zooey Deschannel
Also from the show Cheers: George Wendt, John Ratzenberger, Rhea Perlman, Shelley Long, Ted Danson, Woody Harrelson
Notes: Being a spin-off of "Cheers," it was fairly inevitable that former barmates would visit Frasier in Seattle. Ted Danson and Woody Harrelson got entire episodes. Former flame Dianne (Shelly Long) appeared in Frasier's imagination in addition to actually being in Seattle. Bebe Neuwirth's Lillith, being the ex-wife of Frasier and mother of his child, was somewhat of a recurring character on the show and the dynamic evolved between the two considerably.
Frasier has very good taste in women. Four of his girlfriends (Virginia Madsen-2004, Laura Linney-2004, Patricia Clarkson-2003, and Felicity Huffman-2005) would go on to be nominated for an acting Oscar. Another love interest, Mercedes Reuhl was also an Oscar winner in 1991 for "The Fisher King". Other very talented and beautiful girlfriends of Frasier include Teri Polo, Sela Ward, Amy Brenneman and Teri Hatcher. Julia Sweeny (The Androgynous Pat from SNL) played a fairly undesirable date of Frasier's.
Perhaps, the most memorable guest role was one left up to our imagination: Maris never made an onscreen appearance and it was doubtful she would ever live up to the hyperboles Niles and others used to describe her physical appearance and mannerisms.
The Best: The bombastic Patrick Stewart has a one-episode stint as a gay symphony conductor with whom Frasier gets into a sticky situation. As for recurring characters, Wendie Malick provides much of the heart of the final season as Martin's companion. The biggest audience favorite was probably Harriet Samson Harris who was used sparingly but effectively as Frasier's ruthless but strangely charming agent Bebe Glazer. When Frasier had enough of Bebe, Kristin Chenowith in all her pint-sized-perkiness came along as Bebe's intermediary in an somewhat underrated role.
3rd Rock From the Sun:
The Roster:Ana Gasteyer*, Bryan Cranston, Chris Hogan, Christine Lakin (Step by Step), Cindy Crawford, Courtney Peldon, Darrell Hammond*, Dennis Rodman*, David DeLuise, Dom DeLuise, Elaine Stritch, Evlsi Costello*, George Takei*, Jan Hooks, John Cleese, Kevin Nealon, Kurtwood Smith (That 70's Show), Laurie Metcalf, Miguel Ferrer, Mike Ditka, Mark McKinney (Kids in the Hall), Phil Hartman, Wayne Knight, Tracy Morgan*, William Shatner
People who played themselves:
1. Ana Gasteyer was herself when the Solomons went into an alternate universe where Tommy was a cast member of Saturday Night Live and Ana's boyfriend (Tracy Morgan and Darrell Hammond also appeared in much smaller roles)
2. George Takei appeared as himself checking out of a hotel in a Star Trek convention
3. Dennis Rodman is referenced to as being an alien ("Men in Black" also made this joke) and Rodman appears as himself in two episodes.
Notes: The show was created by former "Saturday Night Live" writers Bonnie and Terry Turner which allowed them fairly easy access to SNL alums such as Jan Hooks, Phil Hartman and Kevin Nealon. Everyone's favorite tomboy from "Step by Step," middle child Allie, pops up in a family reunion episode. The show also tapped into the sci-fi fanbase with highly publicized appearances by George Takei and William Shatner as "The Big Giant Head"
Chris Hogan, David DeLuise (Dom's son), Ian Lithgow (John's son), and Danielle Nicolet played a quartet of perpetual students of Dick's, that served as stand-ins for pretty much the entire unviersity's student body.
The Best: John Cleese played a rival alien who was even weirder than the Solomons but better able to fit in. Runner-up would either be Shatner or Cindy Crawford as a model from an alien planet who botches a plan to take over the world by falling in love with Harry. The sight of Crawford and French Stewart got enough laughs alone because it was such an extreme "beauty and the geek" scenario.
Coming up, Star Trek: The Next Generation, Monk, Pushing Daisies, Newsradio, Spin City, Friends, 30 Rock, My Name is Earl and much, much more
Key:
^-Very minor part/Cameo
In Bold=Recurring role (There's not a set number of episodes for a role to be considered recurring. It's a judgement call)
*=Stars who played themselves
Arrested Development's Notable Guest Stars:
The Roster: Alan Tudyk (Dodgeball), Amy Poehler, Andy Richter, Bob Oderink, Ben Stiller, Christine Taylor, Charlize Theron, Carl Weathers*, Dave Atell, Ed Begley Jr, Frankie Muniz*^, Henry Winkler, Heather Graham, Ian Roberts, Jane Lynch, Judge Reinhold*, Judy Greer, Julia Louis-Dreyfuss, Jeff Garlin, John Michael Higgins, Justine Bateman, Jack McBrayer^ (30 Rock), James Lipton , Liza Minnelli, Martin Mull, Marty Shore, Mo Collins (Mad TV), Russell Simmons*, Ron Howard*^, Scott Baio, Simon Helberg^ (Big Bang Theory), William Hung*, Zach Braff
Stars who played themselves:
1. Russell Simmons appears in a flashback commercial for the highly dangerous cornball cooker contraption
2. Frankie Muniz has a brief cameo on the studio lot
3. Carl Weathers serves as an acting coach to Tobias who'll do anything for free food
4. Ron Howard has a cameo as an executive in the last episode.
5. William Hung is involved in a courtroom episode for the sole reason of being able to use the gag "Hung Jury"
6. For the same reason, Judge Reinholdt is used as a judge in the same episode
Stars who possibly played themselves:
7. Andy Richter plays various fictional brothers of the real Andy Richter. It's possible that at one point in the episode he was the real Andy Richter.
8. Jeff Garlin plays a studio executive who mentors Maybe. Garlin does work in Hollywood so that could possibly be him.
Notes: The show was so good at inserting stars in the right places that they were able to create meta-jokes based on casting alone: James Lipton is a prison warden who aspires to be a pretentious screenwriter. Amy Poehler, the real-life wife of Will Arnett, gets involved in a haphazard marriage to Gob. Scott Baio succeeds Henry Winkler as attorney just as Baio succeeded Winkler as the star of "Happy Days." Lastly, Justine Bateman (Jason's sister) stars as a mysterious woman who might or might not be Michael's sister.
The show's writers also had a lot of fun with naming characters. Aside from using Judge Reinholdt and William Hung solely because their names could set up a running punchline, Scott Baio was called "Bob Laublau" and to add icing to the cake, it was later revealed that his primary hobby was blogging on the "Bob Laublau Law Blog." Giving Liza Minelli's character the name "Lucille" also led to a lot of Freudian ambiguity between Buster's girlfriend and his mom (later compounded by the fact that Buster named his turtle Lucille).
The best: Charlize Theron plays a love interest to Michael in a six-episode arc who may or may not be a spy for a British rival. Later is revealed she may or may not be mentally disabled. Theron played the ambiguity with finesse.
If there was some type of popular vote by AD fans, the winner might be Henry Winkler or Judy Greer as George's flirtatious secretary and mistress who is often introduced on talk shows as "Judy Greer from Arrested Development" despite a pretty lengthy career.
Frasier's Notable Guest Stars
The Roster:Aaron Eckhart, Anthony LaPaglia, Amy Brenneman, Bebe Neuwirth, Bill Campbell, Brian Cox, Brian Stokes Mitchell, Bryan Callen (Mad TV), Christine Barinski, Felicity Huffman, Harriet Samson Harris, Jane Adams, Jane Kaczmarek, Julia Sweeny. Kristin Chenowith, Laura Linney, Laurie Metcalf, Mercedes Reuhl, Millicent Martin, Patrick Stewart, Patricia Clarkson, Rene Auberjonois, Rita Wilson, Saul Rubineck, Sela Ward, Tea Leoni, Teri Hatcher, Teri Polo, Victor Garber, Virginia Madsen, Wendy Malick, Zooey Deschannel
Also from the show Cheers: George Wendt, John Ratzenberger, Rhea Perlman, Shelley Long, Ted Danson, Woody Harrelson
Notes: Being a spin-off of "Cheers," it was fairly inevitable that former barmates would visit Frasier in Seattle. Ted Danson and Woody Harrelson got entire episodes. Former flame Dianne (Shelly Long) appeared in Frasier's imagination in addition to actually being in Seattle. Bebe Neuwirth's Lillith, being the ex-wife of Frasier and mother of his child, was somewhat of a recurring character on the show and the dynamic evolved between the two considerably.
Frasier has very good taste in women. Four of his girlfriends (Virginia Madsen-2004, Laura Linney-2004, Patricia Clarkson-2003, and Felicity Huffman-2005) would go on to be nominated for an acting Oscar. Another love interest, Mercedes Reuhl was also an Oscar winner in 1991 for "The Fisher King". Other very talented and beautiful girlfriends of Frasier include Teri Polo, Sela Ward, Amy Brenneman and Teri Hatcher. Julia Sweeny (The Androgynous Pat from SNL) played a fairly undesirable date of Frasier's.
Perhaps, the most memorable guest role was one left up to our imagination: Maris never made an onscreen appearance and it was doubtful she would ever live up to the hyperboles Niles and others used to describe her physical appearance and mannerisms.
The Best: The bombastic Patrick Stewart has a one-episode stint as a gay symphony conductor with whom Frasier gets into a sticky situation. As for recurring characters, Wendie Malick provides much of the heart of the final season as Martin's companion. The biggest audience favorite was probably Harriet Samson Harris who was used sparingly but effectively as Frasier's ruthless but strangely charming agent Bebe Glazer. When Frasier had enough of Bebe, Kristin Chenowith in all her pint-sized-perkiness came along as Bebe's intermediary in an somewhat underrated role.
3rd Rock From the Sun:
The Roster:Ana Gasteyer*, Bryan Cranston, Chris Hogan, Christine Lakin (Step by Step), Cindy Crawford, Courtney Peldon, Darrell Hammond*, Dennis Rodman*, David DeLuise, Dom DeLuise, Elaine Stritch, Evlsi Costello*, George Takei*, Jan Hooks, John Cleese, Kevin Nealon, Kurtwood Smith (That 70's Show), Laurie Metcalf, Miguel Ferrer, Mike Ditka, Mark McKinney (Kids in the Hall), Phil Hartman, Wayne Knight, Tracy Morgan*, William Shatner
People who played themselves:
1. Ana Gasteyer was herself when the Solomons went into an alternate universe where Tommy was a cast member of Saturday Night Live and Ana's boyfriend (Tracy Morgan and Darrell Hammond also appeared in much smaller roles)
2. George Takei appeared as himself checking out of a hotel in a Star Trek convention
3. Dennis Rodman is referenced to as being an alien ("Men in Black" also made this joke) and Rodman appears as himself in two episodes.
Notes: The show was created by former "Saturday Night Live" writers Bonnie and Terry Turner which allowed them fairly easy access to SNL alums such as Jan Hooks, Phil Hartman and Kevin Nealon. Everyone's favorite tomboy from "Step by Step," middle child Allie, pops up in a family reunion episode. The show also tapped into the sci-fi fanbase with highly publicized appearances by George Takei and William Shatner as "The Big Giant Head"
Chris Hogan, David DeLuise (Dom's son), Ian Lithgow (John's son), and Danielle Nicolet played a quartet of perpetual students of Dick's, that served as stand-ins for pretty much the entire unviersity's student body.
The Best: John Cleese played a rival alien who was even weirder than the Solomons but better able to fit in. Runner-up would either be Shatner or Cindy Crawford as a model from an alien planet who botches a plan to take over the world by falling in love with Harry. The sight of Crawford and French Stewart got enough laughs alone because it was such an extreme "beauty and the geek" scenario.
Coming up, Star Trek: The Next Generation, Monk, Pushing Daisies, Newsradio, Spin City, Friends, 30 Rock, My Name is Earl and much, much more
Saturday, November 06, 2010
Modern Family review: Bumbling Dads, Comedy of Errors, etc
Last week's episode of "Modern Family" inspired a lot of thoughts in me:
Synopses:
The Dumphy Household plot: Haley and Claire are both sick and spend the day in bed together. Claire dissaproves of Haley's boyfriend and tries to have a mother-to-daughter talk with him about how she might think about pursuing other men and Haley misinterprets this as a candid confession by her mom that her marriage isn't working.
The Jay-Gloria-Manny plot: Jay fires one of his workers for allowing Manny onto a construction crane and driving through a wall. Manny feels guilty and pleads for the worker to have his job back but Jay won't budge. Meanwhile, Jay can't remember the location or occasion for the next of Gloria's anniversary dates because she overcelebrates.
The Cam-Mitchell-Lilly plot: Cam wants to put Lilly in a commercial over Mitch's objecetions
I tend to never be particularly dissatisfied with this show, because I only need one of the three plots to really hit the spot for me. The strength of the characters and general strength of writing alone ensures that an episode subplot will never be truly awful. From that perspective, it’s good that the show’s subplots aren’t usually strongly interconnected.
With that in mind, one of three plots was kind of a dud for me and I feel like the Cam and Mitchell subplots have been consistently weak lately.
I do think that Cam, Mitchell and Lilly are great to watch and I don’t remember any gay couples ever being depicted so richly on broadcast TV. I especially like how their lives aren’t so much shown in the context of the gay community (“Will and Grace” did that and it never interested me) but rather, within the context of how they fit into WASP suburbia and their families. Let’s look at the last three weeks: 1) Mitch and Cam argue about whether to turn Lily into a child actor; 2) Who’s at fault for Mitch bringing a costume to work? 3) Mitch and Cam disagree on where to send their kid to private school. The Mitch-and-Cam plots focus fairly heavily on inter-couple bickering and for the same reason I never got into “Everybody Loves Raymond,” I don’t find bickering couples that much fun to watch. The Halloween costume plot could have been much more entertaining, for example, if it just cut out the bickering and devoted more screen time to how Cam was going to get through the day.
The other two plots both were very strong. The Jay-Manny subplot was at its best when it briefly exited the wackiness of sitcomdom for a moment of realism. Jay put his foot down and refused to let Manny influence his decision over whether to rehire an employee who put Manny in danger. Even more impressive was that the moment was rooted in classic comic wackiness straight out of an episode of “I Love Lucy” and the storyline eventually transitioned back into a comic context by episode’s end. It’s a testament to the show’s richness and consistency in tone that they can merge emotional moments and comedy so well. The story's big emotional reveal- that Jay called Manny his kid for the first time- was not foreshadowable anywhere in the episode so I liked the twist there.
The Haley-Claire subplot was a great comedy of errors: Due to a certain ambiguity in their words, Haley and Claire are drawing two entirely different conclusions from the same conversation. 90% of the plots on “Three’s Company” revolved around this staple, and it’s been used in Dumphy clan storylines before (i.e. the episode about Haley’s diary). This was a good episode for Haley who often sees her parents and siblings as mere impediments to her all-important social life. It was slightly atypical of the show, however, to not have a nice little resolution at episode’s end. Claire still believes that her mother doesn’t really like her father and their marriage is on shaky grounds. For a show that aims for realism, a teenage girl’s response to her parents’ decaying marriage was treated a little too casually.
Other notes:
-It was nice that the Dumphy clan storyline referenced the staggering economy without basing a whole storyline on it.
-I was thinking during this episode about the “bumbling dad” trope that sitcoms mine for humor and how “Modern Family” employs it pretty diversely. “Modern Family” adheres to the stereotype very closely with Phil and subsequently mines a lot of laughs from his bumbling. That’s not entirely the case with Jay. Like Phil and other bumbling dads, Jay often finds himself outmatched by his stepson, but it has less to do with his incompetence and more to do with Manny being a freak of nature in terms of maturity and intelligence. Hence, Jay can do some comic bumbling but it doesn’t detract from our view of him as a very capable family patriarch.
Synopses:
The Dumphy Household plot: Haley and Claire are both sick and spend the day in bed together. Claire dissaproves of Haley's boyfriend and tries to have a mother-to-daughter talk with him about how she might think about pursuing other men and Haley misinterprets this as a candid confession by her mom that her marriage isn't working.
The Jay-Gloria-Manny plot: Jay fires one of his workers for allowing Manny onto a construction crane and driving through a wall. Manny feels guilty and pleads for the worker to have his job back but Jay won't budge. Meanwhile, Jay can't remember the location or occasion for the next of Gloria's anniversary dates because she overcelebrates.
The Cam-Mitchell-Lilly plot: Cam wants to put Lilly in a commercial over Mitch's objecetions
I tend to never be particularly dissatisfied with this show, because I only need one of the three plots to really hit the spot for me. The strength of the characters and general strength of writing alone ensures that an episode subplot will never be truly awful. From that perspective, it’s good that the show’s subplots aren’t usually strongly interconnected.
With that in mind, one of three plots was kind of a dud for me and I feel like the Cam and Mitchell subplots have been consistently weak lately.
I do think that Cam, Mitchell and Lilly are great to watch and I don’t remember any gay couples ever being depicted so richly on broadcast TV. I especially like how their lives aren’t so much shown in the context of the gay community (“Will and Grace” did that and it never interested me) but rather, within the context of how they fit into WASP suburbia and their families. Let’s look at the last three weeks: 1) Mitch and Cam argue about whether to turn Lily into a child actor; 2) Who’s at fault for Mitch bringing a costume to work? 3) Mitch and Cam disagree on where to send their kid to private school. The Mitch-and-Cam plots focus fairly heavily on inter-couple bickering and for the same reason I never got into “Everybody Loves Raymond,” I don’t find bickering couples that much fun to watch. The Halloween costume plot could have been much more entertaining, for example, if it just cut out the bickering and devoted more screen time to how Cam was going to get through the day.
The other two plots both were very strong. The Jay-Manny subplot was at its best when it briefly exited the wackiness of sitcomdom for a moment of realism. Jay put his foot down and refused to let Manny influence his decision over whether to rehire an employee who put Manny in danger. Even more impressive was that the moment was rooted in classic comic wackiness straight out of an episode of “I Love Lucy” and the storyline eventually transitioned back into a comic context by episode’s end. It’s a testament to the show’s richness and consistency in tone that they can merge emotional moments and comedy so well. The story's big emotional reveal- that Jay called Manny his kid for the first time- was not foreshadowable anywhere in the episode so I liked the twist there.
The Haley-Claire subplot was a great comedy of errors: Due to a certain ambiguity in their words, Haley and Claire are drawing two entirely different conclusions from the same conversation. 90% of the plots on “Three’s Company” revolved around this staple, and it’s been used in Dumphy clan storylines before (i.e. the episode about Haley’s diary). This was a good episode for Haley who often sees her parents and siblings as mere impediments to her all-important social life. It was slightly atypical of the show, however, to not have a nice little resolution at episode’s end. Claire still believes that her mother doesn’t really like her father and their marriage is on shaky grounds. For a show that aims for realism, a teenage girl’s response to her parents’ decaying marriage was treated a little too casually.
Other notes:
-It was nice that the Dumphy clan storyline referenced the staggering economy without basing a whole storyline on it.
-I was thinking during this episode about the “bumbling dad” trope that sitcoms mine for humor and how “Modern Family” employs it pretty diversely. “Modern Family” adheres to the stereotype very closely with Phil and subsequently mines a lot of laughs from his bumbling. That’s not entirely the case with Jay. Like Phil and other bumbling dads, Jay often finds himself outmatched by his stepson, but it has less to do with his incompetence and more to do with Manny being a freak of nature in terms of maturity and intelligence. Hence, Jay can do some comic bumbling but it doesn’t detract from our view of him as a very capable family patriarch.
Sunday, October 24, 2010
Review of this past Thursday in TV
Originally, this was gonna be the whole past week in television but time constraints prevented that. The five grades are all very high but last week they would have been significantly lower (The Office and Community last week both dissapointed me, for example). Also, every other show I saw this week (Running Wilde, Castle, No Ordinary Family and Modern Family) was a lower grade and I just didn't have time to get to those shows.
30 Rock “Reaganism” A
A-Plot: Jack is having a perfect day and comes up with some ninth-inning challenges he needs to fix (mainly in the form of Liz’s love life) to be able to keep his hot streak rolling
B-Plot: Jenna convinces Kenneth to assist in scamming a Caravel Ice Cream shop and creates a monster in the process (Kelsey Grammar guests here in a wonderful role)
C-Plot: Tracy can’t do a commercial to save his life
The difference between a great 30 Rock episode and the kind of episode that makes you mourn the old days of 30 Rock isn’t much at all. This wasn’t a big gimmicky week like last week’s live show, but they had a pair of solid storylines to start out with and infused them with great anarchic fun. The C-plot of Tracy Jordan messing up a TV commercial was Tracy being unleashed in a way that we haven’t seen him in a while.
Fun fact: Tracy is what tvtropes.org calls a Cloud Cuckoolander
It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia “Mac’s Mom Burns the House Down” A-
A-Plot: Charlie and Mac (along with Dennis) try to get their mothers to live together
B-Plot: Dee gets sick. Fearing she won’t take care of him when he gets older, Frank tries to be a good dad and tend to her
Best episode I’ve seen in a while and that was solely on the strength of an exceptionally well-executed A-plot (the B-plot was pretty forgettable). The episode really had some great misdirection. The opening title and the fact that 98% of the show’s episodes don’t end happily led me away from believing that Mrs. Mac and Mrs. Kelly would be able to coexist and that’s where the storyline would end up. You know what? An occasional happy ending not only doesn’t hurt, it was actually very sweet. And as an added bonus, the dog miraculously survived. Just when I thought the show couldn't bring me any more joy. The best part was that they didn’t have to sacrifice the show’s trademark nastiness to accomplish this. I also loved how Charlie and Mac were trying to fit their moms into an episode of Golden Girls.
Community: A-
Plot: Shirley decides to make a Christian film for anthropology class. Abed, the always-entrancing film student decides to one-up her by making an extravagant meta-film on Jesus’ life that’s ridiculously complex, sacreligious on many levels and self-serving (the film’s name is “Abed”). Shirley is infurated
If you’re one of those reviewers that likes using the word “meta” (as in meta-textual or self-referencing) then you are going to have a field day with this episode. It is probably the most “meta” thing ever put on film. It references Charlie Kaufman’s “Synecdoche, New York” so that automatically makes it one meta-level above that. This episode was definitely a thinking man’s episode but in reality it probably didn’t make any sense. It was just complete anarchy. The show ended up just getting profoundly silly in the best of ways because that silliness was built out of this façade of grandeur that was the Abed film. Abed is usually relegated to the sidelines as a sort of zany wild card character who delivers golden little nuggets. When an episode is centered around Abed, it’s always been a more typical sitcomy episode (i.e. Abed’s dad is displeased with his career choice, girl has crush on Abed but maybe he’s too weird to approach her) and the plot tones Abed’s quirkiness down considerably and fortunately, that wasn’t the case here. It was also a good episode for Shirley who I think is the most limited character of the gang. The minus on the A is because the ending seemed like a cop-out.
The Office: “The Sting” B+
Plot: Dunder-Mufflin sets up a surveillance operation to try to learn the secrets of a suave salesman who’s stolen a lot of their clients
B-Plot: Andy decides to form a band. Creative disagreements ensue with Andy and bandmates Kevin and Darryl.
Overarching Plot/Long-Term implications: Dunder-Mifflin hires a new traveling salesman
It was nice to see Jim and Dwight working together like they did in “Traveling Salesman” although they didn’t show much of it. I think, on a larger note, my main problem with the episode came down to timing. They should have ended the episode with the introduction of the new salesman and left the quarrels between Danny and his coworkers for another episode to keep the suspense. It would have also given more time for the hijinks that this episode really thrived on. This episode had a set piece that turned into one of the most memorable scenes “The Office” has done in years: Meredith poses as a manger and as Oscar and Ryan try to intercept her she thwarts each of their plans brilliantly. The show works so well (or at least used to work so well) on awkward tension and that segment of the episode had you glued to your seat. The band subplot was a little cliché and the payoffs weren’t that great but I did like the Andy-Darryl chemistry. In the past, Darryl has been somewhat aggressive (he was downright intimidating and villainous to Michael in the first season’s basketball episode) so I'm glad to see an improvement there.
Outsourced: B+
Plot: Todd is accused of sexual harassment but he doesn’t know by whom
The sexual harassment episode is a staple (and if it isn’t, it should be one) because we’ve all seen that sexual harassment video and giggled at the lame acting. In India, as would be expected, the results were far different. It was pretty admirable to take that shared awkwardness we get when we watch the sexual harassment video and make a pretty solid episode out of it. The episode reminded me of how “Outsourced” isn’t getting the credit it deserves. Todd’s efforts to single out his accuser made for hilarious results that reminded me of actors improvising in an Adam McKay movie. The show’s good characters got better: Rajiv’s passive-aggressiveness was sprinkled in at the right places to punch up the tension with humor and Asha and Todd had some good moments. It’s becoming easy to see why Todd would mistakenly fall for Asha: She’s smart and relatable and to this guy who’s lost in this foreign land, she feels less foreign than anyone else. The lesser characters also had their moments: Gupta was used as a punch line as usual (the joke Manmeet made towards Gupta about him bringing shame to his family was awkward, but I might accept at as a cultural difference) but it ended with Manmeet making a nice gesture which shows that there’s hope for Gupta (at least for the other characters) and the shy girl (Madhuri) was used very well.
30 Rock “Reaganism” A
A-Plot: Jack is having a perfect day and comes up with some ninth-inning challenges he needs to fix (mainly in the form of Liz’s love life) to be able to keep his hot streak rolling
B-Plot: Jenna convinces Kenneth to assist in scamming a Caravel Ice Cream shop and creates a monster in the process (Kelsey Grammar guests here in a wonderful role)
C-Plot: Tracy can’t do a commercial to save his life
The difference between a great 30 Rock episode and the kind of episode that makes you mourn the old days of 30 Rock isn’t much at all. This wasn’t a big gimmicky week like last week’s live show, but they had a pair of solid storylines to start out with and infused them with great anarchic fun. The C-plot of Tracy Jordan messing up a TV commercial was Tracy being unleashed in a way that we haven’t seen him in a while.
Fun fact: Tracy is what tvtropes.org calls a Cloud Cuckoolander
It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia “Mac’s Mom Burns the House Down” A-
A-Plot: Charlie and Mac (along with Dennis) try to get their mothers to live together
B-Plot: Dee gets sick. Fearing she won’t take care of him when he gets older, Frank tries to be a good dad and tend to her
Best episode I’ve seen in a while and that was solely on the strength of an exceptionally well-executed A-plot (the B-plot was pretty forgettable). The episode really had some great misdirection. The opening title and the fact that 98% of the show’s episodes don’t end happily led me away from believing that Mrs. Mac and Mrs. Kelly would be able to coexist and that’s where the storyline would end up. You know what? An occasional happy ending not only doesn’t hurt, it was actually very sweet. And as an added bonus, the dog miraculously survived. Just when I thought the show couldn't bring me any more joy. The best part was that they didn’t have to sacrifice the show’s trademark nastiness to accomplish this. I also loved how Charlie and Mac were trying to fit their moms into an episode of Golden Girls.
Community: A-
Plot: Shirley decides to make a Christian film for anthropology class. Abed, the always-entrancing film student decides to one-up her by making an extravagant meta-film on Jesus’ life that’s ridiculously complex, sacreligious on many levels and self-serving (the film’s name is “Abed”). Shirley is infurated
If you’re one of those reviewers that likes using the word “meta” (as in meta-textual or self-referencing) then you are going to have a field day with this episode. It is probably the most “meta” thing ever put on film. It references Charlie Kaufman’s “Synecdoche, New York” so that automatically makes it one meta-level above that. This episode was definitely a thinking man’s episode but in reality it probably didn’t make any sense. It was just complete anarchy. The show ended up just getting profoundly silly in the best of ways because that silliness was built out of this façade of grandeur that was the Abed film. Abed is usually relegated to the sidelines as a sort of zany wild card character who delivers golden little nuggets. When an episode is centered around Abed, it’s always been a more typical sitcomy episode (i.e. Abed’s dad is displeased with his career choice, girl has crush on Abed but maybe he’s too weird to approach her) and the plot tones Abed’s quirkiness down considerably and fortunately, that wasn’t the case here. It was also a good episode for Shirley who I think is the most limited character of the gang. The minus on the A is because the ending seemed like a cop-out.
The Office: “The Sting” B+
Plot: Dunder-Mufflin sets up a surveillance operation to try to learn the secrets of a suave salesman who’s stolen a lot of their clients
B-Plot: Andy decides to form a band. Creative disagreements ensue with Andy and bandmates Kevin and Darryl.
Overarching Plot/Long-Term implications: Dunder-Mifflin hires a new traveling salesman
It was nice to see Jim and Dwight working together like they did in “Traveling Salesman” although they didn’t show much of it. I think, on a larger note, my main problem with the episode came down to timing. They should have ended the episode with the introduction of the new salesman and left the quarrels between Danny and his coworkers for another episode to keep the suspense. It would have also given more time for the hijinks that this episode really thrived on. This episode had a set piece that turned into one of the most memorable scenes “The Office” has done in years: Meredith poses as a manger and as Oscar and Ryan try to intercept her she thwarts each of their plans brilliantly. The show works so well (or at least used to work so well) on awkward tension and that segment of the episode had you glued to your seat. The band subplot was a little cliché and the payoffs weren’t that great but I did like the Andy-Darryl chemistry. In the past, Darryl has been somewhat aggressive (he was downright intimidating and villainous to Michael in the first season’s basketball episode) so I'm glad to see an improvement there.
Outsourced: B+
Plot: Todd is accused of sexual harassment but he doesn’t know by whom
The sexual harassment episode is a staple (and if it isn’t, it should be one) because we’ve all seen that sexual harassment video and giggled at the lame acting. In India, as would be expected, the results were far different. It was pretty admirable to take that shared awkwardness we get when we watch the sexual harassment video and make a pretty solid episode out of it. The episode reminded me of how “Outsourced” isn’t getting the credit it deserves. Todd’s efforts to single out his accuser made for hilarious results that reminded me of actors improvising in an Adam McKay movie. The show’s good characters got better: Rajiv’s passive-aggressiveness was sprinkled in at the right places to punch up the tension with humor and Asha and Todd had some good moments. It’s becoming easy to see why Todd would mistakenly fall for Asha: She’s smart and relatable and to this guy who’s lost in this foreign land, she feels less foreign than anyone else. The lesser characters also had their moments: Gupta was used as a punch line as usual (the joke Manmeet made towards Gupta about him bringing shame to his family was awkward, but I might accept at as a cultural difference) but it ended with Manmeet making a nice gesture which shows that there’s hope for Gupta (at least for the other characters) and the shy girl (Madhuri) was used very well.
Saturday, October 23, 2010
How 30 Rock Lost my Dad and the Implications Therein
First off, I finally got around to posting a new column at the examiner where I write about the film industry: Jackass 3-D: A Deserving Box Office Champ or the Decline of Civillization. Do please check it out, because that's my professional outlet and my job is to get readers on that site (not this one, even if I'm spending more time here).
Second, thank you to a number of friends who supported me and expressed interest in me when I told the news that I was being considered for an A.V. Club position.
I recently had the experience of watching 30 Rock a couple weeks ago with a somewhat culturally outdated man (my dad-a guy I love and apologize to in advance for ragging on) who was unaware until then that any good TV has come on the air since "Frasier" and "Seinfeld." His sensibilities were trained for laugh-track TV and I could tell that he was disoriented by the lack of a laugh-track and unprepared to give the show’s funny moments the benefit of the doubt unless something hit him in a familiar way as laugh-out loud funny. The end result was that he laughed less than I thought he would.
It was also a little bit of an off-week. When 30 Rock reverts to the same “Liz’s love life is awry” or “Tracy goes crazy” plots, the humor can get tired and stale. Last night was a better episode. Laughwise, it would have worked on my dad but it also would have worked on me (wait, it didn’t theoretically work on me, it did work on me because I was there. Sorry, getting my tenses confused) and rewarded me more on second-viewing. Last night’s 30 Rock worked in so many ways that it reminded me of that feeling I had in the first two seasons of watching a masterpiece unfold.
In the larger sense, I thought the “Reaganism” analogy was lame but the idea of Jack having a perfect day (without the term “Reaganing it” that they coined for this episode) lent itself to hilarity and two things about the episode felt inspired to me: 1) The way Jack fixed Liz’s psychosexual problem was so bizarre that it was more a satire on psychology than something to be taken at face value. It came off to me as a parody of the Hitchkock movie “Spellbound” but I have a feeling that the writers weren’t even thinking of "Spellbound" and were just going for general zaniness and 2) I loved the idea of rich movie stars jumping on board a scheme to rob Caravel ice cream of hundreds of dollars. It slowly pushed the boundaries of believability until it slid right out from under our feet.
But I want to focus more on the things I got when I viewed the show a second time. Some of those things were:
-“Let’s take a quick 500” which came off another zinger “Scripts get in the way of my process, Shawn. Let’s just shoot 100 of these and see what we get”: There is so much to admire things in these combined three lines. It demonstrates two of Tracy’s character traits extremely well: 1) He’s selfish and is a pain to everyone around him (his director is already bitter at him for messing up his last movie) but he’s oblivious to this trait which makes him likeable and 2) Even though he’s clearly insane, he has a consistency to it (if he needs 100 takes to nail one line, he’s going to also need 500 minutes of rest). I also love the way “quick” proceeds “500” as if there’s any way to “quickly” proceed about a stoppage of work that runs eight hours and fifteen minutes longer than the industry standard.
-“Could you put a human on the phone?” It took me until a second viewing to realize Kenneth was, in fact, talking to an animal. Humor really makes me laugh sometimes by getting me to ask hypotheticals. I’m right now thinking: Exactly how is an animal going to put a human on the phone and will that break Kenneth’s illusion that an animal can listen to him when the animal fails to abide by his request?
-Also on the hypothetical note….this one’s more obvious “You did it sir…a day of perfect problem solving….gifts have been coming in all over” This is funny because your mind goes to so many hypotheticals such as how people can be sending him gifts so quickly, how people can possibly know about his perfect day, etc…..
-“A couple hundred dollars [Is all you need]? I can help you out but first I’m gonna need $50 to get started” –Kelsey Grammar in a wonderful guest role
“Yes, you are the sexual equivalent of a million Hindenburgs, but….”-Jack, on a good day, comforting Liz
-“Forget it, I didn’t have a perfect day” –This wasn’t so much the line itself but the way Alec Baldwin said it with the gravity of Jack Bauer on “24”
-“Slip and falls”: The vernacular for the con-game Jenna and her mom used to play at grocery stores.
-“I don’t understand what you’re saying, but I like that it has the word ‘we’ in it” Evidently, this is all it takes to ask Kenneth to betray a moral code so strong that he was willing to shoot himself rather than adhere to lifeboat ethics.
-“I’ll do stuff with the dog, but I get to pick the dog.”–A soliciting prostitute who has her list of demands.
And most importantly this one because it leads to my next point:
-“I’m a real woman, not some oversexed nympho like those sluts from ‘Everybody Loves Raymond.’” 30 Rock often does this. They take a random sentence in the dialogue, play it entirely straight in delivery and put it in the context of an entire conversation or scene that isn’t particularly humorous except for one single substitution of one thing for another.
It’s almost as if they’re misleading you away from the laugh by stacking that one joke on either side with so much non-funny material. In the episode I saw with my dad, the A-plot was tied together with a dramatic confrontation scene between Jack Donaghy and a Queen Latifah’s congresswoman character. The final third of this line was the only humorous bit in the entire scene: “The first generation works their fingers to the bone making things, the next generation goes to college and innovates new ideas, the third generation snowboards and takes improv classes.” This was one of those things too subtle for my dad to get but I caught it.
This got me thinking: In order for someone like my dad (and he is a very smart guy, I don’t mean to be ragging on him so much) to be on board “30 Rock,” it would help if he got a lot more jokes on first viewing. Why would "30 Rock" want to lead its viewers away from the jokes? A laugh track would guide him towards the funny like a highlighted used-textbook might help a college student study.
Chuck Klosterman’s book “Eating the Dinasour” has an expose in it answering the question about why shows don’t use laugh tracks: It’s condescending to tell the audience when to laugh. It’s considered smarter and more sophisticated and that’s a good convention to follow. Shows that have laugh tracks tend to be “ghettoized” although there is room for a few of them on the schedule because occasionally older viewers (like my dad) like the nostalgic old-timey shows too.
Maybe it's important to consider that it's not pure nostalgia. In the interest of attracting a broad audience, laugh tracks have merit because they ensure that the better jokes hit their targets (AKA my dad). Remember that "30 Rock" is on a network that was so desperate to climb out of 3rd or 4th in the ratings that they displaced a third of their programming last year for a comic who by all accounts is mediocre simply because he attracts a broad audience. Having a comedy line-up entirely devoid of laugh track shows makes the lesser established shows ("Parks and Recreation," "Community," and "Outsourced") hard to distinguish from each other and sometimes invites unnecessary critical comparisons. I am actively rooting for every comedy NBC currently has to stay on the schedule so I'm not advocating going back to the drawing board. I am suggesting, however, that the newer comedies that might not be performing well in a critical or ratings sense, "Parks" and "Outsourced," do face unique challenges which we need to consider. I am also saying in the future: Don't rule out a show with a laugh track.
Second, thank you to a number of friends who supported me and expressed interest in me when I told the news that I was being considered for an A.V. Club position.
I recently had the experience of watching 30 Rock a couple weeks ago with a somewhat culturally outdated man (my dad-a guy I love and apologize to in advance for ragging on) who was unaware until then that any good TV has come on the air since "Frasier" and "Seinfeld." His sensibilities were trained for laugh-track TV and I could tell that he was disoriented by the lack of a laugh-track and unprepared to give the show’s funny moments the benefit of the doubt unless something hit him in a familiar way as laugh-out loud funny. The end result was that he laughed less than I thought he would.
It was also a little bit of an off-week. When 30 Rock reverts to the same “Liz’s love life is awry” or “Tracy goes crazy” plots, the humor can get tired and stale. Last night was a better episode. Laughwise, it would have worked on my dad but it also would have worked on me (wait, it didn’t theoretically work on me, it did work on me because I was there. Sorry, getting my tenses confused) and rewarded me more on second-viewing. Last night’s 30 Rock worked in so many ways that it reminded me of that feeling I had in the first two seasons of watching a masterpiece unfold.
In the larger sense, I thought the “Reaganism” analogy was lame but the idea of Jack having a perfect day (without the term “Reaganing it” that they coined for this episode) lent itself to hilarity and two things about the episode felt inspired to me: 1) The way Jack fixed Liz’s psychosexual problem was so bizarre that it was more a satire on psychology than something to be taken at face value. It came off to me as a parody of the Hitchkock movie “Spellbound” but I have a feeling that the writers weren’t even thinking of "Spellbound" and were just going for general zaniness and 2) I loved the idea of rich movie stars jumping on board a scheme to rob Caravel ice cream of hundreds of dollars. It slowly pushed the boundaries of believability until it slid right out from under our feet.
But I want to focus more on the things I got when I viewed the show a second time. Some of those things were:
-“Let’s take a quick 500” which came off another zinger “Scripts get in the way of my process, Shawn. Let’s just shoot 100 of these and see what we get”: There is so much to admire things in these combined three lines. It demonstrates two of Tracy’s character traits extremely well: 1) He’s selfish and is a pain to everyone around him (his director is already bitter at him for messing up his last movie) but he’s oblivious to this trait which makes him likeable and 2) Even though he’s clearly insane, he has a consistency to it (if he needs 100 takes to nail one line, he’s going to also need 500 minutes of rest). I also love the way “quick” proceeds “500” as if there’s any way to “quickly” proceed about a stoppage of work that runs eight hours and fifteen minutes longer than the industry standard.
-“Could you put a human on the phone?” It took me until a second viewing to realize Kenneth was, in fact, talking to an animal. Humor really makes me laugh sometimes by getting me to ask hypotheticals. I’m right now thinking: Exactly how is an animal going to put a human on the phone and will that break Kenneth’s illusion that an animal can listen to him when the animal fails to abide by his request?
-Also on the hypothetical note….this one’s more obvious “You did it sir…a day of perfect problem solving….gifts have been coming in all over” This is funny because your mind goes to so many hypotheticals such as how people can be sending him gifts so quickly, how people can possibly know about his perfect day, etc…..
-“A couple hundred dollars [Is all you need]? I can help you out but first I’m gonna need $50 to get started” –Kelsey Grammar in a wonderful guest role
“Yes, you are the sexual equivalent of a million Hindenburgs, but….”-Jack, on a good day, comforting Liz
-“Forget it, I didn’t have a perfect day” –This wasn’t so much the line itself but the way Alec Baldwin said it with the gravity of Jack Bauer on “24”
-“Slip and falls”: The vernacular for the con-game Jenna and her mom used to play at grocery stores.
-“I don’t understand what you’re saying, but I like that it has the word ‘we’ in it” Evidently, this is all it takes to ask Kenneth to betray a moral code so strong that he was willing to shoot himself rather than adhere to lifeboat ethics.
-“I’ll do stuff with the dog, but I get to pick the dog.”–A soliciting prostitute who has her list of demands.
And most importantly this one because it leads to my next point:
-“I’m a real woman, not some oversexed nympho like those sluts from ‘Everybody Loves Raymond.’” 30 Rock often does this. They take a random sentence in the dialogue, play it entirely straight in delivery and put it in the context of an entire conversation or scene that isn’t particularly humorous except for one single substitution of one thing for another.
It’s almost as if they’re misleading you away from the laugh by stacking that one joke on either side with so much non-funny material. In the episode I saw with my dad, the A-plot was tied together with a dramatic confrontation scene between Jack Donaghy and a Queen Latifah’s congresswoman character. The final third of this line was the only humorous bit in the entire scene: “The first generation works their fingers to the bone making things, the next generation goes to college and innovates new ideas, the third generation snowboards and takes improv classes.” This was one of those things too subtle for my dad to get but I caught it.
This got me thinking: In order for someone like my dad (and he is a very smart guy, I don’t mean to be ragging on him so much) to be on board “30 Rock,” it would help if he got a lot more jokes on first viewing. Why would "30 Rock" want to lead its viewers away from the jokes? A laugh track would guide him towards the funny like a highlighted used-textbook might help a college student study.
Chuck Klosterman’s book “Eating the Dinasour” has an expose in it answering the question about why shows don’t use laugh tracks: It’s condescending to tell the audience when to laugh. It’s considered smarter and more sophisticated and that’s a good convention to follow. Shows that have laugh tracks tend to be “ghettoized” although there is room for a few of them on the schedule because occasionally older viewers (like my dad) like the nostalgic old-timey shows too.
Maybe it's important to consider that it's not pure nostalgia. In the interest of attracting a broad audience, laugh tracks have merit because they ensure that the better jokes hit their targets (AKA my dad). Remember that "30 Rock" is on a network that was so desperate to climb out of 3rd or 4th in the ratings that they displaced a third of their programming last year for a comic who by all accounts is mediocre simply because he attracts a broad audience. Having a comedy line-up entirely devoid of laugh track shows makes the lesser established shows ("Parks and Recreation," "Community," and "Outsourced") hard to distinguish from each other and sometimes invites unnecessary critical comparisons. I am actively rooting for every comedy NBC currently has to stay on the schedule so I'm not advocating going back to the drawing board. I am suggesting, however, that the newer comedies that might not be performing well in a critical or ratings sense, "Parks" and "Outsourced," do face unique challenges which we need to consider. I am also saying in the future: Don't rule out a show with a laugh track.
Thursday, October 21, 2010
Updates on New Fall Shows I've Defended Pt. II: )&#@ My Dad Says and Outsourced
A month ago when the new shows premiered, there were four series getting critical pans that I tried to gallantly defend. Here's an Update on $)&# My Dad Says and Outsourced:
3. #@)$*() My Dad Says on CBS:
What I said before:
"William Shatner, who can be easily pigeonholed in our heads as that caricature of his Captain Kirk character he's been doing for years, is delightfully fresh here. Thanks to the writing, his character is a relatively unique comic creation. The show has heart as well. When the father and son are dancing at the end of the pilot, it's an earned moment. The best indication, however, that I wanted to see more is simply that the show made me laugh. Numerous times."
How I feel about it now:
The show has no over reaching arcs with little change from episode to episode, so not much has changed. That's a good thing and a bad thing. I don't think will ever think this show will ever be brilliant but it's reliable. It's got good chemistry and it's funny. It was also one of the highest rated shows of the season.
4. Outsourced on NBC:
What I said before:
"Outsourcing has a natural go-to place for its humor in the form of culture clash jokes and the writing seems competent enough that they know how to mine it. Culture clash humor is going to rely more on the relationships between the characters than the "Hey, you guys are wearing funny hats" type of observational shtick. In that category, potential is developing in the network of relationships that’s being established. The protagonist has an American colleague (Diedrich Baker) who’s kind of boorish, a passive-aggressive assistant manager and a team of subordinates with whom he’s having several awkward Michael-Scott-like moments. There’s also an flirty Australian love interest but she’s been kept in the background so far."
How it's been coming along:
The show is gradually improving in characterization and plotting with each episode.
I'm already liking a lot of the characters who I couldn't differentiate between in the pilot. The soft-talking Indian woman and the awkward Indian guy who talks too much are still both a little cringe-worthy, I will admit but Maneet is a good confidante character, Asha is a very good character and the Rajiv is great. Aisha is a strong romantic foil to Todd and has bucked at least a couple stereotypes so far. The last episode showed more of this interesting tension within Rajiv as a guy who wants to usurp his boss but also has that non-confrontational ever-pleasing attitude that we tend to associate with most Indians who work at a call center.
Lastly, I applaud the show for handling the love triangles with range and sudlety. Normally, when a character has a crush on another there's practically a nametag on them stating as such. There were virtually no tipoffs that Todd might have made a move on Asha while Tonya (the Australian) gives us a big contrast with her directness. Love and infatuation comes in many forms and this is one of the few shows that really recognizes that.
A couple of bloggers who are former TV writers have also got onboard Outsourced. Ken Levine, who wrote for Wings, Becker, Cheers and a million other things, said that he doesn't necessarily dislike the show and sees potential but they tend to be going the safe route. Another former TV writer (for the Cosby Show), Earl Pomeranitz, detailed how fond he was for the show but thinks it will probably be cancelled.
In response to Earl: It got a full season renewal, so don't be so down. Thursday night shows that haven't been amazing have gotten a second year before. Christina Applegate's vehicle "Jesse" got a second season and the Mark Fuehrstein vehicle "Good Morning Miami" got a second season. Neither show was very good. That would basically mean that even if this show never catches on, it could easily produce 40-ish episodes.
And yet another somewhat tangential argument: For the first time since about 2002, NBC could be able to build a solid block of two nights of comedy (it tried in 2006 and failed). Office would have its swan song of a season, Parks and Rec would be back, throw in Community, 30 Rock, Outsourced and one to three new pilots and NBC has 6-8 shows to work with. They could try Outsourced on a different night and pair it up with Parks and Recreation or Community and it might be able to do fairly well (hopefully, the critics will either get behind it or the critics who are behind it will be a little less ashamed of it and a little more bold and proactive in it)
As for Ken: I think a lot of criticism might have to do with whether the show really feels like it's in India but if it was actually set in India and the show went 100% in making us feel like we were in India, trust me, it might be a great show but it wouldn't be broad enough to keep an audience. It would be like a weekly installment of Slumdog Millionaire. This isn't HBO where they have a niche market, this is NBC. They have to play it safe to some extent.
Related post:
My take on the best comedic shows of 2008
3. #@)$*() My Dad Says on CBS:
What I said before:
"William Shatner, who can be easily pigeonholed in our heads as that caricature of his Captain Kirk character he's been doing for years, is delightfully fresh here. Thanks to the writing, his character is a relatively unique comic creation. The show has heart as well. When the father and son are dancing at the end of the pilot, it's an earned moment. The best indication, however, that I wanted to see more is simply that the show made me laugh. Numerous times."
How I feel about it now:
The show has no over reaching arcs with little change from episode to episode, so not much has changed. That's a good thing and a bad thing. I don't think will ever think this show will ever be brilliant but it's reliable. It's got good chemistry and it's funny. It was also one of the highest rated shows of the season.
4. Outsourced on NBC:
What I said before:
"Outsourcing has a natural go-to place for its humor in the form of culture clash jokes and the writing seems competent enough that they know how to mine it. Culture clash humor is going to rely more on the relationships between the characters than the "Hey, you guys are wearing funny hats" type of observational shtick. In that category, potential is developing in the network of relationships that’s being established. The protagonist has an American colleague (Diedrich Baker) who’s kind of boorish, a passive-aggressive assistant manager and a team of subordinates with whom he’s having several awkward Michael-Scott-like moments. There’s also an flirty Australian love interest but she’s been kept in the background so far."
How it's been coming along:
The show is gradually improving in characterization and plotting with each episode.
I'm already liking a lot of the characters who I couldn't differentiate between in the pilot. The soft-talking Indian woman and the awkward Indian guy who talks too much are still both a little cringe-worthy, I will admit but Maneet is a good confidante character, Asha is a very good character and the Rajiv is great. Aisha is a strong romantic foil to Todd and has bucked at least a couple stereotypes so far. The last episode showed more of this interesting tension within Rajiv as a guy who wants to usurp his boss but also has that non-confrontational ever-pleasing attitude that we tend to associate with most Indians who work at a call center.
Lastly, I applaud the show for handling the love triangles with range and sudlety. Normally, when a character has a crush on another there's practically a nametag on them stating as such. There were virtually no tipoffs that Todd might have made a move on Asha while Tonya (the Australian) gives us a big contrast with her directness. Love and infatuation comes in many forms and this is one of the few shows that really recognizes that.
A couple of bloggers who are former TV writers have also got onboard Outsourced. Ken Levine, who wrote for Wings, Becker, Cheers and a million other things, said that he doesn't necessarily dislike the show and sees potential but they tend to be going the safe route. Another former TV writer (for the Cosby Show), Earl Pomeranitz, detailed how fond he was for the show but thinks it will probably be cancelled.
In response to Earl: It got a full season renewal, so don't be so down. Thursday night shows that haven't been amazing have gotten a second year before. Christina Applegate's vehicle "Jesse" got a second season and the Mark Fuehrstein vehicle "Good Morning Miami" got a second season. Neither show was very good. That would basically mean that even if this show never catches on, it could easily produce 40-ish episodes.
And yet another somewhat tangential argument: For the first time since about 2002, NBC could be able to build a solid block of two nights of comedy (it tried in 2006 and failed). Office would have its swan song of a season, Parks and Rec would be back, throw in Community, 30 Rock, Outsourced and one to three new pilots and NBC has 6-8 shows to work with. They could try Outsourced on a different night and pair it up with Parks and Recreation or Community and it might be able to do fairly well (hopefully, the critics will either get behind it or the critics who are behind it will be a little less ashamed of it and a little more bold and proactive in it)
As for Ken: I think a lot of criticism might have to do with whether the show really feels like it's in India but if it was actually set in India and the show went 100% in making us feel like we were in India, trust me, it might be a great show but it wouldn't be broad enough to keep an audience. It would be like a weekly installment of Slumdog Millionaire. This isn't HBO where they have a niche market, this is NBC. They have to play it safe to some extent.
Related post:
My take on the best comedic shows of 2008
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