TV Hangover

We’re now less than a week away from a fourth season of Arrested...

synecdoche — Tue, 21 May 2013 15:01:46 -0400

We’re now less than a week away from a fourth season of Arrested Development, a whole brand new season of the cult classic brought to us by the wonderful people over at Netflix. And, as is the Netflix way, they are going to release the entire 15-episode fourth season all at once. That’s seven and a half hours of new Bluth family dysfunction to devour. I’m afraid I just blue myself.

If you’re like me, you didn’t watch Arrested Development when it originally aired. Don’t worry, not many of us did. But when I did finally watch it, I watched it all. I made up for lost time and watched all three seasons in marathon sessions. And seven and a half hours after it’s released, I’ll have watched the fourth season.

There are many ways in which Arrested Development was ahead of its time, but one of the major ways is that it was basically made for binge viewing. It’s packed to the brim with running jokes and it is so self referential that to watch it from week-to-week means missing a lot of the subtle nods and call backs that make it so enjoyable. They hinted at plotlines as early as in the first season that didn’t have pay off until the third, making it infinitely rewatchable as you hunt for these references. The “On the next.. Arrested Development” never actually contained footage from the next episode but was just a way to both tie up loose ends and keep the jokes going. There’s no doubt that it was a groundbreaking series and while it never found its footing on network television, it had a huge impact on the industry. For one, it marked the beginning of the end of appointment television.

The principle of appointment television dictated TV scheduling since its inception as networks tried to figure out ways to keep viewers glued to their station. Hoping to prevent their viewers from ever changing the channel, they tried to maximize flow by packing line-ups with similar content (Fox’s Animation Domination, NBC’s Must See TV) and having the next show start while the last show’s credits are still rolling. Notice you’ll almost never see commercials between programs because that’s when you’re most likely to see what else is on. But now, not much really qualifies as Must See TV. DVR and streaming services like Netflix and Hulu have freed us from the need to schedule our lives based on when our favorite shows air but instead lets us watch at our leisure.

If Arrested Development started ringing the death bells for appointment TV, it was shows like Lost and 24 that put the nails in the coffin. These were two blockbuster shows that were filled with high-octane action and complicated storylines. To watch them as they aired, waiting week in and week out, took you out of the pacing and drew out the action of the shows. In Lost, they were originally on that island for 108 days but that played out over six seasons and six years. Keeping track of all the characters and their backstories was enough work but then you throw in all the crazy twists and turns and mysteries that surrounded the island and it became nearly impossible to stay on top of it all.

However, if you watch them now, it’s so easy to fly through several episodes in a single sitting. The cliffhangers at the end of episodes, instead of leaving you in a suspenseful moment, propel you to keep watching and to find out what happens next. Lost becomes a lot less confusing and you can actually watch 24 in 24 hours.

Binge viewing and these marathon sessions have become more and more commonplace and Netflix’s new model of putting out their original shows all at once only add to it. While Arrested Development didn’t make it on Fox, it’s going to be exciting to see how the show is made differently for this new season. Although it was basically made for binge viewing before, it is actually being made for it now. The writers who crafted such incredibly intricate stories and jokes the first time around can now embrace the format and really let it flow. And, even though they are experimenting with a new form where each character gets their own episodes, Mitch Hurwitz has still acknowledged that you need to watch them in order.

While there are still vestiges of appointment TV that remain, shows like Game of Thrones, Mad Men, and Breaking Bad where, if you watch them, you have to watch them when they air or you have to work really hard to avoid the spoiler plagued internet until you have the time to catch up. But these are now the exceptions, not the rule. More and more shows understand that their audience might not be tuning in at the original broadcast, and networks are starting to realize that the plummeting ratings doesn’t necessarily mean viewership is disappearing but that they’re watching in new ways. Ten years after Arrested Development originally premiered, the show is changing the industry yet again by embracing the Netflix model. After the Arrested Development marathons next weekend all we’ll be able to ask is well, what’s next?

Guest post by Alex Smith of The Fresh Funk Gazette.

Seth MacFarlane needs to stop. I understand his appeal. I don’t...

synecdoche — Tue, 14 May 2013 10:03:00 -0400

Seth MacFarlane needs to stop. I understand his appeal. I don’t want to, but I do. Shows like Family Guy and movies like Ted have their place—it’s a filthy, sticky basement of a fraternity house, but it’s a place nonetheless. There is nothing wrong with smoking too much pot and chugging Natty Light while watching a stupid television show. But there is something wrong with this disgusting Cult of MacFarlane that just keeps helping him get more work. It’s a cult that finds nothing funnier than “black Stewie” Twitter parody accounts, that asks Yahoo! Answers questions like, “What pills does Quagmire use on women in Family Guy?”, and that sits in front of the television every Sunday to clap and cheer on a showrunner who often resorts to the same old “women belong in the kitchen” joke. Listen, if you want to be sexist/racist/homophobic or whatever, I can’t stop you, but for the love of God, MacFarlane, at least introduce some originality into your hatred. It’s so bland. You know what’s worse than being one of those “don’t watch my act if you can’t handle it” self-proclaimed offensive shock comics? Being a boring self-proclaimed offensive shock comic. That’s essentially what MacFarlane is. He’s gotten to the point where it’s hard to be offended by him, not because he’s isn’t offensive, but because everything he thinks is edgy has been done a million times before. I want to yell about his racism, but I can’t stop yawning.

Take the new show he’s co-producing, Dads, set to air Tuesdays this fall. It’s a FOX multi-camera comedy about two guys (perpetual manchild Seth Green and a slumming GiovanniRibisi) whose lives are totally changed when their fathers move in with them. It’s not the most interesting premise (and if MacFarlane wasn’t FOX’s baby, I could easily see it in the middle of a CBS comedy lineup). The preview was released yesterday and oh boy, it’s about as awful as you’d expect from the three men who last teamed up to bring us a movie featuring a stoned teddy bear who fucks hookers. For the most part, it’s all the expected jokes about deadbeat, cheap, and old fathers. But, because this is MacFarlane, we also get some truly lazy racism: Chinese people are distrustful! They hit their children with math books! The most cringeworthy moment features a “joke” about how Brenda Song (oh, honey, what are you doing?) should dress up as a “sexy Asian schoolgirl” to impress some investors. And you know what the hilarious payoff is? She dresses up as a sexy Asian schoolgirl. That’s it. That’s the joke. It makes you want to flip the channel to view the more subtle racism of a 2 Broke Girls episode. It’s stupid and it’s lazy. I know that no one is watching a MacFarlane penned sitcom in hopes of enjoying some high-brow, subversive, and wholly originally comedy. They’re watching it for cheap laughs, cutaway gags, outdated references. Not all television shows have to be intelligent, or even great, but at least give us something interesting to hate-watch, you know?

Sunday TV in my house was a ritual in the early 2000’s, when my...

gifthorsedentistry — Mon, 13 May 2013 16:43:00 -0400

Sunday TV in my house was a ritual in the early 2000’s, when my parents deemed I was old enough to watch The Sopranos: my dad would get home from work at a reasonable time, my sister and I would excuse ourselves from the friends we were hanging out with, my mother would cook a big dinner of sausage and peppers and polenta. We’d all make a feeble grasp at connecting with our Italian heritage—one of my father’s cherished past-times—and gather around the television to spend an hour together, once a week.

The only Sunday shows I follow now are Mad Men and Game of Thrones. When those air, usually my dad isn’t home yet. My sister spends those hours and most others in her room, and my mom falls asleep on the couch and catches up on DV-R around 6am. Sometimes we hash through what happened and who we hate most (Joffrey and Don) while I sift through the fridge for something I can call breakfast or lunch, but more often than not none of us are home at the same time to talk anymore.

Even though the Sopranos, in whatever piece of emotional alchemy it managed to formulate, had the power to make my family care about the same thing for 1/168^th of a week, last night’s Mad Men made me realize the power of a show has nothing to do with inspiring a sense of community, but in forcing individual interpretation through silence, lingering, the absence of traditional dramatic stimuli.

Nothing could be more antithetical to Game of Thrones’ strategy of jumping between plot points to maintain a constant, over-compressed torrent of sex, yelling, and death. I came away from last night’s episode feeling entertained the way I would by a very good webgame: superficially invested, but mostly relishing the opportunity to be immediately gratified for minimal effort.

Whereas the deafeningly loud turn of this week’s Game of Thrones was Jaime’s reformation, evidenced by his saving Brienne from an actual bear in some sort of ridiculous gladiatorial arena, Mad Men’s was Don and his current extramarital fling Sylvia silently standing in an elevator. That’s all. She had just broken off their affair after Don went a step too far in exploiting her crumbling marriage, turning a hotel room into their bizarre sex dungeon. She takes a stand and we see Don beg—for sex, for her continued submission to him, or because he’s been forced to admit he’s emotionally invested—which, for a person as invested in appearing ‘strong’ as he is, is almost sickening to watch.

“It’s easy to give up something when you’re satisfied,” Don bargains. Sylvia retorts, “It’s easy to give up something when you’re ashamed.” And that should rightfully be the end of their interaction, but after a brief Joan scene in the boardroom of the newly merged company, we cut back to Don and Sylvia riding the elevator down. It’s something so simple but so vital: two people sharing space, each feeling a different kind of sadness. These are the circumstances under which strangers in movies become lovers, but here it’s the long, slow, terribly quiet descent into the estranged. They only people who would be able to understand their turmoil are themselves, the same people who would gain nothing by saying any more about it.

“What did you think of Don last night,” my mom will ask. “What an asshole,” I’ll say microwaving some leftovers. I’ll eat in my room.

TV is no longer a communal activity, in my house and in most houses, because we’ve focused our attention on being able to customize our entertainment consumption to our own schedules and tastes. Other people watch what you watch, but the reasons for talking about it with them seem less tangible. It’s not my intention to moralize and weigh the pros and cons of watching shows on your laptop in bed. What I can say is that Mad Men—perhaps unintentionally—is taking advantage of the way most people consume media now, by giving us scenes that feel too personal to be shared.

2013 Season Finale Schedule Thursday, May 9 8 p.m. Community...

folkinz — Wed, 08 May 2013 10:48:29 -0400

2013 Season Finale Schedule

Thursday, May 9

8 p.m. Community (NBC)
8:30 p.m. Two and a Half Men (CBS)
9 p.m. Person of Interest (CBS)
9 p.m. Glee (Fox)

Friday, May 10

8 p.m. Kitchen Nightmares (Fox)
8 p.m. Fashion Star (NBC)
9 p.m. Touch (Fox)
9 p.m. Vegas (CBS)
10 p.m. Blue Bloods (CBS)

Sunday, May 12
8 p.m. Once Upon a Time (ABC)
8 p.m. Survivor: Caramoan — Fans vs. Favorites (two-hour special) (CBS)
8:30 p.m. Bob’s Burgers (Fox)
9 p.m. Revenge (two-hour special) (ABC)
9:30 p.m. American Dad (Fox)
10 p.m. Survivor: Caramoan — Fans vs. Favorites Reunion Show (CBS)

Monday, May 13
8 p.m. How I Met Your Mother (CBS)
9 p.m. 2 Broke Girls (CBS)
9 p.m. 90210 (series finale) (The CW)
10 p.m. Castle (ABC)

Tuesday, May 14
8 p.m. NCIS (CBS)
9 p.m. NCIS: Los Angeles (CBS)
9 p.m. New Girl (Fox)
9:30 p.m. The Mindy Project (Fox)
10 p.m. Golden Boy (CBS)

Wednesday, May 15

8 p.m. Arrow (CW)
8 p.m. American Idol (part 1, live on East Coast) (Fox)
9 p.m. Supernatural (CW)
10 p.m. CSI: Crime Scene Investigation (CBS)
10 p.m. Chicago Fire (NBC)

Thursday, May 16
8 p.m. The Big Bang Theory (CBS)
8 p.m. The Vampire Diaries (The CW)
8 p.m. American Idol (two-hour part 2, live on East Coast) (Fox)
9 p.m. Grey’s Anatomy (ABC)
9 p.m. The Office (one-hour series finale) (NBC)
9 p.m. Elementary (two-hour special) (CBS)
9 p.m. Beauty and the Beast (The CW)
10 p.m. Scandal (ABC)

Friday, May 17
8 p.m. Undercover Boss (CBS)
8 p.m. Nikita (The CW)
9 p.m. Shark Tank (ABC)
9 p.m. Cult (The CW)
9 p.m. Grimm (NBC)

Sunday, May 19

7 p.m. America’s Funniest Home Videos (ABC)
7 p.m. The Cleveland Show (back-to-back episodes) (Fox)
8 p.m. The Simpsons (back-to-back episodes) (Fox)
9 p.m. Family Guy (back-to-back episodes) (Fox)
9 p.m. The Celebrity Apprentice (two-hour special)

Monday, May 20
8 p.m. Dancing With the Stars (performance show) (ABC)
8:30 p.m. Rules of Engagement (CBS)
9:30 p.m. Mike & Molly (CBS)
10 p.m. Hawaii Five-0 (CBS)

Tuesday, May 21
8 p.m. Dancing With the Stars (two-hour results show) (ABC)

Wednesday, May 22
8 p.m. The Middle (ABC)
9 p.m. Modern Family (ABC)
9 p.m. Criminal Minds (CBS)
9 p.m. Law & Order: SVU (two-hour special) (NBC)
10 p.m. Nashville (ABC)

Sunday, May 26
9 p.m. Smash (NBC)

Tuesday, May 28
10 p.m. Body of Proof (ABC)

Monday, June 3

10 p.m. Revolution (NBC)

Tuesday, June 18
9 p.m. The Voice (live two-hour special) (NBC)

Thursday, June 27
10 p.m. Hannibal (NBC)

Season 2 of Bob’s Burgers is FINALLY available on Netflix...

folkinz — Wed, 08 May 2013 00:04:24 -0400

Season 2 of Bob’s Burgers is FINALLY available on Netflix Instant.

Bob’s Burgers became TV’s most enjoyable show by channeling...

folkinz — Tue, 30 Apr 2013 20:28:28 -0400

Bob’s Burgers became TV’s most enjoyable show by channeling early Simpsons

Bob’s Burgers is good at so many different kinds of jokes that it sometimes seems to take on the rhythms of a night out with funny friends. It has at least one surrealistic musical sequence in nearly every episode, whether it involves Thomas Edison and an elephant singing a duet or old-person swingers sexing it up in a swimming pool. It features grand visual gags. It features elaborate movie and pop-culture references (as in the wild, weird E.T. riff “O.T.: The Outside Toilet”). It plays around with tropes of both the genre it’s in and the genres of stories it’s seen before. It even has a ridiculous number of puns, more than any television show should be able to get away with in this day and age. It takes all of this, blends it with a genius ensemble cast that rattles off the show’s weird-ass punchlines with aplomb, then builds it on a foundation of real drama and stakes. It feels so impeccably constructed that to take it apart seems as if it should ruin the magic trick of every episode, yet it all seems so easy that it almost doesn’t matter. Bob’s Burgers has always been a good show, but its third season has placed it in the rarified air of TV’s best, a near constant assault of humor, heart, and old-fashioned showmanship. (via)

ABC has scheduled the eight remaining unaired episodes of...

folkinz — Tue, 23 Apr 2013 09:30:00 -0400

ABC has scheduled the eight remaining unaired episodes of sophomore comedy Don’t Trust the B—— in Apt. 23 for a May 17 bow on ABC.com, iTunes and Hulu, according to star Krysten Ritter. (via)

A continued exploration of Game of Thrones references in...

folkinz — Fri, 12 Apr 2013 18:51:54 -0400

A continued exploration of Game of Thrones references in comedies.

Imagine Downton Abbey’s Dowager Countess completely...

folkinz — Wed, 10 Apr 2013 15:30:17 -0400

Imagine Downton Abbey’s Dowager Countess completely stripped of even the pretense of being polite to anyone for any reason and you’ve got this delightful old cutthroat, played with deadpan panache by leather-catsuit legend Diana Rigg. In short order she insults Renly, her son, her dead husband, her female friends and relatives and handmaidens, the Lannisters, the waiter – pretty much everyone but the three women sitting at the table, talking treason about the King. Sansa’s white-knuckle terror over the very idea of saying something negative about Joffrey for others to hear is so obvious you want to reach through the screen and wrap her in a blanket or something (man, Sophie Turner rules), which only proves how fearless and confident Lady Olenna is in her own security and power. She’s rich, powerful, well-connected, intelligent, and just plain out of fucks to give. They say the graveyards of the world are full of indispensable men, but she’s not a man, is she? What a thrill to watch three females decide their own fates for a change. (via)

Lady Olenna Tyrell is scarier than the White Walkers.

IFC Wants To Be Your Favorite Network

synecdoche — Wed, 10 Apr 2013 12:31:52 -0400

IFC Wants To Be Your Favorite Network:

IFC has already been a quietly great network. They recently produced The Increasingly Poor Decisions of Todd Margaret (in a nice twist of events, it ended at David Cross’ behest, not IFC’s), a show that probably couldn’t exist on any other American network. They picked up The Whitest Kids U’ Know after Fuse put limitations on the show’s content and the guys needed a new home with less censorship. They took a chance on the uneven but funny Onion News Network and even resurrected the oddball Greg the Bunny for a bit. And we can’t forget that IFC swooped in to support what is perhaps the best hip-hopera with infinite chapters: R. Kelly’s Trapped In The Closet. Plus, IFC often airs a handful of favorites like Arrested Development and Freaks and Geeks.

All of these programs are strange little cult hits so it’s no surprise that IFC has yet to really break into the mainstream. It’s a shame because it means shows like Comedy Bang! Bang! mostly go unnoticed. Comedy Bang! Bang! is a podcast-turned-television series that mixes deadpan absurdist humor with a parade of impressive guest stars and music by Reggie Watts—host Scott Aukerman’s philosophy should be taught to all late night hosts: if you’re lucky enough to get a television show, make sure to pack it beginning to end with jokes. I’ll even say it has more laughs a minute than Portlandia, which is IFC’s biggest hit, but gets less than half the attention. Fortunately, IFC was smart enough to pick up Comedy Bang! Bang! for a second season (the first is currently streaming on Netflix, please watch it) whereas BUNK, the somewhat amusing game show that completed the hour-long comedy block, was canceled.

But it’s the shows like Comedy Bang! Bang! and the strangely adorable Out There, an animated comedy about awkward adolescent weirdos, that are paving the way for what IFC should be as a network: a home to eccentric, offbeat comedies where weirdness is the norm. Based on the shows IFC is currently developing, it seems they’re doing it right and are throwing their hat in the ring to compete for Best Network On Television or, at least, Best Network Catering To Internet Comedy Nerds. (I mean, they do have one of the few network-run tumblrs that’s actually fun to follow instead of being reminiscent of your grandmother trying to use a computer.)

A few examples of what to expect:

Cult Following, a pilot co-written by and co-starring Matt Besser (one of the founders of UCB, so expect some amazing guest stars).
Two Idiots, created by the always funny Megan Mullally.
Timms Industrial Piping, a stop-motion soap opera (can we just think about that for a second? A STOP MOTION SOAP OPERA) with voices by everyone from Nick Kroll to Giancarlo Esposito.
Garfunkel & Oates who are often considered the female version of Flight of the Conchords but who are so, so funny in their own right.
Stupid Life, based on the memoir by Chris Gethard who, as you all know, currently hosts one of the funniest and definitely most anarchic shows on television.

The full development slate can be found at The Hollywood Reporter.

AMC Eyes ‘Breaking Bad’ Spinoff Toplined By Bob Odenkirk A list...

synecdoche — Tue, 09 Apr 2013 16:38:34 -0400

AMC Eyes ‘Breaking Bad’ Spinoff Toplined By Bob Odenkirk

A list of Breaking Bad spinoffs we’d rather see:

Skinny Pete and Badger trying to get their band off the ground.
The hijinks of Wendy the prostitute.
End of list.

21 of Sally Draper’s Best Quotes With the season 6...

folkinz — Sun, 07 Apr 2013 13:57:23 -0400

21 of Sally Draper’s Best Quotes

With the season 6 premiere of Mad Men tonight, let’s take a look at quotes from Sally Draper.

You have big ones. My mommy has big ones too. And I’m going to have big ones when I grow up.
Do you lie on top of her?
I Don’t wanna wear someone else’s shoes, especially ski boots. You know that they’re sweaty. Oh, my gosh!
Are you and Daddy doing it?
We learned that they used to be fish, and he doesn’t know because he has baby science.
I know what it is. I know that the man pees inside the woman.
She doesn’t care what the truth is as long as I do what she says.
Every time I go around a corner, I keep thinking I’ll see my dad.
I hate sevens.
When I think about forever, I get upset.
I told Betty and Henry to take their ski vacation and shove it.
Who’s Dick?
…And it has a picture of her on it, holding a box. With a picture of her on it, holding a box.
I’ll save my Fritos for you.
I’m not sure that’s the way I like you.
I’m old enough that I can stay alone while you go laugh your heads off.
I want to live with you all the time.
I want to stay and I don’t know why I can’t.
I hate her so much. She’s such a phony.
We don’t go across the park. There’s bums on the other side.
And then I was floating over town. Standing straight up, not like Superman. Only it wasn’t Ossining, it was London. Like Mary Poppins.

Your ShirtPunch shirt of the day: Moss from The IT Crowd.

synecdoche — Fri, 05 Apr 2013 09:25:43 -0400

Your ShirtPunch shirt of the day: Moss from The IT Crowd.

WWE and the Pitfalls of Nostalgia Professional wrestling is a...

synecdoche — Thu, 04 Apr 2013 12:27:25 -0400

WWE and the Pitfalls of Nostalgia

Professional wrestling is a bizarre thing. The appeal of it is difficult to explain to someone who isn’t a fan. You either get it or you don’t. The best I can do is compare an episode of Monday Night Raw to an episode of The Muppet Show. They’re both vaudevillian presentations structured around an authority figure struggling to deal with an array of larger than life personalities. Only the Muppets use a stage while the WWE use a wrestling ring. Most fans discover it at a young age and they’ll always maintain an appreciation for it, even if they don’t watch it anymore.

It’s certainly not as big as it was in the Attitude Era, but the WWE has had somewhat of a resurgence as of late—a lot of which could be attributed to the drawing power of nostalgia. Since guys like The Rock and Brock Lesnar have returned to the ring, many viewers who stopped watching have taken an interest again. Unfortunately, the emphasis on former stars is very much a large problem with the current product.

In terms of pure wrestling, the current WWE roster is arguably the strongest it has ever been. CM Punk, Daniel Bryan, Kofi Kingston and Dolph Ziggler are all better wrestlers than most of the guys from the Attitude Era were. Of course, it’s difficult to see that when they’re never given the opportunity to show it. With it being Wrestlemania season, WWE is in full-out huckster mode. In every three-hour episode of Raw, there’s only about twenty-five minutes of actual wrestling and the rest of the show is spent hocking t-shirts, toys, and social media applications. It feels less like a television show and more like a QVC infomercial. If the fans wanted to see a bunch of oily people scream at each other while commerce is thrown in their faces, they’d watch MTV. Otherwise, they’re subjected to three-minute long, one-sided matches. A wrestling match is a story in itself with beats and an escalation of suspense. When the ending is a foregone conclusion, the investment is lost. If you’ve seen one Ryback match, you’ve seen them all.

What the Attitude Era lacked in good wrestling, it made up for in strong characters. The Rock had that over-the-top arrogance people loved, Mankind was a living cartoon, D-Generation X was all about controversy, and everyone wished they could’ve stuck it to their boss the way Steve Austin did. Compelling characters have been absent from the program ever since. What’s the defining characteristic of John Cena? He’s just a guy wearing jean shorts. The rest of the roster are either defined by their ethnicity or a one-note joke that runs out of steam all too quickly. With wrestlers not being given a chance to wrestle nor the writers giving them good characters to compensate for that, they lack credibility in the eyes of the fans. Therefore, the success of this year’s Wrestlemania is all based around the nostalgia of wrestlers from ten years ago.

People are drawn to nostalgia because it reminds them of simpler times; when they were younger and it seemed like their interests were always catered to. However, nostalgia can be both misleading and cynical. Wearing those rose-colored glasses will make you believe everything in past was great and that everything in the present sucks. The Rock, Brock Lesnar, Triple H, and The Undertaker all have marquee value, but they’re going to return to their day jobs and semi-retirement soon. Once that happens, the interest of the nostalgia-dwelling fans will more than likely diminish.

The Rock has barely been present for his program with John Cena as is. While he’s been busy acting as an apologist for the first G.I. Joe movie, the build up for Wrestlemania’s main event has rested on the shoulders of someone the fans have been sick of for the last seven years.

A wrestler like The Undertaker just seems out of place in the current climate of WWE. His Wrestlemania opponent, CM Punk, works best when he can bring aspects of reality into the storyline. With CM Punk’s opponent being a zombie with superpowers, it might be a bit difficult for him to drop the proverbial “pipe bombs”. Because of this, they’ve turned to drawing heat from the actual death of Paul Bearer, the Undertaker’s former manager. They’re not quite exploiting it the way they exploited Eddie Guerrero’s death years ago, but it does feel like a crutch for the story to hinge on.

Then you have Brock Lesnar and Triple H, two performers who serve no purpose in having a match together. They already have credibility and neither of them would suffer from a loss. It feels like a vanity match more than anything. They’ve attempted to spice it up by adding the stipulation that if Triple H loses, he’ll be forced to retire. Considering he only wrestles once or twice a year anyway, it doesn’t feel like much is at stake.

There’s definitely a place on the card for the veterans, but they’d be better suited elevating the wrestlers who will be carrying the show for the rest of the year as opposed to taking the spotlight from them. At the rate WWE is going right now, it’s hard to imagine they’ll be able to sell Wrestlemania 39 off of the nostalgia of Cody Rhodes’ mustache.

By selling out an entire football stadium for Wrestlemania, WWE obviously maintains a large fan base despite all of its flaws. What makes these flaws so frustrating is that they have the potential to have a really good product. Professional wrestling is a great satire on sports culture and even with the roster capable of pulling that off, WWE doesn’t take advantage of that. They’re too busy living in the past while having lost sight of what made it awesome in the first place. I suppose Vince McMahon knows that there will always be lifers (like myself) who will always shell out the money for it, regardless of how much they complain. Nostalgia isn’t the only thing that’s draws people to professional wrestling now: there’s also an element of irony. If you’re over the age of 10 and still watch wrestling, it’s likely with a least a hint of irony. Hate-loving the inherent stupidity is part of what makes it fun.

Once a fan, you’ll always be a fan. Whether you like it or not.

Guest Post by Morgan Eschmann.

Awkward, an MTV comedy that is arguably the freshest and...

synecdoche — Tue, 02 Apr 2013 10:22:33 -0400

Awkward, an MTV comedy that is arguably the freshest and smartest high school show we’ve seen in years, is available on Netflix Instant and we highly suggest you catch up before the third season premieres on April 16th.

The gang at Slacktory made this chart of all the curses in the...

synecdoche — Fri, 29 Mar 2013 16:24:56 -0400

The gang at Slacktory made this chart of all the curses in the first two seasons of Game of Thrones. And, of course, there’s a supercut to go along with it.

Tip: While you’re over there, check out their other awesome supercuts, including ones for some of our favorite shows: 30 Rock, Bob’s Burgers, and Parks & Recreation.

Do NOT forget that Happy Endings is back on tonight. Back to...

folkinz — Fri, 29 Mar 2013 13:39:00 -0400

Do NOT forget that Happy Endings is back on tonight.

Back to back episodes every Friday night for the next three weeks!

Season 5 of Mad Men is now available on Netflix Instant. Season...

folkinz — Tue, 26 Mar 2013 09:17:21 -0400

Season 5 of Mad Men is now available on Netflix Instant.

Season 6 premieres Sunday April 7th at 9pm.

“You’ve got big balls, Betty Suarez”...

folkinz — Sun, 24 Mar 2013 12:13:00 -0400

“You’ve got big balls, Betty Suarez” - Wilhemina Slater, Ugly Betty (2010)

I’ve been watching a lot of Ugly Betty reruns as of late. And I realized that the best moments in the entire series occur when Betty (America Ferrera) and Wilhemina (Vanessa Williams) are pitted against one another. Both are women of color navigating the very racist world of fashion editorial and despite how stridently she treats Betty, there is part of her that beams when Betty is able to leave the fashion world with confidence. It’s one of the most powerful moments in the series—and it has nothing to do with Betty’s ongoing relationship with her boss Daniel (which frequently plays into the problematic stereotype of a person of color helping a white person get ahead.)

This made me want to take a closer look at some of my favorite shows this season—all female-driven—and gauge them. Ugly Betty was by no means perfect when it cames to representations of gender or ethnicity, but it got a lot of things right that I think more ambitious shows are letting slip through the cracks.

Last night, I happened across Anita Sarkeesian’s Feminist Frequency installment about The Bechdel Test and perhaps I’ve been under a rock, but I loved how simply it measured the representations of women in popular culture, but also minorities. For the uninitiated:

• The Bechdel Test was originally created to address the lack of female representation in popular culture; the rubric is simple. There has to be two women who communicate with one another about something that isn’t a man.

• Later on, a variation of this test was created to gauge the representation of people of color in popular culture: Are there two people of color and are they communicating about something besides a white person?

What was wonderful about Ugly Betty was that even if it was creatively uneven at times, it represented a world where characters like Betty and Wilhemina could talk about their careers. It’s a show that frequently passed both variations of this test.

I wanted to apply both tests to four of the most compelling series I’ve been following through the current TV season. It’s odd, but none of these series—which I think represents the TV’s top creative tier—are able to pass both tests. Keep in mind all four of these shows are helmed by, and prominently star, women.

The Mindy Project. At its core, this comedy is about Mindy Lahiri—an Indian-American doctor who tries to juggles the demands of her job with her pursuit of love. The writing and acting is solid. However, we do learn that this show—as funny as it is—falls short. Because she dates only white guys in the show (the lawyer, the midwife, that guy played by Ed Helms, and maybe even Danny Castellano) and because most of her conversations tend to be about her dating life—whether she’s speaking to a man or a woman—I don’t think this show really passes either test. This is all with the exception of her brother—who appears only a couple times so far. But it’s a good show! And as it starts to wrap up its first season—I have hopes that perhaps this comedy will start to get out of its comfort zone.
Scandal. Kerry Washington’s turn as Olivia Pope, a Capitol Hill crisis fixer, is electrifying. And showrunner Shonda Rimes does a pretty good job of trying to keep women and people of color from falling into boxes on this show. That said, there is always a nascent fear that due to the nature of the beast—Olivia Pope is fixing the problems of mostly white people, after all—this sometimes fails to pass the second test. I think Scandal’s probably at its best in those too rare moments when Harrison and Olivia talk about Olivia for a moment—not about the President, or about their latest hot mess client. I think finding a way to mine that relationship is going to be what keeps the soap’s longevity in tact—long after viewers have bored of her on-off relationship with President Grant.
Bunheads.This was one of the biggest surprises of 2012—a soap about female friendships that (1) didn’t oversexualize its leads; (2) presented a soap driven by women of all ages; and (3) allowed its female leads to mentor one another. Of all the examples herein, Bunheads is the only one that passes the The Bechdel Test with flying colors—talking about boys comes with the turf of being a show about girls who are coming of age. Unfortunately, this show fails spectacularly when it comes to representations of minorities. I think there are two instances where a black girl is literally trotted out to ask, “Hey guys, what’cha talking out?” and then has no further lines. Again, I see a lot of promise and room for growth—and I think that showing the kind of issues a young black girl might deal with in a primarily white community like Paradise, CA could give AS-P some excellent fodder to transform Bunheads into captivating TV.
Girls.From my vantage point, it’s hard to see Girls as a feminist serial. Its leads—who are in their mid-twenties—spend much of their time worrying about boys and their relationship to boys. This might be realistic, but I know a lot of young women who spent the same—if not more—worrying about how to be good daughters, how to get the job of their dreams, and how to be happy alone. We do see Hannah and Marnie struggle through jobs—in the time that their friendship is functional, they’re able to talk about non-relationship-related things, too, but in the second season, the show basically collapses into a motif of men fixing everything (Charlie chases after Marnie; Adam comes to the rescue for Hannah following a breakdown; an anonymous blond man is quick to console Shoshanna after she dumps Ray). There’s one scene—where Jessa and Hannah are in the bathtub together—and it possesses the potential to pack a punch. But instead Jessa laments her short-lived marriage to the wealthy finance guy. The needle could go either way on this soap and second opinions are welcomed—I’m not convinced that this is the kind of serial that feminists should champion. Its portrayal of female relationships depicts women as unhinged and broken. And the race question? We’ve debated that to death and a few-episode guest arc by Donald Glover isn’t enough to make us second-guess our reservations.

I mean, these are all exemplary shows. They represent compelling characterizations and story lines But also consider, these are all shows conceived by women—in some cases, women of color—and their ability to pass either variation of the Bechdel Test is…well, specious.

Rohin Guha is a writer who can be found here and here.

HBO: The Cool Kids With Nothing To Say Anymore When it comes to...

synecdoche — Wed, 20 Mar 2013 13:22:00 -0400

HBO: The Cool Kids With Nothing To Say Anymore

When it comes to original, scripted programming, HBO has firmly secured its place in the echelon of “television do-gooders”. A beautiful list of groundbreaking dramas and comedies have been birthed by this pay-channel that once had insight and, well, balls, along with the censor-less freedom to tackle any subject matter they desired. It’s the beast of this latter ability, however, alongside with general cool-hunting that has reared its ratings-hungry head in the face of what once made the channel’s original programming so wonderful and subsequently, let if fall by the wayside.

It comes as absolutely no surprise that in the past eight weeks HBO has renewed Girls for its third season and cancelled Enlightened after its tour-de-force second. Obviously, television exists in a Gladiator-esque forum wherein the bloodthirsty masses thrust gut-reaction thumbs by way of ad sales and ratings figures. The once-virgin beauty of HBO, however, eschewed this system—not only by existing as a subscription service that forewent traditional commercial breaks, but also in their creative direction to push forward with well-written, unflinching, and remarkable stories about, basically, being human. That’s what has so often worked in their favor. Maybe not always for their ratings but if not there then definitely in esteemed accolades (which then inflated their amount of subscribers anyway).

The oxygen-soaked spark of this punk television attitude came about during a post-Reagan era of strange, late-late shows. They aired, successfully, oddballs like Tales from the Crypt, Real Sex, Def Comedy Jam, The Kids in the Hall, and the seminal The Larry Sanders Show— which would bring their programming out of the midnight cult scene and pave the way for many more realistic and sharp narratives. They got in with the weird and then started refining themselves.

Throughout the mid-nineties this alternative comedy edge stayed sharp and gave us Arliss, Tenacious D, Tracy Takes On..., and the brilliant Mr. Show. Then, HBO almost completely ended their sketch sensibilities with their first hour-long drama: Oz, a chillingly realistic and deftly written tragedy about life, or lack thereof, in prison (a particularly violent show that my parents, who held strictly true to the age limits of the MPAA, actually made me watch to deter me from a life of crime—I was fifteen; it worked). Oz was the harbinger of HBO’s golden age. In the next five years earth-shattering shows such as Sex and the City, The Sopranos, Six Feet Under, and The Wire would leave their imprints in television history alongside well-tailored and beautiful mini-series like Angels in America and Band of Brothers. The amount of Emmys this half-decade period produced would be enough to melt down and fund a new space program.

If the early 90s was HBO’s “Cult” period then afterward came the period of “Storytelling,” with an intermediate phase that had a logistical crossover between them. They took steps to get there and they took them well. On the tail end of their golden age, however, another intermediate period began to develop crossing an emphasis on storytelling with what was working so well for their ratings: edgy ideas. And so were born Entourage, Deadwood, Extras*, Big Love, Flight of The Concords*, and True Blood [*although these only lasted two seasons, it’s important to note that, unlike Enlightened, they chose to cancel themselves]. These shows were still interesting enough outside of their “quirky” settings by handling their scenarios just as well as continuing to tell good, and sometimes great, stories (even if Entourage and True Blood devolved into mindless garbage over the years, both had substantial and promising beginnings that lasted more than two seasons). These shows were the tipping point, and the tail end of the “storytelling” era, that brought us into the current state of affairs at HBO: the era of “Cool”.

Concerned more with bringing in viewers in a climate of rapidly decreasing television viewership than dedicating themselves to excellent craftsmanship, HBO seemed to seek out a large amount of salacious and surprising material, with an eye on the modern youth who was more into downloading than buying premium packages through their cable provider. Hung (a show that never knew which tone it wanted to convey), How To Make It In America (a show that had most of the puzzle pieces of Girls but focused more on achieving success than on absurd confessional-ism), and Bored to Death (the only one that seemed to harbor sharp writing and a sense of fresh modernity) all failed early on. Instead of rethinking their rubric, they pushed for more ratings-bait ideas— where now the popularity of a show won over its quality.

Now, this is not to say that some shows still exist on the channel that juggle both: Game of Thrones is a masterfully handled storytelling experience, but it also had a largely built-in fanbase to begin with and has filled a fantasy void in most television viewers’ schedules. Girls and Eastbound and Down both had subtle, heart-examining first seasons worthy of many merits, but soon after started focusing more on shock with nearly robotic human interactions. But the ratings were still there, so they got to stay. Veep is too early to call and The Newsroom is too Sorkinese of a wild card.

Unfortunately, this is just how it seems to go when you have a good thing on your hands. If HBO was the punk in a Stooges jacket it was only a matter of time until he traded in his safety pins and liberty spikes for a 401k and a house in the suburbs. Maybe FX, with its shining light Louie (hey! remember when HBO fucked this up all those years ago?!), is the young-blood following in its footsteps.

This current model, this cool-huntin, is bound to fail. If I learned anything in high school it’s that trying to convince anyone else that you’re cool will tell them just the opposite. Jonah Hill’s character says in 21 Jump Street, about the current state of coolness: “liking comic books is popular, environmental awareness, being tolerant…” So does that, coupled with its complete lack of trying to be so, make Enlightened the coolest show around? Then good riddance, HBO, because House of Cards, Cougar Town, Arrested Development, and Friday Night Lights have shown us that there is life off the networks and life after cancellation.

Alan Hanson is a writer who can be found here.