So, Reynolds attacked me not too long ago for wallowing about in the mindless fields of television entertainment (I think he used the word pablum). Still, bang for buck I’d choose “The Office,” “30 Rock,” “Entourage,” “The Colbert Report,” “The Sopranos,” “24,” “Friday Night Lights,” “Heroes,” and “LOST” (these are the shows I make an effort to see weekly when they are delivering fresh eps), over much of what passes for entertainment in the movie theatres these days. And week to week these shows consistently deliver in ways that even our favorite filmmakers and our favorite boutique indie houses can only imagine. Newsweek has published a very interesting article worth pondering. I think they are on to something.
i heard good things about heroes at a friend’s house the other night. i have the wire on my netflix q. also weeds and the last season of the west wing. anything else mauer and i should see from the last couple of years?
I forgot about “The Wire.” I watched the first season of “Weeds” on DVD; it was really fun but by the end I worried a bit as to where it was going–how they would sustain the characters, etc. Is the second season available?
Well, I’ll now publicly admit being wrong about the American “Office,” which has really grown on me. That said, Newsweek was looking to fill some space; they run one of those “changing pop culture” articles about every four or five months. I prefer their “kids today –{taking new drug}{nihilists!}{sexin’ it up big time no morals}—” scare stories, which come every three months.
And the slack nature of recent big film releases is not the kind of comparator that makes any real case for the quality of television. If I eat Little Debbie snackcakes because there’s no good pie around, doesn’t mean Little Debbie snackcakes are quality dessert fare.
Mmmmmmmmmmmmm. Little Debbies.
Yeah, I agree about Newsweek filling space. I’ve grown so frustrated with their coverage of the Greatest Generation one week, the Boomers the next, and all forms of bodily disease the third that I’ve given up my subscription (Fareed Zakaria and Jonathan Alter be damned). Still, I stand by my initial post. That being said; I will not eat Little Debbie snackcakes. Never. Ain’t gonna do it. That chick creeps me out.
Arnab and Sun Hee, you folks watch “Friday Night Lights,” yes? Am I the only one who thinks this to be one of the finest television soap operas to come along in many a season?
I more or less buy the “it’s not TV: it’s HBO” tagline so I don’t count Sopranos, Wire, Deadwood, Entourage, or Curb Your Enthusiasm as falling under the pablum umbrella. Beyond HBO, Colbert, Stewart and The Office are fine TV, but I’m not so sure about the rest.
For example, what is the appeal of 24? I had never watched it before, but this season, given the hype, I decided to watch the initial 4 episodes spread over two days. It just seemed so… ordinary. There were some fine explosions (and god knows, I like a good explosion), but almost every little twist and turn, every character’s grimace or frown, was utterly predictable. I lost count of the number of times a group of characters look at each other frozen in shock before the camera cuts to a different scene. Not a single TV convention was broken. Or am I missing something.
Oh, I’m kinda partial to Scrubs, at least in re-runs on Comedy Central.
What I like to watch of late: The Daily Show/The Colbert Report, a Frontline episode here and there, Project Runway (countdown to Season 4!!!), South Park, The News Hour (mostly just Brooks and Shields. And Yarnell), The Naked Trucker and T-Bones Show. But mostly NBA. I don’t know what’s happened to me, because when I was young I watched just about everything. Love Boat, Soap, Welcome Back Kotter, Sanford and Son. Even with the coming of Hill Street Blues and “quality television” I was still devoted. Instead of just 30-minute sitcoms, I was prepared to give myself over to St. Elsewhere, L.A. Law, E.R. on a weekly basis. I know I could get back into those old habits. It’s just a matter of sitting down, really.
I’ve become an avid NBA fan, and one game alone wipes out 2 1/2 hours of programming. A double-header wipes out 5 hours.
I”m not sure why I bought into the hype, but I was looking forward to the first episode of FX’s The Riches, and watched it last night. It’s gotten quite good reviews, and it’s an premise that intrigues me.
It didn’t blow me away – it’s no first episode of The Sopranos or anything – but it was fairly well done. Some of the scenes where the family deals with other “travellers” at the reunion party where Dahlia gets out of jail rang false to me. A cross between a Renaissance Faire and a red-neck bbq, “traditional” instruments like the fiddle and a campfire. Rain that quickly comes and goes depending on the needs of the plot. I prefered the family’s violent one on one meeting with the fat-guy’s traveling famiily at the gas station. Or frankly I preferred the final third of the show when the other con-men family/company isn’t present.
It was a relief not to have many commercials; the first came 40 minutes into it, and they were all for Grindhouse – quite the stylisitc polar opposite to this. The use of the word “shit” on basic cable TV is always welcome to me. It’s not a horrible word, and its used so often in real life (my real life at least) that it makes sense to hear it. It might even delve into class issues in an interesting way. I’ll watch it again and hope for the best.
Just b/c I stopped posting for awhile doesn’t mean you all have to go home.
Two more tv shows I tried to watch: The Winner starring Rob Corddry. This really isn’t very good. There are occasional stabs at “edgy” humor – edgy by way of the Fox Network around the time that Herman’s Head ruled the airwaves. Rob’s cat scratches him and he think he has feline AIDS.
HA! HA HA!
That sound was the massively buzz-killing laugh track that permeates this show. Seth McFarlane had a lot to do with the show, but even he knows better than to use a laugh track. It also rather shamelessly rips off Get a Life, Chris Elliott’s TV show (which, now that I think of it, was also on around the time of Herman’s Head, and on FOX, and didn’t it also have a laugh track? It somehow worked with the laugh track….)
Well anyway, skip The Winner and dig up your old tapes of Get a Life. Or even better – if you’re anything like me – you’ll break out his film/video pilot for Action Family (co-starring Doris Roberts, whom he later teamed with in Everybody Loves Raymond), or his stage performance of FDR: A One-Man Show.
The other one was slightly better. Andy Richter’s new show called Andy something. He’s an accountant – that solves crimes! With the help of the video store clerk who works downstairs! At first I really liked the video store clerk b/c I thought it was the guy who played Buster from Arrested Deverlopment. It wasn’t him, but it looked enough like him that I continued to think he was funny longer than I should have.
Despite being co-written and created by Conan O’Brien, I can’t imagine there’s 13 episodes of material here.
This is nicely written.
while waiting for the next dvd of the wire to get in the mail, and somewhat desperately i confess, i noticed that heroes is available on watch instantly. simon and i didn’t make it through the pilot. should we sit tight and believe that we’ll find it less silly, badly acted, and badly written if we give it a proper chance? it is nice to have it on watch instantly, for those forlorn days when even the most disciplined and strategical watching-and-returning behavior leaves one wire deprived.
on casting. another beautiful thing about the wire (about which i confess to feeling still less enthusiastic than the likes of mike, but to which i’m nonetheless looking forward to every morning when i wake up — am i bored? i think i’m bored) is the casting. has anyone commented on this? i had already noticed the british-like daringness of the casting — not a central-casting face or body in sight. last night heroes made me vaguely nauseous. those faces. ugh. upon research i found that the wire is populated with theatre actors. way to go! different-looking actors who know how to act. no wonder it’s so interesting.
in one episode of the west wing the voiceover commentators were complimenting an older character actor (guy who played the leader of the teacher’s union who didn’t want to endorse the jimmy smits character). older character actors, they said, are difficult to find, because you can’t support yourself with small roles so after a bit you pack it in and turn to other exciting career choices. the wire seems to have found a way to put that problem to rest!
and since i’m talking about the wire, anyone find the significant absence of women, and the type-casting of wives as nagging and ball-breaking (even kima’s) annoying?
my favorite tv shows so far: ER and the west wing. oh, but i really liked hunter, too, and star trek TNG, and quantum leap! ER, though, has to take the cake.
tv show to get hooked to when i’ve run out of wire: the sopranos.
I’m not sure I’d agree that there is a significant absence of women, especially given that the worlds that the ‘The Wire’ deals with are overwhelmingly male, so verisimilitude requires some gender imbalance. Nonetheless, as central characters, you have Kima Greggs, Rhonda Pearlman and, in the second series, Beadie Russell. The third series adds significant roles for two women in Omar’s crew, and D’Angelo’s mother, and the fourth series has major roles for Theresa D’Agostino and women at the school, including the principal and the teacher that helps Prez when he first arrives. There are also countless minor but, beautifully-drawn female characters throughout the show.
And I think the spousal relationships are more complicated than the nagging wife, especially that between Marla and Cedric Daniels. Even Kima and her (now) ex is more than about nagging.
Sure, the male characters dominate, but for a show about drug dealers, cops and politicians, ‘The Wire’ does a good job. I just finished the third series and I still enjoy every moment.
hey chris, have you heard of spoilers? :-)
oh, right, the environment. because we all know that only men populate the inner city, the cop world, and the political world. even granting your point about the absolute preponderance of male dealers, cops, and politicians, there are of course no wives, sisters, daughters, friends, lovers worth mentioning. their role is entirely marginal.
tearing into you, chris, when you offered such a thoughtful reply! sorry, mate. i’m writing this with a smile on (the inside of) my face.
and we haven’t had a gender war in a while, either… fun!
Well there are wives and sisters and daughters, and plenty of lovers but they are not central characters. Why would they be? This is not a soap opera; it is focused firmly on the business of drug dealing, policing, teaching, unloading ships, etc. If I want to know about the private lives of characters I’ll watch ER or that bizarre HBO series about couples counseling. My point (made only slightly defensively and with a forced smile on the outside of my face) is a) that there are probably about a proportionate number of women as central characters as one would expect to find in those worlds, and b) that when women are depicted, usually as minor characters, it is done in fine, nuanced form. Think of the owner of the bar frequented by dockers in series 2, or D’Angelo’s mother.
I’m way better at class war than gender war.
I watch “Heroes.” It’s a comic book but it moves well and manages to juggle a number of disparate plotlines quite effortlessly. I wouldn’t even begin to compare it with “The Wire.” And while season one managed to sustain suspence to its very propulsive climax, the first few eps of season two seemed to derail the momentum. It is back on track now. I’m not watching as much television as I used to. “Heroes,” “The Office,” “30 Rock,” and “Friday Night Lights” are my old favorites. This year I discovered the pleasures of “Ugly Betty” (it has now become a family ritual; our only one in front of the TV) and am very fond of “Dirty Sexy Money” on Wednesday nights. I have watched a few episodes of “Pushing Daisies” and believe it to be consistently well-shot and well-written (as far as network television goes), but I have no idea how they will sustain the conceit so I’m hesitant. OH, and “Project Runway” is back. !
chris, you’re right, there are very fine women characters. i liked beadie russell very much indeed. heck of an acting job, too.
no war, gender or class. peace, instead.
i’ll keep on watching heroes trying very hard not to wish i were watching the wire instead!
About the casting in “The Wire” — it’s not just British-like, it’s often British. McNulty, Stringer, and Carcetti are British or Irish citizens.
I actually post for a different show/reason: I finally got around to watching disc one of Errol Morris’ short-lived television program “First Person.” I love Morris; his eccentric documentaries have always wowed me, each with very different foci (from pet cemeteries to true-crime to the physics of time and space to consciousness to Vietnam), but a consistent engagement with the idiosyncrasies of individuals. He’s best known for the interviews, extended–often surprisingly intimate–conversations with his protagonists, where they reveal way too much as they talk ‘directly’ to us (via Morris’ “interrotron,” a camera-gizmo that allows the interviewed to see EM’s face while staring at the camera).
The show is an anthology, each half-hour episode a new person, with a new offbeat tale. Disc one had 7 shows, and I found two of them mediocre and unengaging, a couple were good, a couple were bad, and one was OUTSTANDING. It seemed a shame, after spending half an hour with Sondra L, a woman who’d once (unknowingly) dated a serial killer then years later (knowingly) dated another, that I couldn’t see more–like Morris’ best work, the fascination of this seemingly very “other” person is utterly compelling to me as a viewer, a fascination which walks a hard line between a kind of grotesquerie and a real generous compassion for those being interviewed. I wish we’d had time to really delve into her story.
But others were intriguing people but ultimately unengaging stories–the first episode (Mr. Debt) had an aggressive but winning lawyer whose passion/career was focused on the inequitability of our debtor culture. I loved the guy, but ten minutes in I felt like we were done… and it kept going. And some were flat bad, so… for the Morris fans, I think it’s worth a look, but I was kind of disappointed, even as a fan.
Still, Morris’ obsession with obsession is thrilling; even if you just watched the episode with Sondra (“The Killer Inside Me”), I think you’d be well-served.