Francine Prose reading.
I read a lot of reviews/blogs and almost everyone, including my husband, likes BURN NOTICE. I don't get it. To me, it's nothing but car chases and blowing things up. And smart-alecky advice on being a spy in voice-over. Show me, don't tell me, I want to say. Does his mother have to have a cigarette in her hand in every frame?
Another good topic, what sitcom has ever portrayed the parents of the protagonist well? Save that for later and tell me: what TV show gets good reviews or is popular that you don't get?
52 comments:
I *never* understood the appeal of Everybody Loves Raymond.
Ohh, that would be lots of them. Two and a half men, any CSI Or Law and Order, House, any reality show about people pretending to find love. the list is much longer than the list of the ones I get.
I'm with you on BURN NOTICE, Patti. I watched it for two summers and it really became annoying. The mother with her cigarettes, the dopey brother, the "relationship" with the psycho girl friend. It's a series with potential, but has too many liabilities to keep me watching.
All of them, now that THE WIRE is off the air. My TV is a monitor for watching movies and sports, occasionally The History Channel or Mythbusters. I couldn't say when I last watched a network TV show, witht ehe xception of a random LAW & ORDER, SEINFELD, or FAMILY GUY rerun.
Though I will watch THE BRIDGE when it premieres in July.
the Office, I don't get it, same with Entourage.
I should have included every reality show on my list. And I detest 2 1/2 Men. Raymond--sometimes I thought it brought a family problem to light. But too many unlikable characters in the long run. Even Raymond himself--a prototype of a bad father.
ENTOURAGE worked for me for a year or so. But it seems like the same plot week after week. And Vince is neither a good actor on the show or ON THE SHOW.
Never seen Burn Notice. However, last night, I watched the second season premiere of "The Cleaner." It was okay. Nothing earth shattering. Hard for me to figure out they do the same show every week and it not be boring.
For my it was Friends. I didn't like any of the actors though I think Lisa Kudrow's short-lived HBO series about a washed up tv actress was brave and original.
My kids enjoyed FRIENDS so much, I got into it because of them. KUDROW's show was brave and different. Always a curse. THE CLEANER-he cleans crime scenes?
I've enjoyed BURN NOTICE from day one, but then I was a fan of spy thrillers, Jeffrey Donovan, Gabrielle Anwar, and Bruce Campbell long before BURN NOTICE
I'm not a fan of the LAW & ORDER/CSI trend emphasizing procedure over character. They seem empty and interchangeable to me.
I found BONES to be a good mix of character and procedure until about the second half of this past season when, like a lot of veteran shows, the characters' melodramas have taken over.
Let's see, My Name is Earl, The Office, E.R.... I could go on and on. For me, the biggest "I don;t get it" would have to be the oft mentioned Friends. The single dumbest show ever put on television.
IIRC, Benjamin Bratt's character is an ex-addict who makes a deal with God. End result: Bratt helps people overcome addictions, sometimes using unorthodox means, at the expense of his personal life.
Re: Charles's choices - Oddly, I enjoy CSI and CSI: Miami but not NY. Never watch L&O.
Re: Ed - Loved, absolutely, loved Friends.
I'm in a minority but I don't get 30 Rock. The characters and the situations are too silly and seem to be made up just to fit the premise of a joke. There has to be some reality in the situation for the comedy to be funny.
Every job I've ever had has several people very similar to the characters in the office. That's what makes it so funny.
Anything "reality" based is a total mindsuck. Then again, I do dig the First 48...hmm. Burn Notice is a bit predictable plot-wise but the subtlties Jeff Donovan spices into his character (plus Bruce Campbell) make it worth watching. Had they stuck to the original idea of setting it in north New Jersey...I think it would've been infinitely funnier. I mean, burning a spy and dumping him in "whatever city" --Miami? Infinitely more hilarious in Newark suburbs. Miami is fun for ass shots, mojito jokes and color--but Michael Westin stuck on the Turnpike or blowing up a White Castle? Come on, maybe my Jersey is showing, but no contest.
I don't get 30 Rock either. I find some of the interchanges between Baldwin and Fey amusing but the rest of the cast completely eludes me as funny.
I liked My Name Is Earl for the first half season and then it got stale for me. Too many shows stick to a formula for too long.
There are lots of shows I don't watch, but haven't even given a chance. Believe it or not, I never even saw one episode of ER when it was on. My biggest active dislike: any reality show. I watched the very first season of Survivor way back when it was a novel idea and then I was done with reality shows. They are rarely "real" and I very much dislike the meanness. Did I mention that I really don't like reality shows?
The meanness, yes. I doubt i watch them anyway, but the nasty commentary and judging really turns me off.
I like Burn Notice because it allows to empty my mind of all the day's stress. No thinking regard.
"Grace," which I keep trying to watch because I like Holly Hunter, but I can't figure what Earl is trying to save Grace from--herself, I guess. I also can't believe that someone who is a lush would be a good cop.
American Idol and any other show whose formula for success includes degrading people.
Never cared for Jon and Kate Plus Eight; the fact that they were separated for the past years just shows how real "reality" is.
And the trainwreck that is the Duggar family on 18 and Counting...don't get me started!
Well, all backstabbing game shows, such as SURVIVOR or AMERICA'S NEXT TOP MODEL, or humiliation shows, such as AMERICAN IDOL or the first two, are not my meat. Leaving aside how dull they are, they are also unpleasant.
BURN NOTICE--Kieran is absolutely correct...it's the clever little flourishes that help it over the lack of development of Sharon Gless's character (infrequently they give us a sense of how she could've produced her sons in a positive sense, but far too infrequently), and setting it in New Jersey would've made it far funnier (but with several other series already set in Miami, they had facilities there).
I like most of the dramatic series cited so far, to one degree or another, though I, too, dislike the clumsy and blatant TWO AND A HALF MEN and found FRIENDS pretty consistently inane and overplayed (I think I've mentioned here before Robby Benson's anecdote about getting called on the carpet by the producers by attempting to make the episodes he was directing actually good), and Kudrow's THE COMEBACK better in theory (not quite one-note, but close), despite thinking Kudrow a good actor, in several films, at least.
Sitcoms that portray the parents of a protag well...well, for caricature, SEINFELD did that better than it did most other things; GILMORE GIRLS and THE BOB NEWHART SHOW did that and other things rather well. Most Hollywood productions of any kind seem to be the product of folks with parental Issues.
THE CLEANER--he's a one-man drug Intervention. I haven't watched more tha a couple of minutes of that one, yet.
I am a great Grace fan although my husband refuses to watch it. More and more, we have our own schedule.
I guess some innate need for spirituality is duped by Earl.
Dissing parents seems to carry sitcoms and certain dramas along. THE CLOSER at first looked sympathetic to the aged ones.but soon found it necessary to make us ridiculous. Boy, I can't remember the Bob Newhart parents. A further sign of my age. Dissing parents apparently allows thirty-somethings to bond.
I think Survivor would be interesting if they had a Lord of the Flies version.
Alloyed disrespect for everyone propels most sitcoms...it's how clever and how honest (to one degree or another of both) tey are about that that makes the series good. SAMANTHA WHO? was another good example of making the parents relatively integral and not solely mechanical jokes.
I just caught a repeat of one of the best episodes of GILMORE GIRLS the other day, in which the parents/grandparents of the protags were portrayed as real, flawed people (never hurts to have Kelly Bishop and Edward Herrmann in a given pair of roles)..."Our daughter is getting married, and she didn't tell us. When Rory [their grandaughter] gets married, I'd like her to tell us."
I wouldn't remember Emily and Bob's parents in TBNS if I hadn't listened to relevant episodes at work on Hulu in the last several months.
I think back on the horrid parents in THIRTY SOMETHING, in particular. And the parents in FRIENDS were an abomination-all of them. SEINFELD's parents were addled. I liked Cagney's father on C & L but he was a drunk. Parents are too easy to make comic targets, I guess. Maybe the best where the Cunninghams on Happy Days and the Keatons, but they were still in their prime. Or nearly.
Yes, but...all the characters on SEINFELD were addled. FAMILY TIES and, for that matter, THE COSBY SHOW, presented bland near-ciphers (and had a little fun with the Huxtables' parents)...and HAPPY DAYS completely bland ciphers. Are you looking for reasonably good parents of adult children characters?
Okay, I have it-- the parents and grandparents on THE WALTONS. Each has his/her own personality, prickly, religious, stubborn, but in the end, supportive, loving.
I thought Ozzie and Harriet Nelson were the prototypical and perfect TV parents. But wait, that must mean I'm too old to know much about or care much about contemporary television. And for a little variety, please bring back Molly Goldberg and I Remember Mama!
Now, if I can just get the aluminum foil and my rabbit ears perfectly positioned, maybe I can catch part of Ted Mack's Original Amateur hour before bedtime. In the alternative, does anybody know what's on the Dumont network tonight?
TV used to be about the ideal and non-existent family. Now it's about the most dysfunctional and also non-existent ones. Which is worse?
I favor what used to be presented then rather than what is presented now. Ideal always is better. Isn't it?
Honestly? all TV fiction eludes me...I tend to watch (when I do) with a critical eye of trying to understand if the actors are portraying what the writers wrote or is the writing usually that lame?
No. Psuedo-ideal emphasis on upper-middle-class Anglo kids who never have any serious problems and parents who are always wise and correct can seem about like reality to some of us, some of the time, but the uniformity of it made for an unfortunate sort of psychic desperation that, among other things, helped bring forth the pendulum swing we see now in the other direction, Wallowing in those Parental Issues I mentioned previously.
Among my least favored series, in the other direction from TWO AND A HALF MEN, would be AQUA TEEN HUNGER FORCE and several of the other more intentionally deadpan/witless series...I tend to think of them as the grandchildren of GREEN ACRES, the children of DIFF'RENT STROKES.
"American Idol."
Bad karaoke (sp?), an Englishman that makes Don Rickles look like Elmo in comparison, and the cult of over-singing each and every note.
This is sorta changing the subject from your original question, but I think sometimes (certainly not often) a show comes along that's so good that it exhausts the possibilities of a particular form for a while. For me, "Seinfeld" did that to the sitcom. Maybe that explains why there hasn't been a decent sitcom since unless you count "Curb Your Enthusiasm", which is really just "Seinfeld, Jr."
Michael-An excellent point. Going backward to the didactic sitcom seems like a bad idea. Also, shows like THE WIRE and DEXTER make so many of the current crop of crime shows look dull, hackneyed.
AQUA TEEN HUNGER FORCE. What channel is that on?
Yes, Cormac. Did Liza Minelli coach all these singers? I am so sick of the big delivery.
I must admit, I don't see why SEINFELD is getting such a pass...it was, in its early years, an excellent sitcom, and nothing more. Not a titanic wave of innovation, nor the perfection of the form. The last years verged on dire. There have been a number of good sitcoms since. And DEXTER is among the current crop of crime drama, and not w/o flaws ("I'm going to muse again about how I have no emotion" even given the irony that he simply chooses to see himself as emotionless), and THE WIRE very nearly among them, and also not w/o flaws (a bit hortatory, alas), while still among the best crime drama so far.
AQUA TEEN is one of, if not the, most popular of Adult Swim entries on the Cartoon Network. Such other Adult Swim series as THE VENTURE BROS., HARVEY BIRDMAN, and MORAL OREL are much better, and mostly have been cancelled, though continue in repeats.
If you want a single most important source for the ridiculous overuse of melisma and overblowing every note, IT'S SHOWTIME AT THE APOLLO is the television fall-series...though not a few of the "divas" of pop music are similarly responsible, Minelli perhaps distantly included.
The last year was dire but there were episodes of Seinfeld I watched many times. I loved there was no lesson at the time. Now I find them functioning as a warning to what we became in the eighties and nineties. Soulless, acquisitive, promiscuous, selfish.
There it is! Yes! You have hit upon the essence of the questions-and-answers in this threaded discussion! You said: "Now I find them [SEINFELD episodes and perhaps other TV programs of the time] functioning as a warning to what we became in the eighties and nineties. Soulless, acquisitive, promiscuous, selfish." While the conclusions you have drawn about the outcomes are arguable (because they are so personal and subjective), the fact remains--Here it is folks! Here is the big picture!--our relationship with television programs (past and present) says a great deal about who we were and what we have become. Someone in this thread excoriated me (in a way) because of my fondness for the ideals of the Ozzie and Harriet days; I suppose my preference for the past says something about my rose-colored glasses approach to life and my disillusionment with the realities of the present. As Marshall McCluhan said (if I correctly remember his name and his statement), "The medium is the message [or perhaps he said massage]." In any event, what I took him to mean then, and what I take this discussion to now mean is simple: We are what we watch! (Or, to say it another way, we are what we refuse to watch.)
RT. Todd would never intend to rebuke your tastes. As a reporter for TV GUIDE, he is all too familiar with the historical elements of TV and can call up any number of examples of the best and worst of the media. He is the ultimate source for anything to do with media.
No ultimate resource, but I'll do what I can (and will sound off alarmingly often)...and I certainly didn't excoriate RT, but did suggest that if you want to breed the self-indulgence that ROSEANNE and GRACE UNDER FIRE eventually ran to, then feed the creative folk responsible for them a steady diet of FATHER KNOWS BEST and LEAVE IT TO BEAVER.
"Soulless, acquisitive, promiscuous, selfish." Ah, you mean as in, The Me Decade. Wait, that wasn't the '80s or '90s!
I suspect that the increase of SEINFELD's popularity as it became worse and more simpleminded, much as with SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE's as it traveled the same arc in the 1970s (and only briefly recovered in the 1990s, during Phil Hartman's tenure), says more about the tenor of the 1990s than anything SEINFELD intentionally did. After all, when the series began, it was about immature adults who were too cowardly or polite, depending on the situation, to object to being put upon by others; by the last several seasons, they were simply mechanical monsters of selfishness.
But thank you, and thanks for posing the question.
Yes, but the me decade didn't produce TV shows celebrating these traits. Remember, I LOVED SEINFELD at the time. It was only later that I saw it as an extension of the Larry David ethos: everyone who gets in my way deserves obliteration, or at least being made fun of.
POSTSCRIPT:
I don't want to be misunderstood. I am not complaining about either the "whining" or the "excoriation" but simply making ironic observations about the interesting threads of discourse--but I do so with a dose of irony, which I almost always include in everything that I say and write. The lively banter--with irony included but with mean-spirited barbs off-limits--is what makes the dialogic world of blogging so entertaining (and potentially edifying). So, to follow up on everything that has already been said, I must now turn to the television where I can feast on postmortems galore; you will notice that those autopsies of personalities now being aired--at the very moment of this entry--carry with them something profoundly important about our culture's fascination with popular (rather than substantial) personalities. Now, having written enough, and having--I hope--avoided alienating anyone, it is back to my ridiculously expensive LCD television where the lives (and deaths) of the rich and famous are being shown in full 1080 DP. (Which all goes to say that we have come a long way from Dumont Television network in the 40s and 50s.)
But that's just the characters expressing the contempt that the audience was encouraged to express in series such as THE BEVERLY HILLBILLIES and other all-idiot comedies-of-sorts. Bilko certainly took a similar approach to humanity, for that matter.
Do you really remember BILKO, Todd? I barely do and I have many years on you. As always, you are a mine of info and my favorite curmudgeon.
RT-I have delighted in your wise, ironic and astute observations today. Know that we all have the best intentions-even if we are sometimes smart mouths.
BILKO/YOU'LL NEVER BE RICH/THE PHIL SILVERS SHOW endlessly reran in syndicaiton through the '70s (I certainly wasn't around for the first run)...Dabney Coleman kept playing a working model for the SEINFELD folks in decreasingly good sitcoms in the '80s, though all but DREXEL'S CLASS were at least fun enough. His selfish bastard was portrayed as a bad thing, however...
Okay, now you're making me feel old because I was very much around for Phil Silvers' SGT BILKO program.
And it was good. But what do I know. I was a mere child at the time. (And I don't recall ever seeing it in reruns.)
I remember Bilko *very* well. I loved that show. It might have been that I grew up in a military family. I haven't seen it in a while so don't know if it would still be funny.
One show that I think holds up quite well is The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis. It was quite clever and gave us a very young Warren Beatty and Tuesday Weld.
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