New TV Introvert

I've watched the first few episodes of Best Medicine and it's okay. I haven't watched Doc Martin, which this show is based on, so I don't know how to compare. It's clearly a weird town show, like Stuckeyville in Ed or Stars Hollow in Gilmore Girls or a million other TV shows.

Josh Charles plays the big city doctor who comes to the weird town. He's not a social person. I'm always interested in how pop culture portrays the introverted and I'm tired of introverts being portrayed as hating people the doctor even says he hates people in the second episode and it annoyed me.

Most introverts that I know don't hate people. They just don't want to be around people. I'd like to see that once. Just someone who doesn't want to go to the crab feed, or whatever, because they don't want to be overwhelmed, but they are pleasant and kind when it's a one-on-one experience.

Better introvert representation, please. 

A Dream Denied

I will never be invited to host Saturday Night Live.

That being said, if I were to be invited I know what my monologue would be:

I'd go out on stage and say how wonderful it is hosting for my 5th time. I'd carry with me a threadbare, button down, Mr. Roger's style sweater with a crappy, cut-out paper "5" pinned to it. An "audience" member insists that I haven't hosted 5 times and we argue. In the end, I'd ignore the "audience" member and start demanding that Candice Bergen and Danny DeVito come out to invite me to the Five Timers Lounge. Finally, Lorne Michaels or a cast member comes out and says no one's coming and makes me understand that it's my first time hosting. I'd fall to my knees in tears and say, "We have a great show tonight..."

Laugh and Cry and Mostly Meh

 I've been watching Family Guy and... it's not very good.

But... there are moments:

• Hank Hill's dream.
• Obama singing "Honestly Sincere."
• The OJ Simpson opera that sounds like an actual opera.

There's not much, but it's enough that I keep watching.

Less Phasers, More Politics

Since we know that Strange New Worlds will be ending in about 20 episodes and don't have a clue if Starfleet Academy will go beyond the first season, I've been thinking about what I'd like to come next for Star Trek.

If it were up to me, I'd like to expand Star Trek TV shows beyond Starfleet. One of the things I liked most about the first season of Picard (and I think the first season was the most interesting and the best season) was that many of our heroes may have come from Starfleet, but none of them were Starfleet officers. Starfleet was there, but wasn't central. I'd like to see more of that sort of thing.

If we're not on a Starfleet starship, I think we should focus on a group from the Federation's diplomatic corp.

A smallish diplomatic team of Federation citizens from many different worlds would have a starship and travel around the Alpha and Beta Quadrants to different worlds and starbases getting involved with political and diplomatic intrigue.

I'd set the series after Picard so the show can explore things like the Alpha Quadrant's recovery from the Dominion War, the destruction of Romulus (which was ignored after the first season of Picard), and the Ferengi joining the Federation.

New worlds would be visited.

Alliances would be forged.

If the series need to have a legacy character to be hung on, I'd bring back Molly O'Brien. After Picard she'd be in her late 30s/early 40s which is the perfect age for her to be leading a diplomatic team for the Federation. She was born on a starship. She grew up, practically, on Bajor and (if you count the relaunch books) Cardassia. She has experience with lots of non-humans and non-Federation citizens.

I don't know if Hana Hatae is still acting. It'd be great to use the same actress, but -- for no good reason that I know of -- they recast Bruce Maddox, so... you know, there's precedence.

I see great potential for political and spy stories with this setup. Which I guess means Section 31 could show up. If they do, can we please go back to how they were portrayed in Deep Space 9 and Enterprise? You know, when they were the bad guys. Section 31 is the antithesis to what the Federation and Starfleet stand for. They should always be the enemy. They are never in the right.

And, while I often enjoy serialization in TV shows, can we tone it down some? Take it back to an older style of TV serialization? One of the things I disliked about Picard and Discovery was how our heroes kept losing over and over until the last episode. Why can't they have some real victories? Wven if the victories don't relate to the season long arc? Maybe move to the Enterprise season 4 style of serialization and do 2-3 episode arcs. I thought that worked really well.

That's what I'd like to see out of a new Star Trek. I'll be there for whatever, though.

Gumball does Joanna Newsom!

In My Opinionation

For Christmas, my brother gave me the first two seasons of Blossom.

I started watching it a week or so ago and just finished the first season.

Included with the first season is the original pilot episode. In that episode, Blossom's parents are still together. When the first episode was released, Blossom's parent have been divorced for two or three years and she lives with her dad, which was a brave thing for a TV show from 1990 to choose to do.

Also, when the series starts, Blossom's brother, Anthony, has been in recovery for drugs and alcohol for a while. In the pilot, he's maybe only a couple of month into recovery. He's isolating himself from everyone and Blossom only sees him once, when she's up late at night while she's in the kitchen. I think the show would have been more interesting if he had been at the beginning of his recovery when the actual series started.

For the most part, the show is still enjoyable. It's very much a product of it's time and genre -- multi-camera sitcom. I'm enjoying the nostalgia of it.

However, this was one episode, so far, that really pissed me off. It's called "The Geek." In it, Blossom is tricked into going to a dance with a nerdy guy. A jock, played by the second Jimmy Olson from Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman, talks to Blossom about going to a dance and she gets excited and when she says yes the guys says, "Great, you'll be going with this guy." and out steps the nerd. Throughout the rest of the episode, Blossom agonizes over not wanting to go to the dance with the nerd Six, her best friend, even points out the Blossom was tricked, but Blossom dismisses Six. She makes up an excuse to not go to the dance then feels guilty about what she did. Then she offers to go to the dance with him and he turns her down and he gets the last work by saying, "It doesn't feel good getting turned down, does it?" And Blossom agrees! She was wronged! The jock and the nerd tricked her! AHHH!

Anyway, looking forward to the second season.

Also, Six is the best. She was when I watched the show in the '90s and she's still the best.

Theory

I'm in episode 14 of Attack on Titan. My guess is that the titans were created by humanity. Perhaps created to be a shared threat for humanity to unite behind. It may have been a virus released into the population that transformed a number of people and killed even more. The survivors were immune. That would explain how so few humans survived. Books from before the titans still exist, so chances are good that Eren's dad had seen some. (Perhaps through a benovolent secret organization.) What was learned in the book helped to recreate parts of the knowledge and gave Eren a form of the virus that allows him to become a titan and remain human at the same time.

I guess I'll see as I continue to watch.

Recognition

I'm watching Dear White People and the character Lionel makes me ache. My head. My heart. My stomach. I see so much of me in that character. Except for, you know, the talent and ambition and courage. His episodes have easily been the best.

The Exorcist

I just finished re-watching The Exorcist TV series.

The show is so very good. The way the tension builds from the first episode to the twist in the sixth to the power of the finale.

My favorite thing has to be that Angela's choice to fight back didn't come when Father Tomas embraces his destiny, but when she heard her family reciting the Lord's Prayer. It was her family, not a priest or God that gave her the will to fight and live again.

I've never been a person of Faith or religion, but I am a person of family. Family's worth fighting for.

Unspecial

I'm watching The Magicians. It's a TV show based on a pretty excellent book. It's about a school where people learn magic. Older people. College-aged people. Like every other school that teaches magic though it is only for certain people. People who have the ability. People who can pass the impossible exam.

So far it's a good series. Not exactly like the book, but that's there. Of course they had to add stuff to fill out 13 episodes. I've enjoyed what I've watched.

The thing is the show and all the series (books, TV, movies, comics, whatever) with secret, special school is that if they exist in our world I was never able to go to them. And I'm afraid that if I was in a world where those do exist I wouldn't be invited.

Girls Meets Restraint

One of the best things about Girl Meets World is it's willingness to hold back. I think that tonight's episode:



Any other show on TV -- whether made for tweens, teens, or adults -- would have had the two of them kiss. Then the action of the kiss would have been the focus of the next episode(s) rather than the reason for or meaning of the kiss. Friends would get angry but eventually make up. New couples may form and all friendships would be tested. But in no way would they actually look at the feelings beneath the kiss.

Girl Meets World choose to stop these two from kissing and now they have to deal with the emotions. The emotions that Maya has been trying to suppress because she's afraid of losing her best friend and surrogate family. The emotions that Lucas is afraid to let out because he works so hard to not upset people. The emotions that Riley have involving how quickly she wants to grow up versus how quickly the rest of the world wants her to grow up.

Sure, these things will, at best, get one episode, the one on tomorrow night, but at least the show is sophisticated enough to try.

Sanctioned Fan-Fiction

I am usually in bed at this time. My meds usually make me yawny and that means get into bed. Tonight, though, I stay up to watch Elementary. The show is enjoyable, but not one that I have to watch see each week. This week Sherlock's older brother is back.

Mycroft Holmes is my favorite character that Conan-Doyle created. Sure, this Mycroft is different from the one in the books, but I still want to see what's done with him.

I love that fan-fiction can be loved by mass audiences and companies will spend millions of dollars on without slutting up any of the characters.

Inside My Brain

I found the 3rd season of 30 Rock for $10 and been watching it this weekend. So I've got to thinking:

A few years ago it was really popular for porn companies to make "parodies" of popular TV shows. If I remember correctly, 30 Rock is one of the shows they parodied; I think 30 Rock even made fun of the idea. I started thinking about the many combinations of characters they could go through and I bet that they had Liz and Jack get together. And that thought upset me.

One of my favorite things about 30 Rock is that Jack and Liz are friends with little to know sexual tension. They even refuse to kiss; they just can't imagine doing that together. And a porn that I haven't seen, but know exists bothers me because it, probably, gets a fictional relationship wrong.

Friday Nights

I seem to be watching Undercover Boss on Fridays. I don't particularly like the show, but I like how good the editors are at manipulating emotions and creating a story out of hours and hours of footage full of nothing.

Friday Nights

I seem to be watching Undercover Boss on Fridays. I don't particularly like the show, but I like how good the editors are at manipulating emotions and creating a story out of hours and hours of footage full of nothing.

Blackbird Singing

The best thing about Glee doing The Beatles is that I can sing along with all the songs. Although some of them are a bit odd. I think it's the voices more than the arrangement.

Don't Have a Title

TV sucks.

It shows us all these perfectly beautiful moments played out by these perfectly beautiful people that rarely happen in real life. Especially someone like me who doesn't bother to try. And even though the moments on TV are impossible, they feel true and because they feel true people like me, who want the magic in the touch of hand as fingers entangle, we believe that those impossible moments are possible.

Yeah, I just watched the episode of How I Met Your Mother where Ted meets Victoria and my heart broke and ached at the same time.

Damned TV.

Embarrassing Truth

I have just watched an episode of Big Brother, a show I despise, because I think one of the women on the show is beautiful, despite the stupid way her name is spelled.

I feel dirty.

Emotional Manipulation

The fuckers killed Dr. Janet Fraiser! After seven years of saving lives they killed her!
And the worst thing is knowing that my reaction is exactly the kind of reaction the writers and producers wanted. Assholes.

SMASH

Over the last two day's I've watched the six episodes of SMASH out there, as of two-thirty PM PDT.

For those who don't know, SMASH is, theoretically, about the development of a new Broadway show based on the life of Marilyn Monroe. Like most TV shows that are procedurals, though, it's really about the characters and their lives. And that's where it falls flat, for me. Right now I only really like two characters. The first is Eileen Rand, played by the deliciously scene chewing Anjelica Huston, the producer of the play trying to pull together the backers and money to put on a workshop of the play. The other is Derek Wills, played by Jack Davenport (which is fun because I've been slowly working my way through the original version of Coupling where he plays Steve), the plays director.

The problem with these two characters is that they are so buried in the world of Broadway that they don't provide a way into that world. They know the tricks and rules so they don't explain anything to the audience. Maybe that's part of why I like them so much. They know. They're inside. That's the world I want to know.

There are two characters that are new to the Broadway world: Karen Cartwright, played by Katharine McPhee, and Ellis Tancharoen, played by Jaime Cepero. Ellis is the assistant to Tom Levitt, played by Christian Borle, a co-writer of the play and Karen the the wide-eyed mid-west girl come to the big city to be a star. These are characters designed to lead an audience into the weird world of plays. I don't like them, though.

Karen is too naive. She's constantly shocked at, well, everything. (Except for one time where the director wanted her to sleep with him and she didn't. That was a great moment.) She's exhausting.

Ellis was who I hoped would be the audience surrogate. He's the assistant to one of the writers. He has a front row seat to the creation of the songs and book. He can ask all the questions about how the songs are written and help the audience see how plays are created. Unfortunately, it looks like he's going to is a villain, and he never asks questions about the creative process.

The fact that I don't really like any of the characters isn't my real problem with the show, though. I want to delve into the behind the scenes creation of a play. I like to see how the sausage is made. I want the boring dirty details that go creation.

It seem to me that SMASH moves too fast. The songs are too finished. Where's the revision? Where's the evolution the the music? The alteration of the lyrics? The dances are perfected. Where's the choreographer practicing by himself in front of the mirror finding the perfect step, turn, turn, step, kick, step? Where's the frustration at teaching the chorus the step? Yes, I like seeing the dance numbers and hearing the songs, but when they come out complete it makes everything seem too easy. I don't just want to hear about Julia Houston, played by Debra Messing, having trouble writing the book and lyrics. I want to see her agonizing over finding the perfect lyric, the perfect line. (There was a moment in the third episode when Julia was trying to figure out how to write "Mr. and Mrs. Smith," but it was only a taste of the agonizingly beautiful frustration of creation I want to see.)

And then there are the musical numbers. They are so polished. So finished. I don't just mean the choreography. I mean that the songs are very finely produced. Example: In the first episode Karen sings the song "Beautiful" while she auditions for the part of Marilyn. It starts out with her singing with only a piano accompanying her. Then in come stings and whatnot. Yeah, the lighting changes, suggesting that this is a bit of a fantasy sequence, but why can't it just be a simple audition? Oh, yeah, the people in charge of the show want to be like Glee and make a shit ton of money selling covers, and originals. Still, when they're rehearsing and the only instrument is a piano and then I hear drums and strings and horns I get pulled out of the show and wonder where the orchestra is sitting? At least in Glee they always magically have an orchestra with them.

I plan to keep watching this show, even though it bothers me. I don't hate it like I do Glee. This show was built for a person like me. I love theater, including musical theater. I love TV shows that go behind the scenes. So I'll keep watching.