Sunday, October 25, 2009
Diminished "Glee"
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Sunday, February 18, 2007
No News Would Be Good News
Although my dentist will tell you that I have a very high tolerance for pain, watching FOX News' entry in the "Humorous Take on Today's Issues," The Half Hour News Hour, was only slightly less pleasing than Laurence Olivier performing a root canal. And no, it wasn't safe. Since its inspiration, The Daily Show, is essentially a parody of "regular" TV news, and FOX's program is their take on Daily, you're stuck watching a parody of a parody of a TV show. Talk about a dog chasing its own tail.
I knew things were going to go downhill when Limbaugh opened the show as The President of the United States. Limbaugh was a death knell for his own TV show, why would you have him open yours? It just got worse from there. Imagine an SNL Weekend Update sketch from the worst season of NBC's flagship comedy, that goes on, and on, and on ... with a horrible laugh track that was probably composed of canned recordings of 1950s TV audiences, some of whom are now deceased. We have laws against desecrating the dead, you know.
Perhaps they're using a dollar store thesaurus, but "PREACHY" is not synonymous with "HUMOROUS." While there were a couple of good laughs (The Air America joke comes to mind), the show just got worse and worse, and the show's "news anchors" have no sense of comic rhythm or timing. The Ed Begley-in-an-electric-car idea might have gone over well as a sketch, but not a lame description of an idea as opposed to its actual execution.And you know you're grasping at straws when you use the 28-year-old "Shiite Happens" joke. Hoo boy, I've only heard that one about 34,875,269 times since the Iranians invaded the Embassy in 1979.
And yes, there are very funny ACLU jabs. For example, this one.
The irony is that while FOX News can't seem to find a funny bone its entire body politic, FOX Network still has some of the best prime-time comedy on the air: The Simpsons, MAD TV, Family Guy, King of the Hill. Tonight's episode of American Dad had a very intelligent and amusing take on a famous misperception about black scientist George Washington Carver AND idiots (of any race) that believe in historical conspiracies.
Note to Mr. Ailes: Ditch the losers that scripted your first episode's stinkeroo and start raiding your sister network for writing talent. Better yet, hire Robert A. George, or read a book or two by P.J. O'Rourke or Christopher Buckley. Perhaps HBO can lend you some old tapes of Not Necessarily The News to study . Until then, the writers of The Half Hour News Hour might not only want to keep their day jobs. They might want to also see if Burger King needs extra fry cooks at night.
Labels: Fox, Robert George comedy
Wednesday, January 10, 2007
Serial Killers*
With predictable results:
Each of the five major broadcast networks has already canceled one new serial drama that it introduced last fall with blaring publicity and endlessly replayed promotional snippets. Come and gone in a few short weeks were several interchangeable series featuring an unexpected crime and plenty of shoot-’em-up violence: “Smith” on CBS, “Runaway” on CW, “Kidnapped” on NBC, “Vanished” on Fox and “Day Break” on ABC.Yep, nearly all the serial shows have been canceled -- including my personal favorite, "Vanished" (not to be confused with either NBC's "Kidnapped" or the CW's "Runaway") because of low ratings. Want to figure out what happened in the central mystery's story arcs? Good luck.
This creates a frustrating set of circumstances. Viewers (even a low-rated show can still have an audience of several million people) feel betrayed because they have been roped in and asked to commit to a 23 week regular "appointment."
Only to discover that the commitment is one-sided. A few brief weeks later, the shows are off the air.
Some of the shows -- and their resolutions -- exist online at the network's web-site -- and they are often not usually easy to find.
I do give NBC some props for this. Even though certain shows are canceled, they do keep the greatest treasury of episodes up on the web of any of the four networks (including full seasons of the still-live-and-kicking, "30 Rock", "Heroes", "Friday Night Lights").
By the way, one show that was not a one-story season-long arc but was canceled nonetheless was Fox's "Justice." Too bad, good ensemble cast -- led by Victor Garber, late of "Alias.")
Unfortunately it's not easy these days to make defense attorneys attractive (last year, ABC had on a show modeled after The Innocence Project, which frees wrongly-convicted violent felons; it lasted for 13 episodes).
"Law and Order" has replaced "Perry Mason" as the preferred trial show standard. Evidently, the public wants to see defendants found guilty -- rather than be told that the "wrong person" is on trial.
Which may say something about the world in which we live.
Yes, I know: I watch too much television.
No, I don't think it keeps me from being productive in other areas. And no, it doesn't needlessly distract me from...uh, hmmm...did you know it's only four days until the new season of "24"?
Um, what was I saying?
UPDATE: Regular Commenter Bill Barker took exception with my statement that "the public wants to see defendants found guilty rather than be told the 'wrong person' is on trial."
Bill said, "I'd say it's much more accurate to write, "The public wants to see GUILTY people found GUILTY and INNOCENT people found INNOCENT."
I don't disagree with that statement: No one wants innocent people to be found guilty. However, in the above, I was noting the proliferation of police-and-prosecution shows while newer defense-attorney shows have been failing. It wasn't always this way: While cop shows have long been the rage, invariably when the action moved into the courtroom, TV has tended to focus on the defense: Perry Mason, Matlock and L.A. Law are three of the most notable.
I probably should have said that, "It might say something about our times that the public seems more interested in seeing the prosecution side of the legal system than the defense side." (ABC's Boston Legal -- a spin-off of The Practice -- is the notable exception as a legal drama centered on the law firm).
It is interesting that one of the successful new shows of the current season -- Shark -- stars James Woods as a defense attorney who switches sides and goes to work for the L.A. district attorney. That conscious artistic decision suggests the creators may be keying into a cultural shift in the audience.
*Damn! I'm on a pun-header roll today.
Labels: 24, Fox, NBC, television
