"THIS IS THE END" Of My Complacency

First, go read this.  It's not very long, and it's information you'll be glad you have.  Linda Holmes really rocks it sometimes.

And now we're going to talk about This Is The End.  I guess I'll say that there might be spoilers? Insofar as a movie like This Is The End can have spoilers, since it's not really about anything and other than the world ending, nothing really happens.  And that's in the title.  Anyway, I'll be talking about the movie as someone who has seen the movie, so if that bothers you don't click the jump.

Onward!

Because You Asked What I Think About...Family Tree

Family Tree is the new HBO show created by Christopher Guest (of This Is Spinal Tap, Waiting For Guffman, Best In Show, For Your Consideration, etc) and starring Chris O'Dowd (of The IT Crowd, Bridesmaids, and general adorableness) as a man who starts searching out bits of his family history.  It's quirky in a delightfully non-hipster way, and like all of Guest's work it's imbued with his unique charm while still being entirely its own piece of work.  The half-hour television structure is working well, and the actors we've seen so far (some familiar Guest faces like Michael McKean, some new ones) are flat-out superb and quietly hilarious.  O'Dowd's sister Bea (Nina Conti) and Monkey are some of my favorite new characters in recent memory.  Suffice to say, if you've enjoyed any of Christopher Guest's work in the past, you'll adore this, and if you're new to him than this is a lovely entry-point.  Funny, self-effacing, weird, and relatable, it's my favorite new show of the year.  The opposite of a disappointment.  Family Tree!  Go watch and tell your friends and make sure it doesn't get Enlightened.

Image via LATimes

Because You Asked What I Think About...The Office Series Finale

It wasn't perfect, you know.  But it was pretty damn close.  I really think the last three episodes should be considered the finale, because they did such a wonderful job of closing the characters' stories in appropriate and satisfying ways.  Was there a bit of wish fulfillment going on?  Obviously.  But I think it was earned.

The character of Andy has been so fucked with that any real redemption for him was impossible, but at least the Baby Wawa thing was hilarious.  I really, really love how Dwight matured in a perfectly Dwight way so that he finally was the right man for the job.  I thought all of the work done with Jim and Pam was pretty beautiful.  It was awesome how Angela basically became Meredith for a couple episodes there.  I liked all of it, really.  And there was definitely some commentary on television and on The Office as a show going on in the writing of the finale, but I mostly didn't mind it.  At its best, The Office was hilarious and smart and heartfelt and a little uncomfortable, and all of that came through in these final episodes.  Do I wish Season 8 didn't exist?  Yes.  But Season 9 did an excellent job of closing out the story arcs for these characters that we've come to care so much about in one way or another, from Darrell to Kelly to Creed.  And the finale left me satisfied and smiling.

"I just want to lie on the beach and eat hot dogs.  It's all I've ever wanted."
- Kevin Mallone

Because You Asked What I Think About...Arrested Development Season Four

There's been a lot of wonderful shit going on in the realm of television lately, and I've been asked repeatedly to share my opinions about a number of them.  So I'm going to write these little mini (for me) posts to try to write about everything in one fell swoop.

Arrested Development Season Four was, I thought, pretty awesome.  I have a long and storied relationship with the show - I can say with certainty that I have seen it more than you.  Probably watched the entire series at least 15 times, if not more.  And I'm still finding jokes that I missed the first time around!  It's great.  Going into it, I tried not to have too many expectations - I didn't even watch the trailer, though I did watch the teaser scene with Lucille and Buster smoking, which, UGH, so perfect.  And once I got to the fourth episode and the jokes really started to build, I was totally in, but the first three episodes were a little rough.  The first one with Michael and George Michael was very exposition-heavy and had a kind of sad, negative tone.  The George Sr. one was just confusing and a little dull.  And then there was Portia de Rossi's face.  But once the exposition was out of the way and we got to the meatier Lucille, Gob, Tobias, Maeby, Buster, George Michael episodes...it was just plain delightful.  The new form of storytelling that Mitchell Hurwitz experimented with here worked quite well for the most part, and after some fits and starts the whole thing really came together.  My absolute number one complaint is with the Kristen Wiig/Seth Rogan flashbacks.  In the past, Jeffrey Tambor and Jessica Walter played themselves in the flashbacks, often in a funny wig.  Breaking with that tradition ruffles my feathers, but what I really can't stand is Wiig's over-the-top, utterly cartoonish Lucille impression.  Rogan is more low-key and behaves like an actual human being and I don't mind him as much, but Wiig's purposeful, winking scenery-chewing takes me out of the show and puts me in a place of anger and ire where I start using words like "sacrilege".  The entire season would be better served if those flashbacks were just removed entirely.

I won't get into what jokes I liked or what callbacks I noticed because that just drains all the fun out of them.  Suffice to say, most of it, although I thought Ron Howard inserted himself into the plot a little (maybe a lot) more than was necessary or enjoyable.  I wanted more Buster, more Maeby, and MORE GOB, though I am hopeful for a movie or possibly even more seasons.  Jessica Walter is magnificent.

And yes, I liked the ending.

"The Perfect Last Christmas Party"

I realized a few days ago that I haven't really been talking about my shows much this fall - by that I mean the shows that are my real favorites, like Parks & Recreation.  Partly it's because I've been so busy, and partly it's because Community's not on the air, but it's also partly due to the fact that I've been watching with a more over-arching point of view, instead of simply evaluating shows on an episode by episode basis.  And with that in mind, it is time to talk about The Office.

Now, I have loved The Office for a very long time, and I was never the hugest Michael Scott fan.  I even thought the show had the potential to improve in his absence.  But they made some bad decisions along the way and cast the wrong people and went way too far down the Robert California rabbit hole and last season the show was, let's face it, bad.  Very bad.

But then this season came around.  And since we all know this is the final year, the show has been given a chance to get back to where it started as well and demonstrate how far it's come.  At the center of all that is the combination of relationships between Dwight, Jim, and Pam.  Oh, sure, there's Erin and New Jim, and Angela and Oscar, and all the rest in between and they're great, but resolving the Dwight/Jim/Pam relationships is clearly the documentarian's goal.  As someone who knows the early seasons to an obsessive point it is absolutely captivating and joyful to watch the pleasantly gradual denouement of these characters.

The Office's first Christmas episode was a classic in both the Michael-is-a-clueless-jerk and the Jim-and-Pam-are-tragically-in-love veins, with the Yankee Swap and the teapot and the shameless-but-apt iPod promotion and the Meredith's boobs.  It set the stage for many, many more great Christmas episodes - the dueling margarita/nutcracker parties (which includes my favorite Creed line: "I don't care which party I go to. Once you've danced naked at a hash bonfire with the spirits of the dead, all parties seem pretty much the same"); the Morrocan Meredith Intervention Christmas (which I believe was also the Princess Unicorn episode - "My horn can pierce the sky!"); the one where Phyllis is Santa.  The Christmas party is a time where the employees of Dunder Mifflin open up and get drunk and embrace the holiday spirit, and it's always a highlight of the season.  Last year's Christmas episode was a bright spot in a dark, glum year.

Moving Forward With "Modern Family"

Damn, it's been too long, folks.  Unfortunately, when you're applying to grad school and traveling and picking up extra jobs to pay them bills, your little-read blog about television is the first thing to fall by the wayside.  That doesn't mean that I haven't had things to talk about, or been building up posts in my head for when I finally have the time to write them.  This season of Boardwalk Empire has been spectacular, and I'll be writing about it some time in the next week.  The Mindy Project is going well, but the real surprise of the new fall shows has been Ben And Kate, which is just a delightful, smart, playful romp every week.  Go On is solidly enjoyable.  Last Resort keeps getting better.  Revolution keeps getting worse.  The Office is, surprisingly, mostly turning it out for their last season, although everyone agrees that making Andy into a horrible monster was a terrible move.  Parks & Recreation is great, of course, although I do have some small nitpicks we'll get to eventually.  How I Met Your Mother is what it is, which is to say a little dull, very repetitive, a nice vehicle to get my Jason Segel fix, and still very staunchly Not Friends, however hard they try.  RuPaul's Drag Race All-Stars is so poorly formatted that not only are the wrong people going home every week, but the show itself is actually boring.  What a disappointment.

But you know what's not a disappointment?  This season of Modern Family.  Oh, there have been some missteps (that stereotypical lesbian couple?  Let's not ever mention that again.) and just last night Jay made a homophobic joke ("If you had a man who wanted to pick out strollers with you, you wouldn't have gotten pregnant in the first place" UGH).  But this season seems to be focused more on the individual characters we've developed a relationship with, and less on making lazy jokes about whatever boring archetype they belong to (shrewish wife, trophy wife, nerdy girl, effeminate gay man, etc.).

"Go On" Just Isn't Quite There Yet

About a year and a half ago, there was this show that premiered around mid-season on ABC called Mr. Sunshine.  It was fantastic.  It was created by Matthew Perry, and served to highlight his notably wry brand of humor.  It was cancelled after six episodes, and I'm pretty sure that I remain the only person who has ever seen all six.  Its cancellation had nothing to do with the quality of the show, and everything to do with the fact that it premiered on a Tuesday in March, and all the promotion in the world won't help a show that isn't given a chance to find an audience or build up steam.  I was really bummed out about it, because I love Matthew Perry (and Allison Janney and Jorge Garcia and everyone else who was on that show), and it seemed such a shame for him to have finally found the perfect vehicle and then to have the politics of television programming just totally fuck that up.

Go On is not Mr. Sunshine.  Is Perry good in it?  Yes, because he is good.  Is John Cho my favorite for ever and ever and do I love him SO MUCH?  Yes.  But remember when I was talking about bland comedy?  Go On is it.  I've heard a couple other people compare it to Community, and after watching the third episode this week, such a comparison is inevitable.  You've got an emotionally closed-off man who joins a group for purely selfish reasons and then, you know, learns things and becomes friends with them and everyone is very different and diverse and isn't it hilarious?  Errrrrr...it isn't.  It isn't very hilarious, and that's not because they talk about his dead wife all the time.  It's because I have seen this show before, done a million times better.  And, it's because, as much as I love Matthew Perry, it's really John Cho who should be given his own starring vehicle.    Funny, handsome, young, and whip-smart, Cho could connect with viewers in a way that, if he were in the lead, would drive this show to success.  And who knows?  It's still early days; Go On has the potential to get much sillier and more creative as the season goes on.  But right now, it's looking like the easily-digestible, very standard show that everyone at NBC wished Community had been.

But at least it's better than Animal Practice.  Animal Practice is TERRIBLE.  You guys remember that episode of The Office where Jim and Pam and Andy are watching a fake movie starring Jack Black and Cloris Leachman?  That's what Animal Practice feels like.  A fake TV show that fake people watch on another TV show, played for laughs at how bad it is.  Uncle Andy, what have they done to you?  Annie's Boobs, what have they done to YOU?

Image via IMDB

Summer Watch List

So, as you may have noticed, it is summer.  And aside from a time where some of us like to engage in this little-known activity called reading, it is also a time when the cable networks put out some of their best shows.  So what have I been watching?  Not Breaking Bad.  But lots of other things!

Episodes

I'll admit that I've already finished Season 2 of Episodes.  Much like Downton Abbey, it airs in the UK months before it comes to the States, and so it's easy to find links online.  And so even though I only started watching the season last weekend, I'm already done.  The reason for this is that it's SO EFFING GOOD.  Literally everything about this show is fantastic, but especially the actors.  Matt LeBlanc continues to be great at playing a parody of himself, and Tamsin Greig and Stephen Mangan are always brilliant as the transplanted British writers/producers, but this season gave more of the spotlight to the supporting actors, and Kathleen Rose Perkins shines like a goddamn star.  Her portrayal of Carol is at once pathetic and empowering; infuriating and endearing; hilarious and sad.  She's taken the character from the one-note Rigid Studio Executive and turned Carol into someone we root for and whose motives we come to understand.  And she's just SO fucking funny.  John Pankow as the studio head Merc Lapidus is a comedic gem, and Genevieve O'Reilly as his blind wife Jamie plays her role with a quiet subtlety that'll make you laugh out loud (as two characters are fighting and chaos erupts amongst the cast, she just keeps yelling, "What's going on???!!!").  Daisy Haggard as the erstwhile, clueless exec with the weird moaning voice steals every single scene she's in and Joseph May as Andy Button is the type of character who would eat a popsicle made of shit if you told him it was fudge - while smiling.  I honestly can't pick a favorite character because I love them all, and I didn't mean to brush past Greig and Mangan because they carry the show, and both actors' abilities to transform from glib to gutwrenching in the blink of an eye is astounding.  They grab you by the heartballs, and just won't let go.

Anyway, not to give anything away, but the season finale is one of my favorite moments of comedy of the entire year.  There're only nine episodes, so get watching and seriously, don't miss out on this show.

Why We Should All Be Effing Pissed About Dan Harmon Being Fired

In case you missed it, since The Man did everything they could to make sure you would miss it, Dan Harmon was fired as showrunner of Community on Friday.  I highly recommend you go read about it in his own words because, like so much else that he does, it's funny and poignantly sad.

Done?  Okay, so here's why this sucks:  they figured out a way to cut the creative balls off of Community without killing it outright.  Look, clearly they've been gunning for Community for a long time.  Business men don't like shows that are smart because they might have to put some actual work into properly marketing them.  But when they tried to quietly kill it back in December, the Internet exploded.  Fans went crazy.  The comment thread at The AV Club's post for "Regional Holiday Music" exceeded 30,000 posts.  Community won not only Splitsider's tournament for The Best Sitcom Episode Ever, but also Hulu's Best In Show competition.  While I'm sure that the people in charge would have loved for Community to die a quiet death after airing the back ten episodes, that obviously wasn't going to happen.

Then two unfortunate things occurred.  Well, one occurred a year ago when Harmon's contract was only renewed for one instead of the usual two seasons.  The second was the Chevy Chase debacle.  Who knows how much effect Chevy's dickishness and Harmon's poor handling of the situation had on THIS situation, but you can bet it didn't help anything.  If nothing else, it provides enough reasonable doubt so bloggers like me will speculate on it since no one, not even Dan Harmon, really know all the reasons he was let go.  But I think that mishandled event is more of an excuse than an impetus for this disaster.

Taking Dan Harmon off of Community is like slaughtering Khal Drogo's horse.  It's like Peeta after the tracker jacker torture or McMurphy post-lobotomy.  They cut out the part that fights for what is good and right in this world.  They cut out the originality and the creativity and the magnificent, not-a-fuck-giving mind that created this show that speaks so wholeheartedly to my generation.  And look, it's not like Community is going to be bad; I have faith that as long as Megan Ganz is in the writing room, things will be alright.  It's not like the remarkably talented cast is going anywhere.  But it will not be the same groundbreaking, inspiring show it has been.  And that's because neither NBC nor Sony has ever shown much of an interest in supporting or marketing the show, but they also didn't want to anger all the millions of fans by cancelling it, so they first moved it to goddamn Fridays after goddamn Whitney (while The Office keeps its lazy, decomposing ass parked at 9 pm Thursdays) and then sneakily went in, cut off the head, legs, and balls, sent a press release to TV Guide at 7 pm on a Friday, and hoped no one would notice.  Well, guess what?  Notice taken, assholes.

So, other than the idiots who run television taking a big ol' dump on the fans and viewers that support them, why should we be pissed about this?  Because Dan Harmon is a champion for a new kind of television.  From its pilot episode, Community has celebrated diversity, not just in terms of race and gender and age and sexuality, but in terms of personality.  Harmon, like Matthew Weiner, personally fought for more women in the writing room, and as a result developed some of the most interesting, well-rounded, and hilarious female characters on television.  Community is all about diverse people coming together and forming a - what's it called? Oh, right, a community.  Is there another sitcom on television that features so many actors of color?  Nope.  Is there another sitcom that presents a queer character who likes to cross-dress in such a loving, non-judgmental light while still celebrating his inherent humor?  Sadly, no.  No other show has the temerity to take on a character like Fat Neil with such studied compassion, or to use an elderly character like Leonard to such a consistently brilliant degree.  Community has covered religion, lesbians, poor people, racist gardeners, racist parents, homophobic parents, plain shitty parents, racist grandparents, weight issues, bullying, class issues...and NONE of it has been preachy or saccharine.  Community has dealt in human emotions and chose to focus on what unites us instead of what divides us.  It has presented different kinds of people as PEOPLE, not as stereotypes.

I saw all this as the future of television.  But it seems like the people in charge don't see it that way at all.  Watching the upfront trailers, my stomach dropped lower and lower as white face after white face flashed on my screen (notable exception being The Mindy Project, which looks great and I can't believe NBC didn't pick it up except I can because they're obviously frittataed).  Network television looks whiter than it did in the 90s.  And Ryan Murphy gets to continue perpetuating his favorite stereotype that the only gays that matter are young white males.  What I wouldn't give for a funny queer chick on TV....

So, yeah.  I'm pissed, and sad, and currently trying to figure out what I need to do to get a job in television production so I can start changing things from within.  Dan Harmon has spent the last three years challenging our ideas of what television could and should be; he has given a voice to those who have for so long been voiceless; he created Troy and Abed, two of the best television characters of all time played by two of the very best comedic actors (not that the Emmys have noticed, because, you know, racism).  For me, he created a show that so clearly exemplified what I love about television that it helped me realize my passion and inspired me to work towards a career in the industry.  So I will stand with Dan Harmon in whatever he decides to do next (and it hopefully involves Chris McKenna, who left the show in solidarity with Dan), and we'll just have to wait and see what happens with Community next season.  Although the threat of cancellation has hung over the show all year, that thankfully allowed Harmon & Co. to pull out all the stops and fill this season with awesomeness.  Yesterday when I was mourning by rewatching most of season three, I kept thinking how appropriate the theme song is, and has been to this show.

"Gimme some more time in a dream

Gimme the hope to run out of steam

Somebody said it can be here

We could be roped up, tied up, dead in a year"

Dream big, don't give up, fight for what's right, and write every show like you're about to get cancelled - THAT'S how you make great television.  The season finale wrapped up in what would have been a satisfying series ending, and we'll just have to hope that when Abed steps into his mini Dreamatorium, he's imagining an alternate, far happier timeline.

Thanks for everything, Dan.

Images via aspecialthing, videogum

Why It's Important To Keep Talking About Girls

One of the interesting (read: super depressing) things that has arisen over this whole Girls brouhaha is the backlash against the backlash.  Everyone was fine to talk about it for a week, but to keep talking about it was to "not be able to let things go".  But to not keep talking about it is, in my eyes, to ignore it, and like it or not, ignoring it is not the way to handle the issue.

I admit that my last post on the subject was a bit vitriolic, and my friend said, "It kind of sounded like you just hate the East Coast" which isn't the case at all.  There are many, many, things that I adore about the East Coast, but the tendency of people who live in New York City and produce work for the screen (or write, or blog, or photograph, or paint, or whatever) to be navel-gazingly obsessed with living in New York City and what that means is one of my least favorite things about pop culture in general and the East Coast in particular. I have lived in and spent a lot of time in different states up and down the East Coast and no matter what, my feelings about it always come back to Joni - "I wouldn't want to stay here; it's too old and cold and settled in its ways here".  In California, everyone is from somewhere else.  The importance of old money and history and who your family is and where you went to school fades here; we care about who you are now and where you're going and if your actions will help the world or the community.  Oh, we definitely trade in other weird issues (go watch some Portlandia for examples) and in certain circles all the dumb moneyed social crap still stands, but in my extensive experience, it's not as pervasively a part of the culture out west.

I see this idea of The Way Things Are Done not only in Girls, but in the backlashbacklash as well.  Famous people's children have always had an easier way of it, they say.  Why are you punishing Dunham for writing what she knows? the handwringers cry.  The types of people Hannah and her friends are probably DO only have white friends and it is ridiculous to expect otherwise, I'm told.  And my favorite, why aren't you as mad at any of the other all-white shows out there?  Why has Girls been forced to try to fulfill so many expectations?

Let's address these one by one.

Wherein I Cry Actual Tears At The Parks & Rec Finale

Season finales abounded last night!  But we're only gonna talk about two of them.

Well, actually, three, because I've been meaning to say something about the Castle finale all week, so we'll start there.  Castle!  Ba-bam!  Finally!  Ok, the episode itself was pretty terrible because for some reason the showrunners use the season finales/premieres to abandon all the witty and glib humor that makes the show worth watching for heavy-handed, depressingly dramatic bullshit...but that doesn't mean that Nathan Fillion isn't AMAZING and TOTALLY THE BEST.  He delivers this speech that is pained and honest and beautiful and gratifying and Beckett, because she is an atrocious, selfish person, responds in an atrocious, selfish way.  Just watch:



But I never watched this show for her.  I've always known she's The Worst.  Like I said about last year's season finale, "We just want Castle and Beckett to make out.  It's all we've ever wanted."  And that's the truth. So I could care less about the crazy conspiracy and about Tahmoh Whatshisface from Dollhouse being a super-good murderer and about Esposito and Ryan's terminal cases of Serious Face and all of it, because at the end, not only did they make out hard-core, but they also definitely HAD THE SEX.  Which gives me great hopes for next season being less about Beckett's boring and illogical mental and emotional hangups and more about Castle and Beckett having all the sex.  I just can't believe it took FOUR SEASONS to get there.

Moving on.

How I Met Your Mother: Growing Up & Losing "Friends"

Sometimes I wait so long to post not because I have nothing to say, but because I'm not sure how to say it.  Or because I keep waiting to get inspired by a show that has ceased to be inspiring.  This post is full of a bunch of things that've been rattling around in my brain and have finally reached the point where they need to be forced out.

Oh, How I Met Your Mother.  I have been meaning for months to write a post about how this season of HIMYM has been markedly better from last season (or, as I call it, The Jennifer Morrison Tragedy), but have been waiting for an exemplary episode to really bring it all together.  That episode never came.  After "The Ducky Tie" early on, so full of promises and hope and boobs, HIMYM has sort of evened out to a mostly enjoyable, mostly mediocre sitcom.  The performances of the actors continue to give the show life and spirit, but the writing just isn't as fresh.  If you go back to an episode from seasons 2, 3, or 4, you'll find it has an edge that these days, has been blunted.

Veep Life

So, in all of the miserable hubbub about Girls, no one is talking about Veep.  Well, not no one, I heard a thing about it on NPR, but you know what I mean.  But, hey!  Guess what?  Veep is fantastic!

I should have started by mentioning that this show co-stars Tony Hale, and obviously anything Tony Hale touches turns to beautiful gold, including that episode of Dawson's Creek where he tells Dawson he has to pull the old man's plug or when he was the amazing ceramics teacher on Community ("No Ghosting!").  So it should come as no surprise to anyone that his role on an HBO comedy is anything other than perfection.

And, oh!  Julia Louis-Dreyfus!  I mean, talk about women in comedy.  It might be a little unfair to compare Veep to Girls, but too bad so sad, they're on the same night on the same channel so I'ma do whatever I want.  Whereas Hannah in Girls is relentlessly pathetic and trying so hard to be REAL that she becomes REALly unbearable, Veep's Selena is flawed in some charming ways of which she seems hyper-aware yet simultaneously totally oblivious, but her shortcomings only make her more likable and relatable (which, sadly, is I believe what Dunham was trying to achieve). And just the fact that Veep's cast has an authentic gender-balance, actual characters of color, and shows a woman holding a serious position of power (and yet simultaneously no power at all because being the Vice President sucks) in our government makes in miles better in terms of "women characters on television" than anything I saw on Girls.  Point made, contradictions left unexplained, let's move on.

"Hot. Hot hot hot."

I know it seems like this has become a Community blog, but I promise that isn't the case.  I'm watching just as much television as ever, and will be talking about HIMYM, Up All Night, and Awake in the coming week.  I wasn't planning on recapping "Contemporary Impressionists", but then I watched it and holy hell!  What an amazing half-hour of television!  Like, comedically, of course, but also artistically...they just blew me away.

So the group is back from a very long winter break, and we learn that Abed has been hiring celebrity impersonators for fun.  We also learn that Jeff has a new shrink who has put him on anti-anxiety meds, which our budding psychologist Britta believes will only increase his pathological narcissism to a dangerously high level.  I love what they've done with Britta being a psych major - everyone knows the psych majors are all the craziest (no offense intended...I was almost a psych major).  This is one of my favorite Jeff moments EVER:



"Hello." makes me giggle EVERY TIME.

And then there's this.



If Jim Rash didn't already have an Oscar, that would have just won him the Oscar of my heart.  Like...what??? Amazing.  And we are not even a quarter of the way through this episode.

Community At PaleyFest

It's been almost two weeks since I saw Community at PaleyFest, and I know I probably should have written about it before now seeing that the Internet is going to blowing up with Community-related bidness tonight and tomorrow, but I don't care.  The posts come as they come, folks.  Anyway, it was an amazing night.  One of the reasons I've waited so long to do this is that the way the panel made me feel is almost ineffable.  But I'm getting ahead of myself.

My seat was in the third row.  I can't emphasize enough how much of a difference that made.  Being close enough to not only see but also hear every little thing that was going on with the people on-stage was like being let in on a secret.  Watching the panels on LiveStream or even from farther back in the theater where you have to rely on the big screen is an incomplete experience.  The camera usually only shows 1-3 people at a time, but often the rest of the panel is doing or saying something that you would also like to see or hear, or the camera isn't quick enough to catch a quick visual joke that someone makes.  Danny Pudi and Ken Jeong in particular were sitting together and were basically just making jokes and having fun the ENTIRE time.  It was maravilloso.

Danny must hate his job

So the TV critic who's running the panel (my future job, fingers crossed) came out and introduced Dan Harmon, who then came out and gave a little talk that was equal parts grump and gratitude.  I love how little he cares about what anybody thinks of him and also his visible graciousness to his fans.  That was something that was apparent over and over again during the night: the people who work on Community know how much their fans love them, and the impact that the fans have had on the show's (hopefully rising) success, and they seem to be happy and even eager to do what they can to return that love.  So.  Basically they are all amazing people making an amazing show and I love them all.  The end.

Look at Danny's face!

Just kidding!  There is so much more!  Mr. Harmon introduced the episode that premieres tonight, "Urban Matrimony and the Sandwich Arts" (ahahahaha what?!) and then we got to watch it!  On the big screen!  Which was awesome.  I honestly don't remember much more than the basic plot of the episode because I was so hyped up on adrenaline, white wine, and love, but I remember it being VERY funny and having so many things I adore (Dreamatorium, anyone?) and laughing pretty much constantly and thinking, "Wow, they sure packed a crazy ton of jokes in here for the fans".  So be excited.  What's the opposite of a disappointment?  Because this episode is it.  I was able to scribble down one singular quote, which I believe was from Britta:  "I know what [an analogy] is! It's like a thought with another thought's hat on!"

So after the episode the panel came out for the discussion.  It included Harmon, two or three writers/producers, and the entire cast excepting Donald Glover and Chevy Chase.  During the Q&A somebody asked why Chevy never came to these things, which I thought was both rude and also wrong, because I've watched him on at least one of these panels before.  They were all like, "Uh, he does when he can.  He's busy.  He's Chevy Chase.  So rude! (words and emphasis mine)"  Basically the critic/moderator asked questions and people would answer them or just talk about whatever.  I'll admit, in the past I've been kind of bored by these types of panels, but what made this one so great is that everyone just used it as an opportunity to not only give a lot of love to the fans and share some cool behind-the-scenes tidbits with us, but also just to make a ton of jokes and be incredibly funny.  Danny Pudi and Ken Jeong were rocking it (I can only imagine what kind of fembot explosion I would have gone through had Donald Glover & his overwhelming hotness & mad improv skills been there), but Joel McHale was also totes killing it with his off-the-cuff one-liners and Jim Rash was/is (a) an amazing genius and (b) the toast of the theater/Internet, fresh off his Oscar win/successful mockery of Angelina Jolie.  This is where it became obvious that sitting up close was crucial.  While one person would be answering a question, somebody else would be telling a quiet joke to their neighbor, or, more often than not, doing a physical comedy bit, and the camera would miss it.  But not me!

"Monsterating"

So, you may have noticed that I haven't really been doing the episode recapping like I used to. There are a few reasons for this; one, that recapping is totally a time drain because I have to watch the episode multiple times, and two, that I've been more interested in focusing on broader-picture stuff ever since the Glee Christmas episode brutally murdered the recapper in me. It's not that there aren't episodes that I'd love to talk about - I'm planning a post on this turbulent season of How I Met Your Mother in the coming weeks - I just often don't have the time or energy. But this week's episode of Modern Family was one of the worst of the entire series, and included all of my main issues with the show, so it will not be ignored and we're gonna talk about it RIGHT NOW. Because REALLY???!!! Try to at least pretend like you deserve all those awards.

To begin with, though, let's throw out a positive. One of my main complaints about Modern Family used to be Manny. He was so overly precocious and grossly sexualized and given waaaaaay too much screen time. This problem has been fixed this season (probably in response to critics, because I know I'm not the only one who felt this way), with Manny taking more of a backseat and acting more like a regular-yet-unique preteen. A good move on the writers' part, because it allows him to play the straight man against more insouciant characters like Luke and Gloria. So props are to be had for this adjustment.

And that is the only good thing I have to say.

I Am Such A Nerd

This interview over at the AV Club with Bill Lawrence (creator of Spin City, Scrubs, and Cougar Town) is super excellent and totally worth a read. He talks about the evolution of Cougar Town and his experience working with the networks and about a lot of the stuff I was just discussing in The Community Conundrum about the obsolete nature of Nielson ratings and the ways in which television is changing. Maybe I'm just a huge television nerd, but it was one of the best interviews on the subject that I've read in a while.

Speaking of Cougar Town, I watched the whole series a few months ago and for the most part, really enjoyed it. It's a simple show about friendships and comedy and parenthood and wine, and I highly encourage anyone who has been put off by the name to not only go read that interview for Lawrence's explanation of its genesis, but also check out some episodes (maybe start at the second half of the first season if the cougar thing REALLY puts you off)! The cast is great (although lacking in diversity), the writing is solid, and overall the show is just irreverent and super fun. The first episode of the third season aired last night; go check it out! Or at least send Bill Lawrence a supportive tweet or two.

This Is An Excellent Idea

Have you been following The Best Sitcom Episode Ever Tournament over at SplitSider? I highly recommend doing so. The first round came out pretty much in my favor, with TWO episodes of Community making it through the juggernaut. Is Community ever not the greatest? The one heartbreaking decision I had to make was between Parks & Rec's "The Fight" and Arrested Development's "Pier Pressure"...if they had picked any other AD episode I might have been tempted to give it to "The Fight" because that episode is excellent and is responsible for THIS, but "Pier Pressure" deserves to win the entire tournament, it's a perfect episode from start to finish and is responsible for many of my favorite AD moments. I could quote you half the episode right now. Anyway, I highly recommend going over and voting because there are still plenty of shows that deserve to be eliminated (WKRP, Cheers, Sunny), and even more that need your votes to make it to the next round (Party Down, Friends, Community, The Simpsons)! I predict that the 21st Century bracket will come down to "Modern Warfare" and "Pier Pressure", and who knows what I'll do then, but if I had to pick two to go face to face in the final round, it'd be one of those two episodes (I just can't decide!) and Steve Guttenberg's Birthday, which is an incredible masterpiece of television art.

I love this game! It's so difficult! It's making me crazy! I love it! Go vote!

The Community Conundrum

So, I've been watching Season 2 of Community for probably the fifth or sixth time, and it is still impossibly hard for me to understand just why this amazing show is not more successful. Oh, sure, you can point to the Dinner With Andre episode or the Hearts Of Darkness episode as examples of how esoteric the show can be, but for every episode like that, there are ten that are incredibly funny in a remarkably simple way. People constantly talk about how smart Community is, and they're right, but that's not the ONLY thing it is. It's not usually smart in the way that Arrested Development is smart - a sort of tricksy, dirty, pulling-one-over-on-the-censors kind of way (sometimes Community does do these kinds of jokes, and I love them, but that's not the point). Community's comedy is mostly just really funny, straight-up jokes. What differentiates it from other, non-mockumentary sitcoms like its timeslot competitor, The Big Bang Theory, is that Community's jokes are well-written. Awesomely-written, in fact. The writers and producers have a vision and a great deal of investment in their characters and they write incredible jokes for them. On top of that, Community has a stellar cast of comedians with some of the best improvisational skills, with Donald Glover leading the pack. Did you know "Set phasers to 'love me'" was an improv? He's stupendous. What makes people call Community "smart" is that they're simply not doing the same tired jokes that sitcoms have been doing for years. Once you scratch the surface, one Chuck Lorre sitcom is pretty much exactly the same as another - tired jokes about gender roles or fat people where glorified assholes are dicks to and then sleep with women much more attractive than they are. Throw in some thinly-veiled homophobia and you've got 83% of sitcoms on the air. Community's brand of comedy doesn't generally require the viewer to think or be knowledgeable about anything erudite or complicated - it just requires an openness to jokes that don't reinforce all the stupid, previously-constructed concept of what a sitcom is. Sitcoms don't have to all be "Men and women are so different! How will they ever get along in this crazy world? Also, don't get too close with that good friend of yours or people will think you're gay!" Community proves these shows can be silly, whimsical, creative, heartfelt, and, best of all, surprising, while still being continuously laugh-out-loud hilarious.

Um, WTF?

So last week, after being pretty proud of the piece I wrote in response to the Golden Globes about comedy awards, I submitted it to The Hairpin. Unlike Jezebel in its heydey (pre-2010), I don't like or read everything that's on the site, but a fair amount of it is pretty great and funny (especially The League Of Ordinary Ladies), and I think my voice could fit in well. Now, I didn't receive any sort of personalized response from them (just a boilerplate "we'll read your stuff and get back to you") and, while it would have been nice to at least hear SOMETHING, I wasn't really expecting for them to publish it because as a writer, you should never, ever expect that. Then last night, as I was catching up on my Hairpin reading, I saw this (posted on the 17th by Jane Marie):

Some people are mad at you because you're not really a comedic actress or something, and okay. But on to the real issue: YOU ARE THE BEST ON ENLIGHTENED and now it is official and not just a rule in my house. Amy, the character you play, is a living nightmare. I said it! Like, you really just want to duct tape her all up. Don't you leave that chair, Amy. And shut up! Don't say what you are about to... I KICK AT MY TELEVISION AND LOOSE A SQUEAL OF RAGE. For a mundane but infuriating example: don't tell your mom all about how you went over to your druggie ex-husband's house in the middle of the night and then get MAD at her, like literally throw a witchy tantrum because you are being personally violated, when she goes "Why?"

My skin crawls at you, Amy. It feels so good. You win, Laura. Incredible. Everyone go watch the whole thing and then let's all send Mike White care packages to keep him happy while he writes us another season.

And I am instantly frustrated. Because the point of my whole post (that the writer somehow both emphasizes and undermines) is that if Laura Dern is so great (and she is, I'm definitely not disputing that), then she should win a dramatic award for her (very obviously) DRAMATIC acting. Arguing that she should win a comedic award simply because she is good just continues this tradition of disrespecting comedy and misunderstanding female comedians.

Let me be very clear: I really love Enlightened, and I've been a Mike White fan since he was a writer on Dawson's Creek. But it is absolutely not a comedy. If the dramatic awards go to dramas, and the comedic awards go to dramas, where does that leave comedy? I continue to be irritated, and not only because Jane Marie flippantly dismissed the well-supported premise of my entire piece with the argument of "But I like her!". This has got to change somehow, and it's not going to unless enough people make some noise. But The Hairpin's noise is, in this case, just another part of the problem.

Boo, sadface. I will console myself with tonight's episode of Parks & Rec.