Are Glee and South Park the same show?
Whenever I try to discuss my affection for the long-running comedy, one of the biggest problems I come across is how difficult to pronounce how or why I find the characters in the microcosm that is South Park intelligent, funny and even loveable. This is a show that just produced one of it’s most emotionally resonant episode ever and it featured an adult using farts in a song and and literal shit as a metaphor. This is similar to Glee, a show that at-first glance appears to be the very opposite of crude and thematic, but the way both shows attempt to manipulate the audience into emotion and reasoning be it earned or no, is interesting. South Park used to be a pop-culture phenomenon when it first began, putting Comedy Central onto the map and used it’s buzzed about status to childish but evolving intelligence to arguably form the ideals of millions of people who tuned in each week to see who was being hated upon, what message was being learnt and how Cartman can up his dickish tendencies. The same applies for the smash Sophomore hit Glee, it’s garnered a larger and perhaps even more influential place in our media with traces of it being felt in gossip magazines all the way through to crowd-filling concerts with a demographic that can reach from children to elders and it can use the episode to argue points about homophobia and equality all while trying to tell a simple story.
Obviously, being a musical each week Glee has an unfiltered adoration of musical spectacle, from Journey to Wicked to Britney Spears. Something that the Matt and Trey behind South Park also share in form of mostly alt-rock, but their love for classic ’80s and even Billboard Top 40 shines through the shows history. Besides the creators behind lyrical with performance, that adoration shines through and if I’m allowed to quote wikipedia (due to lack of source)
[Trey] Parker says that the varying uses of music is of utmost importance to South Park. Several characters often play or sing songs in order to change or influence a group’s behavior, or to educate, motivate, or indoctrinate others. The show also frequently features scenes in which its characters have disapproving reactions to the performances of certain popular musicians.
Amusingly, but not surprisingly, that applies to Glee. Ryan Murphy and Trey Parker are of similar age (45 and 41, respectively) so they grew up consuming the same mainstream pop culture, which may have lead to them developing cynical outlooks against positive backdrops: Glee is about the underdogs, kids coming together, being snarky and laughing it off because they can pull together in the techicoloured McKinley High. The show, like South Park, works as a microcosm for larger America, and as South Park uses it’s vibrant city to shower the audience simple but usually comical imagery, it more successfully turns headlines and ideas into overblown narratives that hinge on the characters darker edges.
That is, however, just on the macro level, the parallels are more striking when you look at the structure of both and how individual episodes inform their world at large. Glee and South Park both service a wide and ever growing ensembles, throwing bones to characters originally in the background much later on. An obvious example would be how Lauren Zizes, a character first joked about in a cutaway gag in the pilot episode of Glee and reoccuring extra since became one of the major new regular additions in the second season and then relegated perhaps other more important players originally. South Park, being on for significantly longer has a history with breaking out the characters, with those sitting in the boys fourth grade classroom having the most development. They have an entire town at their disposal, and when Matt and Trey find the need to tell a story without the main families and friends, the supporting cast is strong enough to be able to set episodes against with ease.
McKinley High and South Park also share an weird type of memory-lapse wherein characters forget things week-in-week-out whilst other events remain the same. In South Park, it plays fast and loose with it. It’s always difficult to analyse an animated comedy for character development since they all like to play in open sandboxes and when they do change events up, they are only minor (American Dad, Futurama) but South Park characters, especially notable in the last few years, have retained a sense of memory and callback frequently. For a show where a character died every episode for the first few seasons, this type of continuity is baffling and strange. Or was? Still is? In season 14, the creators decided to do (another) fully-fledged three part storyarc focusing on the kids superhero identities - some previously established, most new – and the trilogy combined social situations (the BP oil spill), humour and character history (the sad self-awareness behind Kenny’s death) in a way never done before in it’s long lifespan. The “retcon” behind Kenny gave purpose to a throw-away line that appeared seven seasons prior and gave the world some balance that wouldn’t normally be found in a situation comedy. Glee, essentially, does the same thing – the characters are usually less consistent scene-to-scene, week-to-week than those in South Park, but it also offers up the same lack-of-caring that Matt and Trey do. Events and emotion is seemingly pulled out of a hat and then delivered on one episode and not the following, this is the norm. It’s a sitcom timeline. It’s The Simpsons. Except, sometimes it doesn’t hit the reset button offering some bizarre changes and “arcs” on television. Sue Sylvester, the character most lost struggle with comedy versus drama, became principle for several episodes during the show’s second season; for an episode, this type of joke works – it just does. There’s not much to it, it puts the shows antagonist into an authoritative position and the character beats almost write themselves after it. It’s a well-worn comedy trope and Glee almost accentuates why it doesn’t know what it’s own rules to it’s form are because of it. Common practice, resolved or not, would be a gag played in such a manner wouldn’t carry through. But it did. Sue remained the school principle for several more episodes and all logic went out of the window; it wasn’t funny, or inspired and didn’t even lead to any conflict. It was just a moment that carried through and might be the norm on a stricter drama, but felt out-of-place and outright bizarre on a comedy that once featured the same character dressed up and singing a song from How The Grinch Stole Christmas
The consistency on the two shows, two shows that do things no other series on television can do, is notable too. Glee and South Park can go from producing one of their most unsuccessful, unfunny, and off-mark pieces of writing to snapping up the following week with one of their wittiest, smartest hours and most heartfelt moments ever. The way their writing staffs are composed (three men on Glee, two men (plus some help) on South Park) emphasis how difficult it is for a Aaron Sorkin type domination to be had over a multi-faceted television show. Matt Stone and Trey Parker have always understood and had the time to work out what they enjoy and work their series around that – they use messages when necessary and use the (relative) freedom granted to them by Comedy Central to their advantage and form their sitcom in that manner. Ryan Murphy, Ian Brennan and Brad Falchuk behind Glee have an far wider cult following them and as their show walks the line, the realisation is apparent is that the form that they choose to write for is only accepted practice in comedies. Game-changing ideas can be executed and forgotten like that, but Glee’s identity problem is as simple as choosing as falling of a fence into the sandbox they want. If it wants to have a floating sense of continuity, like South Park, then it would need to be a thing that always happens. Not when a specific writer is writing a different show to his other two cohorts, as per Todd VanderWerff’s “Three Glees” theory (wherein each creator envisions and writes for their own show) but a unified sense of direction. This is ostensibly the largest difference between Glee and South Park. The superficial are obvious, but the biggest difference stems from it’s similarity. It holds no one ideal, no rule book, and because of that fact, it’s continued existence has only been to highlight this. Instead of having different themes and stories all fitting under one expensive umbrella, it opted to go cheaper and use many umbrellas – even though they keep breaking.
It’s third season will see an hired writers room which should, by all logic and reason, the show should feel more cohesive and hopefully won’t be seeing VanderWerff writing the Fourteen Glees theory come next winter. Meanwhile, South Park could very possibly be ending at the same time and although it’s has had it’s ups and downs throughout its lifetime, the writers are second-to-none for comedic stories that are both ripped-from-the-headlines and deeply rooted in character motivations.
“What if it doesn’t work, Elena?” – Narrative and story arcs in The Vampire Diaries
The timeliness of this post is unparalleled; the second season of The CW’s runaway supernatural hit has concluded and now we’re in the long summer hiatus until we’ll be joined once more by the buzz, and indeed the folk, of Mystic Falls. The finale of the second season was as-expected in many ways, and it’s pacing (oft termed as “breakneck”) has developed its own rhythm that is both awesome and problematic. Beyond the fiendishly cliché pilot, The Vampire Diaries has very rarely confined to the television form offering episode, and even season-esque cliffhangers in the second act of an episode (which may perhaps be best termed chapters). This pacing can be both advantageous and dangerous, as previously in Josh Schwartz’ teen-soap The O.C. The show became a critical darling (for a soap) because of it’s fresh, brisk use of storylines; with arcs that could have earned themselves entire seasons being dead and buried after seven episodes. The trouble was to keep up that pace for however many seasons the show would continue, and that was apparent in the subsequent seasons, notably the third (regaining energy for the fourth). Since then, Gossip Girl has continued to use Schwartz’ inherent beat for stories somewhat making it the norm amongst Primetime soap consumers. It was only a matter of time then, that that energy is sustained and is built upon for the next show — The Vampire Diaries.
Something of an departure for co-developer Kevin Williamson, who’s previous credits include Dawson’s Creek and the Scream films, The Vampire Diaries takes plotting to a new level. It doesn’t work on the season-long story arc that would now be expected of the form thanks of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. It dances to it’s own beat and ends what should have been a cliffhanger for the season seven episodes in, swiftly opening up another arc before the former had time to sink in. The concept of The Originals is something I’ve had trouble to grasp all along, because after two (literal!) minutes of letting the characters soak up their drama-free lives we were thrown into this new mythos that lacked any connective tissue to the preceding 30 episodes.
Similarly, one of my frequent complaints about the second season is that there’s no time to breathe – and it sometimes lack reason for us, too. If we’re meant to care about a character, their life, and indeed their death – that death should hold some weight over the characters and show tonally. Creating the precedent that almost anything can happen is troublesome for obvious reasons – if a character can be brought back from death; why do we need to invest in such a character? When characters can be brought back whenever the plot necessitates it (which isn’t inherently a bad thing*) death instantly loses its significance. Although, weirdly enough, the show embraces this fact and doesn’t allow time for grievances or conclusions that most writers might strive for. A loss should bring back the significance of someone’s life: if they were horrible, you may get relief; if they were amazing, you may cry but for a show that tries to manipulate it’s fandom through romance, bringing it’s characters and their lives to the forefront is something that needs to return once more. No more plot machinations and meaningless anger directed at inanimate objects – Elena, Stefan and Damon, the core of the show need to be giving the direction, not being directed.
* The finale set-up for Jeremy’s past loves coming back to haunt (?) him will could feasibly change how I feel about it using death as a cliffhanger over it raising emotional stakes (which, it in fact successfully did in the first season with both Vicki and Anna’s death.
Let’s Talk About The Office…
Ever since Greg Daniel’s started working on Parks and Recreation three or four years ago, we lost the glint in the eye of The Office; the show at that time itself was wrestling with its own nature and concept. The longevity of this show was unprecedented and Daniel’s smartly implanted a necessary difference between the original British series and its US counterpart just in case it did reach such lengths. The change started in the second season wherein key relationship differences were simply equated into one, as driven-home by the singular vision of Michael Scott: the people who work in The Office are indeed work-colleagues to each other, but also friends and in both a literal and figurative in a manner of speaking – they are family. The British version, in its few hours of life, explores a few characters but consistently keeps it grounded and naturalistic, these people are unhappy with their jobs and are stuck in middle-ocrity. A form like this can work when telling a film or a short series, such as the british The Office but not for a show embedded in American culture that even dreams of reaching syndication. The show, for all its jokes and silliness is a love story, originally of that between Tim and Dawn, then Jim and Pam and eventually Michael Scott and his friends.
What’s interesting about this friendship is that every episode until “Todd Packer” — the friendship is just assumed. The characters banter, get along and never have a big moment in their lives without one another (though what this says about the minor characters lives is arguable). Through plot-contrivances and stretches of imagination, the entire office can go to Niagara to see Jim and Pam finally tie the knot and although events such as this aren’t particularly notable for anything other than getting the cast out of the office once in a while, they provide the chance for the sometimes cartoonish characters to go outside and interact with the hopefully normal and amusing folk that entertain this slightly elevated-reality that the show has developed for itself.
In “Todd Packer” however, for the first time, or the first in a long time, the office has grouped together and had dialogue like people who have known each other for over a decade might. The cold-opening is interesting because it begins with the usual mixed bag of Dwight Schrute but quickly evolves in a much nicer and enjoyable sequence of Jim picking up on Dwight’s crazy mind and picking at it: the scene consists of Jim questioning Dwilight’s elaborate dream sequence about the end of the world. Smash cuts are used show time progressing and after hours have gone by, they are still at it… Jim, knowingly or not enjoys company of his workmate. This season two type of camaraderie extends to the episode itself as the office as an entity openly start dreading and hating Todd Packer, the incredibly minor and undeveloped buffoon of the travelling salesman, and in it’s unification of everyone it provides a real sense of community that the show has often embraced but backed down from.
Once again, this is an episode where Holly is forced to stand against, and then change opinion of, something Michael adores. (First occurring the episode prior, Threat Level Midnight). I wouldn’t mind this as a concept since its the show going back into the shows roots and mythology but it doesn’t work as effortlessly as one would want and essentially sums up Holly’s role since her reappearance: she hasn’t been so much as a character as a foil for Michael swiftly followed by a one-dimensional love-interest. The idea of Michael being with someone works, it works because it gives him happiness and a reason to live other than his support system in the office but if we had never met Holly before – we wouldn’t care. She’s altogether just been a vessel for Michael’s “Happy Ending” and that fact is incredibly annoying since what a cringe-worthy delight she initially was. Performed wonderfully by Amy Ryan too.
I like The Office, I love The Office and it’s certainly a scary thought that the current critical-darling Parks and Recreation could fall so low. I fear The Office’s main trip was its attempt at doing more episodic endeavours - once Jim and Pam were together, the office more or less lost direction. I feel that (ignoring changes behind the scenes) the show lost track of what it’s series bible said and embraced the sitcom heaven called ‘syndication’.
Community – “I can’t count the reasons I should stay”
Community’s core fanbase is constantly divided, not into two separate groups, not singular characters, but certain individual jokes. Kind of. Beyond that, its wider appreciators love the shows reliance on good old-fashioned (yet post-modern) characters. The sophomore season of this comedy is trying to do everything, we have lost the little (read: bottle) exploits of the Greendale gang for right now, instead focusing on the larger twists and turns that an episodic self-aware single-cam like this can do. “Epidemiology”, the gangs showcase last week is similar to the season 1 offerings “Modern Warfare” (a spin on the action genre) and “Contemporary American Poultry” (a take on Goodfellas) in that it gives each character a duty to fulfil all whilst parodying and homaging several tropes and cliché’s in the filmic universe — that time, Zombies.
Community, being a clear single-camera show (as opposed to the popular mockumentary sitcom format) has the ability to completely embrace and convey certain jokes and parody just by using visual language. Not just Donald Glover’s hilarious expressions or background storylines, but using lighting, shakey-cam and non-diegetic music to exemplify ideas and riff on themes, creating something that both lives and breathes popular culture while creating an original story at the same time. The opening shot of “Basic Rocket Science” is a darkened hallway with a close-up of the feet, echoing as they run down the corridor – it last about one or two seconds, but right away tells you almost everything you need to know about this episode. The imagery is familiar, yet new, and like so much of Community – it is terrific fun to watch.
The show prides itself on having an eclectic world that allows for the stranger proceedings to happen, the characters ground the events, but the events do still occur. That level of a creative sandbox rarely turns up in television and I don’t believe it has been used to this effect since Buffy the Vampire Slayer - a show that had a musical, an episode without speech and even an episode without any BGM. Airing the same season as Glee, a show that introduced archetypes and never hugely broke them down, Community smashed its first impressions and shaded out every one of its characters,with Shirley, perhaps, being the last to get some real colour to her. These characters set and ground the world, not necessarily by winking at the audience and being an “everyman” – though an argument could be made for Jeff – its now developed into watching a group of friends having fun in the most eccentric or boring situations given.
Mike & Molly – First Impressions.
This new Chuck Lorre produced multi-camera is probably better than you expect. It’s also exactly two-points worse than anyone could expect. Two and a Half Men is about awful human beings, The Big Bang Theory still keeps a level of distance from the audience and the characters but Mike and Molly attempts to get the audience familiar with the beats of these guys, who they are and the general life they live. This may have something to do with Lorre’s lesser involvement (he hasn’t got a creator credit, anyway), but it also means that the creator, Mark Roberts, does indeed have an idea of what type of show he wants this to be — even if he’s a former Two Men writer.
Technically speaking, it accomplishes a lot in its pilot and continues that trend in a normal romantic comedy fashion. The main issue with Mike and Molly is the simple fact the jokes are really, really unfunny. As subjective as humour comes, this is seriously predictable stuff. The occasional gag about the stars weight might come across as realistic, but when you don’t just have Mike mocking himself, we have everyone else reinforcing these truly terrible jokes — I say jokes, but really, there’s one gag done to death in this; how “pathetic” Mike’s life is – its genuinely boring to watch. We learn he gets hookers, is hilariously recommended Russian brides and is teased consistently about his over-eating. Or do we? Are these jokes or exposition? The acting and delivery of these lines are possibility the best thing about it. Billy Gardell and Melissa McCarthy absolutely nail their characters. These people do in fact seem real. They have lives, ambitions and worlds to themselves – just the only problem being the fact that almost everything everyone says, no matter how smiley, is a pun or back-slap about their weight. It’s the equivalent of a speaking disorder, its natural for these characters to end every sentence with a fat joke, and that may be okay in some respects; it would make it an unwatchable show. Simple.
Except its not, this show is a little bit watchable. Very much so, due to the charming leads (and supporting cast) plus the writing before the fat joke. It could easily fit into an hour-long dramedy without them and the laugh track.
Mike & Molly is a show that’s worth knowing, experiencing but definitely not focusing on. It might be okay to spend 20 minutes a week with their company in hopes of an eventual change in it, but not one that really should be watched with any intent.
“The Son, The Family, The Town” – My take on Friday Night Lights.
“Clear Eyes, Full Hearts, Can’t Lose”
Friday Night Lights has been known since its impressive season 1 in critic circles, it never garnered a huge audience for network but similar to that of a show airing on The CW. After the patchy and over-the-top second season, things were looking grim for the old little introspective show giving a mirror to issues that people face in every-day life. The families in the fictional town Dillon, TX go through the regular issues of money, race, sex and simply the troubles and happiness in life. Thankfully, the cable operator and network DirecTV realised this and picked the show up for another season, with the fourth coming along soon after and the fifth and final season beginning this fall.
After slowly going through the second season on a weekly basis, I knew I still loved the show and even thought for a couple of episodes that I’m fine with the melodramatics and familiar tropes that now curse the current teen-drama. It annoyed me, this wasn’t the Friday Night Lights I loved, but luckily I can stomach the trusted paths of student-teacher affairs and wavering marriages that plague “Dawson’s Creek”, “90210″ and many other shows I have watched for longer periods of time. The note season 2 ends on, possibly due to the writer’s strike, is interesting because it doesn’t clearly resolve much. It, in fact, feels like the loose ending to “Veronica Mars”. A dramatic conclusion doesn’t happen. It’s more in key with underlying show, not the one that was distracting everyone for much of the year.
Season 3, for me at least, was a turning point. It made me realise how great a show this is, how fine the writing, directing and acting is and made me fall in love harder than I did the first time. It’s tight, very tight and contains the emotional punch that many shows lack. The series linchpins, Connie Britton and Kyle Chandler, are back in full force and seemed to be having a lot more fun than they did before. They play Tami and Coach Eric Taylor, respectively – and it’s seriously wonderful, especially from the first episode to see how connected a couple these two are. They work together, they have little fights (and bigger fights) and still have time to find the love and humour in their relationship. Something rarely seen in a TV soap. A lot of the best sequences from the show come from the banter between these two and also their eldest daughter Julie (Aimee Teegarden) in the early mornings before they go to school or when they return at night.
This season also went further with the characters we have known since day one and instead of jumping and dodging around the endgame, it goes ahead and makes them interesting. Tim Riggins and Lyla Garrity, for the majority of the season spend their time together. They struggle and survive through their issues thrown on them unexpectedly by their family. Tim’s adoration and respect towards Lyla makes for an interesting dynamic, highlighted when Lyla’s father Buddy loses her university money. Tim knows this man cares strongly for Lyla and wouldn’t do anything to hurt her, put into even stronger focus when Lyla’s younger brother and sister return having left Buddy with their mother and her boyfriend. They come back with a new perspective on everything they see in the town of Dillon, a way a lot of people might see a town like Dillon – full of tradition, family and history. Lyla begins to question the integrity of her father and wonder’s why she didn’t leave with them. Eventually, a reconciliation is made from help from both Tami and damn good TV luck, Lyla goes ahead to her first choice of college. Lyla’s story-arc is brought to an interesting conclusion at the mid-point of season 4, she realises that she could stay there for the rest of her life, with Tim and her family and be happy – but that isn’t what she wants. She wants to see the world, get an education and perhaps come back to Dillon later in life. A reoccurring theme of Friday Night Lights is the wanting to escape – just escape without leaving anything behind. Certainly this is the central idea and basis for most of the characters, especially those in high school. The adults like the status-quo; the teenagers just want to break out, they just need something to help them get there…
Meet Matt Saracen, QB1 – he might not be the most talented, but he has the most heart. When we meet him in season 4, he’s left football behind and literally stayed behind to be with his girlfriend of almost four-years. Played wonderfully by Zach Gilford, we figure that the kid who’s always had a troubled life had almost figured it out at the end of season 3, only to be shocked when he really doesn’t. He stays with Julie, daughter of Coach and Tami and initially gets uncomfortable when talk of her college comes up. What does he do now? He stayed behind for a reason, but what was it? The confusion in Matt’s eyes is apparent and all the more hardening when he gets news of his father’s death in Iraq. Episode 5, “The Son” is a truly heart-wrenching episode of television – he needs to do something. Matt is taken to the Funeral Parlour, where he is told he can’t see his father even though he is in the coffin nearby. Tami helps him out with arrangements and not getting ripped off by the Funeral people. Later that night, Matt’s best friend Landry, Tim and Tim’s brother head down to the football pitch and get drunk, and end up going to see Matt’s father’s corpse. Julie seriously doesn’t know how to handle Matt like this, Coach barely does himself, underscored when Matt tries to come over to the Taylor’s house for dinner, but can’t eat anything and shouts out how much he hates his father and his inability to stick around, not letting him being a normal kid. The episode ends with the riveting image of Matt burying his father in the pouring rain. He needs to do this, he needs conclusion and he also needs to get away from it all. He has comfort in that his Grandmother with dementia has his father’s compensation. And he simply leaves. He leaves Dillon. He escapes it.
Bringing the Taylor’s centrality to focus, season 4 ends in a similar way to how the began – it goes back to its roots, just in a different school, somewhat. Season 4 is a reinvention of the show. Tami and Eric now work for East Dillon High, the school with even less money and now need to make that work. Tami her way up at the other school, now she has to do it again. Except this time, we hate Dillon High.
Now that’s Justified – Season One of FX’s Justified.
It’s taken me a considerable amount of time to get on board with Raylan Givens and crew. I liked some of the characters and dynamics but as a whole, I found the first season of this US Marshall drama somewhat lacking. I understand the nature of a procedural and I understand the nature of serialized storytelling but when they are intertwined in such a strong manner, it makes for interesting though sometimes difficult viewing. It’s something of an oddity and whilst serialized procedurals aren’t new to television, with the Bones being one of the biggest users of this, it’s when you have stronger character arcs being blocked by someone not leaving a room until they get a box of chicken that makes for troublesome viewing. As a whole, the police procedural aspects of Justified are more than accomplished, it’s simply that Justified occasionally delivers more than a standard procedural and it affects the larger story.
The positives of Justified easily outweigh the negatives though; Timothy Olyphant goes above and beyond once again showing us all how to wear a 10 gallon hat with perfection. The man knows how to pull off the look, and the episode “Hatless” definitely shone a light onto the type of man Raylan Givens is. When he’s not working for the department, he’s keeping his head held high – by totally beating up some guys in a bar for stealing his hat. His relationships with his ex-wife and Ava Crowder were savoury and thankfully not over-done. We understand his Raylan’s feeling towards the people, but don’t need to know anymore.
The absolutely highlight of season 1 of Justified, though, is the character arc of Boyd Crowder (played wonderfully by Walton Goggins). The man who teaches the word of the Lord in such a twisted way is nothing short of spectacular. In particular, his chemistry with Raylan is effulgent, every scene together they make the words jump off the screen and seeing their loving bond develop even though they hate each other is really what made Justified noteworthy for me. The way the finale threw things at Boyd makes me eager to see where this little old story about Kentucky and its Marshall’s is going to go. Assuming the writers don’t get distracted by more police work.
Freaks and Geeks – 18 episodes and no Bad Reputation.
According to everyone, its a spot-on depiction of high school life, both in the 1980s and now, but whenever a list of “Best Shows Ever” comes up, dear Freaks is almost always forgotten. There are, of course, exceptions but it never gets the mention it deserves. It deservedly has a cult status, one that I’m now happily apart of, only slightly due to the fact that Joan Jett’s “Bad Reputation” hasn’t left my head for over a month now.
A lot of the ground-breaking for a series like Freaks and Geeks was done several years earlier in the acclaimed My So-Called Life, but NBC’s Judd Apatow and Paul Feig created drama-comedy following the different sects of the school done a lot more than 50+ episodes show accomplish in their entire run. They make a point, develop their characters and have fun with it. 18 episodes isn’t a lot, but so much is covered in both the Freaks and Geeks section of high school it might be more comparable to a cable series where every episode is necessary and every episode has payoff. The original BBC series of The Office is also a noteworthy comparison I feel. For The Office mirrors the awkwardness of hundreds of thousands of people who work in an office every day. Freaks and Geeks, does just that for those in High School. The fact its set in the 1980s is neither here nor there, especially since if you said they were ’90s fashion I would have totally bought it. (Only a couple of times I actually realised it was the ’80s – the records and the Atari).
It’s especially interesting to watch now seeing how the careers of all the main cast have developed. It’s fair enough to say Judd Apatow has treated his stars well, bringing Seth Rogen’s supporting character to another supporting character in his follow-up series Undeclared and finally making him the lead in 2007 film Knocked Up. Even those who aren’t followed up in Judd Apatow (and friends) productions, the people who matter noticed the importance of this show.
Why I’m a Mad Man – An overview of season 3 thus far.
My journey with Mad Men has been a long one, but it’s a show I anticipate weekly now. I stormed through the first season on a re-showing, not quite understanding what I was meant to be enjoying about any of these characters and their interactions. The lethargic direction and storytelling irritated me no end and I found myself bored, but something happened, I kept watching. I was captivated without knowing as such. In-Your-Face dramas like Lost scream at the top of their lungs that they are captivating, intelligent and beautifully filmed, Mad Men does all of that, albeit, in a more hush-hush tone. Focusing purely on aesthetic, almost every shot might be perfect for a promotional image because each frame is structured less as a TV Show and more as a piece of artwork – not that I’m experienced in the field of painting, but presumably something oil.
Seinfeld used to be able to take the banner of ‘It’s A Show About Nothing’ and do something with it: a sitcom – in a similar way, Matthew Weiner, creator of Mad Men has seemingly taken the banner subconsciously. It’s hard to understand how and why this works. Why do the ludicrous things that happen to the women of Wysteria Lane mean something and the illustrious affairs Don Draper and the Sterling Cooper employees have don’t? Why is only one of these two shows considering to have the watercooler talk about them? It’s a strange. I however now can appreciate the show for everything it is – it may indeed be showing off all its lovely sets, forcing down our throats how different the world is now by showing us the early ’60s from a 2010 perspective but Mad Men is simply wonderful. It’s focused on nothing in particular, its amusing in the way it draws parallels to our current times and reflects the ’60s in an interesting fashion, but most of all, it’s a show about people; their job, their homelife and everything in-between: dealing with subjects of homosexuality, pregnancy, smoking and alcohol in such a subtle manner you could be forgiven for not noticing anyone done anything.
Life Unexpected: Expectedly awesome.
The CW has discovered what made its predecessor, The WB such a success. Telling smaller, wittier stories about the inconsequential moments in life. Life Unexpected does this, albeit, in a more 2010 and predictable manner thus far. The show is adorable. Lux, a 15 year old foster child, who’s obviously very talented at sarcasm and is adorable. reminiscent of early Rory Gilmore; Lux, is who’s about to turn sixteen is seeking out her parents to sign some forms so she can get emancipated. As always, her parents are shocked at [her existence] first but fall in love with her, perhaps, quicker than than I did.
I’m interested to see where a series like this can go; with 90210 or Gossip Girl, its a tried and tested formula that you will get a look into these characters love-lives, their drama and the High School. But – Life Unexpected seems like it has about two or three more expository are needed episodes before the actual drama can begin. Ror- … Lux finds a new family to live with, and we, like Lux, have a vague grasp of what both her maternal ‘rents are like. All we need now is to see Lux get Juno-esque bullying and we’re good to go. We have a gawky, lovable protagonist who loves to spend time with her weird family. Her weird (extended) family should make for an interesting cast, even if they don’t have the chemistry the folks of Stars Hollow have.
Seriously, this show is not Gilmore Girls. I’m totally serious. Totally. Serious. Serious.
