Monday, September 19, 2005

The New TV Season

or

I was bored before I even began...


Did it start yet? The new TV season? Because I was semi-excited three weeks ago when the Entertainment Weekly issue w/ the new lineup came out, excited in the way I get excited when my brand of toilet paper is 25 cents off at the supermarket. Meaning not very, but yes, in an ironic way. Ooh! A new crop of X-Files rip-offs! Ooh! A new show from the production assistant on Friends! Shortly after EW came out, Tivo dutifully delivered content to my TV, and I watched previews of the shows and remained underwhelmed. I attempted to get excited about that Earl show, but I needed some new-season Viagra apparently, as I could not maintain my enthusiasm.

So, Monday after Arrested Development is some dumb new show based on the book Kitchen Confidential called logically enough Kitchen Confidential, Since I thought the book was about the wait-staff wanking off into your food (“That’s a very creamy Chicken Kurma!”), I was wondering how this would transfer to the situation comedy format. And after watching it, I still don't know.

During the first few minutes we learn that the lead character, in a brilliant bit of meta-fiction is named after the author of the non-fiction book--Anthony Bourdain--is an alcoholic in recovery and is heterosexual. We learn his breeder status during an expository make-out scene. And here’s how the convo went in my apartment about that...
Me: eww! I don’t need making out in my comedies! Not this kind of making out! David Cross and Fonzi, ok.
Jack: I think this is the exposition.
Me: I don’t need it ever! Arrested Development is all exposition--imagine if everyone was making out all throughout the show? That would be crazy. You know who would watch that? Crazy people!

~later~

Jack: (while the AB character shows off his one-year sober token). That’s not the one-year medallion.
Me: That’s a ten-dollar chip from Caesars!

And so on. Oh, and I almost forgot.. to emphasize the “literary” aspect of this, there is a character named Stephen Dedalus, and someone else makes a reservation under the name “Daisy Miller.” OMG TEHY IS TEH SMRT.

No new shows this season can compare with classics like “Star Trek the Cartoon,” “Open All Night,” “ALF”... There is not even a “Small Wonder” in this tv season’s new crop. I cry, I cry one bitter hot tear for my beloved teevee.

3 Comments:

Blogger Jon Konrath said...

I think more than half of the shows are all so excited that _Lost_ made money, so they're ditching the stupid reality crap and pushing for hour-long dramas. Unfortunately, they're all stupid.

I watched _My Name's Earl_ or whatever it's called, and I really wanted to hate it, but it wasn't bad. But this is NBC, which means if it got a good initial rating, they will bounce it from night to night to pull numbers off of competing shows and try to find it a home, and nobody will know when it's on, and it will die a slow death. (See also the American version of The Office, which sucked, but suffered the same fate.)

10:56 AM  
Blogger Chompers said...

I watched My Name is Earl, and had no problem hating it. it was one of the worst shows thatw as outside of the typical sitcom format that i've seen in a long time. ooh, rednecks are stupid! mexican housekeepers are hawt! guys who are bad at sports as kids grow up to be gay! that's so cutting edge.

I prefer the america Office because THERE'S LESS MUMBLING.

11:35 AM  
Blogger Daniel said...

Threshold is the best of the the tragic remains of this season of TV, and Supernatural*. That's it. Everthing else kinda sucks. Except in the comedy category in which both My name is Earl is better than pretty much anything on, and Everybody Hates Chris is damn funny.

* tolerence for incredibly pretty male actors is a factor here.

12:51 AM  

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