TV Roundup: Volume 10
Community (Season 1)
Having been to a community college, I was looking forward to a new show that poked fun of those unfortunate bastards who couldn’t (or refused to) get accepted by a better university. Mid-season, though, it became apparent the “community college” theme was only an excuse to allow what are your basic high school characters to drink past curfew. True, community college is kind of like an extension of high school, but many of the characters are old. Hey, Chevy Chase is in it, and he’s aged well past the point when he was ever funny. Then there’s the obligatory but tedious “they hate each other / they like each other” relationship, and the need to give so many actors screen time every episode results in disjointed story lines that rarely wrap up in satisfying ways. Community isn’t a complete waste, though. There are some very, very funny moments, particularly anything involving the students’ Asian Spanish teacher whose apathy towards teaching is hilariously relatable. All the padding in between, however, is absolutely boring.
Modern Family (Season 1)
I’m glad the traditional sitcom, with its irritating laugh track, is seeing a decline, but I’m not too thrilled with the new wave of documentary-style shows. Modern Family, however, finally uses this style well. The camera operator doesn’t get carried away with too many zooms, the actors only subtly acknowledge the camera’s presence, and interviews don’t feel like they’re pulling actors out of the immediate action. It works. I’m actually surprised by Modern Family… in a good way. It’s an ABC comedy, but it’s so unlike anything else I’ve seen from the network. Music is rarely used. It doesn’t ham up the jokes. The characters are realistic portrayals of—get this—modern families! I don’t think “comedy” is the best classification for it, though. The show doesn’t feel like it’s trying to be funny, nor does it feel like it’s trying to be dramatic. It really feels like an honest view of three related families who just happen to do amusing things sometimes and life-learning things at other times.
Prison Break (Season 1)
I have the same problem with Prison Break that I did with Dexter. A good three-hour movie has been spread across 22 episodes, and the end result takes way to long to get to the rewarding stuff. True, 24 is the same way, but every episode of 24 was exciting. Prison Break hits a lot of lulls, and I frequently found myself screaming, “Escape from prison already!” The hitches the gang’s escape plan runs into are more irritating than thrilling, although there were a few times when I was genuinely concerned about what would happen in the next episode. My biggest problem with the show, though, is that I just don’t like the characters I’m supposed to like. Ringleader Michael Scofield is ambiguous and level-headed to an annoying degree, and the rest of the “heroes” just aren’t very convincing. The best actors are those who ended up playing the sleazy scumbags, but because they’re sleazy scumbags, it’s hard to like them. Sleazy scumbags.
Scrubs (Seasons 1-3)
This is a show that feels like it’s patting itself on the back for not using a laugh track, but all they’ve done is replace audience laughter with cheesy sound effects and obnoxious music cues. I bitch about the music in everything I watch, but Scrubs really overdoes it and either uses ill-fitting music for its montages… or drags those musical montages on for too long. It’s the worst use of music I’ve seen in a TV show. Barring that, Scrubs still manages to be a harmless and easily digested comedy/drama. But there’s the catch. One minute, it’s rambunctious and over-the-top, then suddenly it switches gears, and now we’re supposed to be sad about a dying patient. One of these extremes needed to be more subtle, because trying to juggle both just makes me feel guilty for laughing moments earlier and/or bored when the slapstick stops. You could call it a dark comedy if you really wanted to justify it, but then there’s that music again, telling me how to feel. Let me do it myself!
TV Roundup: Volume 9
Better Off Ted (Season 1)
Once The Office started getting too dramatic, it left a hole in my life waiting to be filled by sillier office-related shenanigans. Better Off Ted may have overdone the silly, though. Most of the ABC comedies I’ve seen are just a little too vibrant and unnatural, and almost every character in Ted feels like they’re trying too hard. The only person who looks comfortable in her role is Portia de Rossi as the uptight, serious boss. Every scene with her is laced with subtle but amusing tension. There are still some great jokes in the series, they’re just undermined by the bigger (stupider) jokes that get all the attention. You know the punchline or scene is over when ridiculous salsa music starts playing. Salsa music? Really? Does every ABC comedy have to be so over the top? The best parts of the show are actually the fake company promos that play once per episode. They’re so random and funny, it feels like they were written by somebody else… somebody who should have penned the entire script.
Parks and Recreation (Season 2)
The Office was fun, because Michael Scott was such a jerk and terribly off-color man-child. His antics, however, took some getting used to. Leslie in Parks and Recreation, on the other hand, is a little more down to earth, actually has friends on the show, and is, therefor, much easier to grow to like. She can still be a whirlwind of disaster, though, making life difficult (or at least very awkward) for her employees. If there’s any benefit to documentary-style television, it’s that it really highlights those awkward moments. Unfortunately, the supporting cast feels very forced, and the mandatory office romantics lack the personality that made Jim and Pam from The Office tolerable. Are love triangles really this necessary? I was hoping Parks and Recreation would be what The Office should have been: a dry, witty look into the lives of restless office workers. While the soap opera relationships are thankfully downplayed, the laughs are also not as big or memorable.
Unhitched (Season 1)
Now The Office… nah, I’m done talking about that one. Unhtiched is a pretty easy show to dissect, anyway, as it was only on the air for six episodes. This is another story about a group of friends (the usual three guys, one girl) looking for love in all the wrong places, but their situations are a little too outrageous and their jobs a little too lucrative to establish any kind of connection between viewer and actor. It’s TV, but it should still be relatable. And were they really so unable to scrounge together a better cast? Rashida Jones may be hot, but she’s just as bland here as she was in any other TV show I’ve seen her in. Oops, there’s that Office reference again. I knew I was only wasting my time when the opening scene of Episode 1 involved a man going over to a woman’s house (which, by the way, was decorated like a jungle) and getting sexually assaulted by her roommate (a real monkey). If that’s what they thought was going to hook the audience, they seriously misinterpreted what people like to see.
24 (Season 7)
Most of what I watch are comedies, so when I switch to something like 24, it tends to get my blood pumping to the point where I feel like I’m having a heart attack. This is intense storytelling and is hard to let sit in just 40-minute intervals. I usually have to watch 3-4 episodes in a row to be content. 24, however, also manages to anger me as much as it tries to manipulate my patriotic American heartstrings. Killing innocent people is a necessary element in grounding the show in reality, but, for God’s sake, lighten up! Jack Bauer is the only person guaranteed to stay alive, which almost makes rooting for anybody else pointless. You know they’re going to get shot sooner or later. When the writers went on their killing spree in Season 5, it nearly turned me off the entire series. Nonetheless, it’s always enjoyable to watch Bauer track down terrorists, take names, and kick plenty of ass, even if he is a rather unbelievable character. I don’t question his toughness, just the fact that he goes through so much crap and loses so many friends but continues to remain loyal to a country that never thanks him.
Showing Movies in the EFL Classroom
My Spanish teacher from high school used to reach into his Disney vault every Friday and pick out a nice pelicula to subject us to. As a student, I loved these days, because I could play Bomberman on my TI calculator after making a quick list of 20 words I recognized from the movie. As a teacher, I realize this may not be the best way to practice English. The dialogue is usually too fast for students to keep up with, but if you turn on Chinese subtitles, then nobody pays attention to what is being spoken. I run into the same problem when I watch a Chinese movie with English subtitles.
Now if I were a cool teacher, I wouldn’t worry about this, just play a movie, and let the students sleep during class.
But I’m not.
There is some merit in letting your class watch a film, then asking them to describe it afterwards. A 90-minute movie takes three class periods to get through, though, and a lot of details are lost in the wait. Even with a shorter TV show, it’s hard to remember the smaller nuances of what happened that add up to great fluency. That’s why I love Shaun the Sheep. Every episode is only seven minutes long and contains no talking, so the emphasis is all on the actions. I hate frequently starting/stopping a movie, but in the case of Shaun, the story’s over, and the next one won’t start until we’ve spent seven (or more) minutes talking about what we just saw.
TV Roundup: Volume 8
Dr. Who (Season 1)
People with time machines don’t make sense. Here we have a time-traveling alien doctor who constantly grieves over the loss of his species in some great war, but instead of going back in time to try to save them, mucks about on Earth and cryptically hits on British women who look too much like my sister. All right, so the Doctor is a likable guy whose grin alone could melt a six-foot tall bar of chocolate. Sci-fi is risky territory, though, where the slightest missteps can turn a great idea into a cheesy, throwaway series, and Dr. Who walks that line all too often. The show obviously has a substantial budget, since its alien costumes look pretty good, but whoever is behind their 3D effects needs to get their act together. Even for 2005, this seems pretty inexcusable and ends up killing any suspended disbelief in every scene. Maybe Dr. Who picks up in later seasons, but for the time being, everything Season 1 tries to accomplish—humor, action, romance, moral lessons—comes across as meager attempts.
Jackass (Seasons 1-3)
I was under the impression that Jackass was mostly a collection of outrageous stunts resulting in broken bones and classy nose dives. Granted, seeing a bunch of morons slide down a hill gets a little old, but the Jackass gang’s backup material is usually too gross or mean-spirited to be bearable. Yes, you have to let your mind regress to a more immature point in your life to really get the most out of this show, but there are some things I don’t think I’ve ever been able to tolerate. Like watching other people vomit or wave their [thankfully censored] junk around. Why is everyone so eager to take their clothes off? I realize the name of the show is Jackass, but the actors they scrounged together are painful to watch. Johnny Knoxville is the only one with any amount of class or charisma and basically saves the show from being nothing more than a couple of amateurs trying to get more hits on Youtube. Watching Knoxville get pummeled by a fire hose is both funny and sad. Watching his idiot friends beg for similar attention is annoying… and sad.
Little Britain (Seasons 1-2)
If you’re willing to subject yourself to hours of drivel in order to gleam a few quotable quotes, then Little Britain may be your cup of tea. Just keep your eyes half-covered while watching, as some of these sketches are downright nasty and gross. What started out as a series of funny (and sometimes hilarious) clips about “ordinary” British citizens in Season 1 turned into a vulgar, repetitive, and, above all, boring waste of time. It’s impressive to see Matt Lucas and David Williams reappear as so many different characters, but you also get kind of tired of their faces coming up in every skit. A man can only play so many female roles before the novelty of a man playing a female role wears off. The characters they create are usually only built around one joke, anyway, so every time a new scene comes up, you already know what the setup and payoff (if there even is any payoff) are going to be. The same joke told in a different location or with different props still loses its charm the second time around and is just plain irritating by the fourth.
Farscape (Season 1)
Farscape feels like what Star Wars could have been if it was a live-action TV series (and if George Lucas hadn’t screwed it up). The puppetry and make-up are top notch, and some of the plot twists are really, really clever ideas. In fact, watching Farscape is somewhat frustrating, because I get mad at myself for not being able to think this creatively. Farscape does show its age, though, and the campy music, pacing, and dialogue (complete with stupid space terms) tend to be a bit of a drag. The inclusion of a human character, brought to you by the letter wormhole, may also seem unnecessary, but his presence, at least in the beginning, helps keep the ridiculousness in check. I loved how Crichton was always getting names mixed up and was always asking what I’m always thinking, “What the hell is going on?!” Unfortunately, he adapts to the new technology a little too quickly, even for an astronaut. At least his relationship with his crazy alien shipmates takes time to develop. It took a while for me, but I’ve become pretty fond of them now, too.
TV Roundup: Volume 7
Lost (Seasons 1-3)
I’ve always been fascinated by stories of people crash-landing on a remote island and having to make do. Lost isn’t exactly what I had in mind, but it’s still a gripping adventure that’s had the same effect on me 24 did years ago. No matter how frustrating the show becomes, no matter how many questions remain unanswered or how many characters unfairly die, I have to keep watching, to know what happens next. I’m a sucker for cliffhangers and have missed a lot of sleep staying up late, glued to the TV. The cast is great, too, and the characters who do stay alive are likable and carry enough complexity to keep the show interesting. The numerous flashbacks certainly help achieve that layer of depth. But while many of these scenes are useful to the overall story, they’re often placed right in the middle of a crisis. When I’m watching an exciting chase between a giant bear and a little kid, I want to see that get resolved as soon as possible. I don’t want to put that on hold so I can learn more about his parents’ relationship.
Gary Unmarried (Season 1)
Some people would probably take offense to a sitcom about two recently divorced adults juggling their kids and taking potshots at the other’s shortcomings, yet even with the TV-14 rating, Gary Unmarried plays it safe. They even stuck with the obnoxious laugh track in case you weren’t sure this is supposed to be a comedy. While there are some funny moments, the overall experience feels very B-quality, like the creators’ only ambition was to outdo According to Jim (a ridiculously easy feat, anyway). Despite some recognizable faces, the actors all seem cast for the wrong parts. The lead characters would be better off as secondary characters on another show, and the secondary characters would be better off as understudies until they learned not to ham it up so much. If you can’t get enough of the traditional sitcom, these are harmless 20-minute episodes, but I don’t think I can take one more viewing of a show where the kids act ten years older than they really are, and everyone yells their lines in order to be heard by the audience that may or may not even be there.
Psych (Season 1)
Ignoring that the pilot episode was two hours (one hour too long), Psych starts out with a lot of promise that’s eventually squandered by an annoyingly talkative lead character. What little charm he had in the first episode completely vanished mid-season. Okay, so his pointless sidekick and the general soap opera staging of the show don’t help things, either, but let’s stick to the important issues. Shawn Spencer’s ability to notice small details and piece together obscure information is dangerously similar to Adrian Monk of Monk fame, except Shawn caters to a younger, hipper crowd and pretends to be a psychic in order to win favor with the police. He takes the psychic schtick a little too far, though, and instead of annoying the police force, which is supposed to be funny, annoys the poor suckers watching it on TV. It would be nice if Shawn would mellow out (and he does later on, but not enough), because the cases he gets involved with are pretty engaging when the rest of the show isn’t already killing the mood.
The Goode Family (Season 1)
King of the Hill is one of my favorite TV shows, but I was not impressed with the episodes leading up to its cancellation. The Goode Family, instead of correcting what was wrong with the Mike Judge formula, only picked up where King left off with the same style, pacing, and family stereotypes. The Goodes are a much less endearing family than the Hills, however, and father figure Gerald’s dull anecdotes aren’t as funny told through the rose-colored megaphone of an environmentalist. Their eco-conscious practices are still amusing when they’re pitted against something they’re supposed to like but don’t (like a disgusting endangered species), but it ends up feeling a little too preachy, even though you can tell the show is trying to be satirical. Maybe liberals don’t offer the same comedic gold mine as conservatives? Or maybe it’s just more fun to see a conservative, like Hank Hill, come to terms with someone else’s alternative lifestyle than it is for the Goodes to propagate that lifestyle from the beginning? Yeah, that’s got to be it.
Harry Potter Now Playing… on DVD
Yeah, Harry Potter is big here, too. No, I haven’t gone to the theater yet. What’s the point? It’ll be dubbed in Chinese with Chinese subtitles, and several scenes will be missing. Since there is no rating system in China, movies (particularly foreign movies) get “edited” down to suit the general public. This would explain why, when I saw Quantum of Solace and Night at the Museum 2 in the theater, there were so many abrupt transitions and odd cuts. I’m not sure what’s getting cut, though, because the Chinese blockbuster, Red Cliff, still had quite a bit of violence.
To avoid the trouble, you could always go buy the DVD instead. Those bootleggers are pretty good about getting a copy of a new release on store shelves within a few days of a movie’s premier, regardless which country it played in first. It used to be that movies took a while to come to China, but now I’m seeing the bigger names show up nearly the same time as they do in the US. We even got Dragonball: Evolution a few weeks earlier. Sorry, guys, I should have warned you.
I suspect distributors have started taking the Chinese market more seriously, because they realized if they waited too long to bring a movie over, everyone will have already seen it on DVD. Of course, airing a movie in China just makes piracy easier, but when the DVD and the movie experience come out at the same time (and the movie experience is only a few yuan more), some people are bound to choose the latter. Plus, initial DVD prints suck.
TV Roundup: Volume 6
Monk (Season 1)
I’m a little new to the detective genre of TV, but I can already tell there are much more gripping shows than Monk out there. Of course, the real reason people watch Monk is to see Adrian offend people and get himself into sticky situations because of his neurotic behavior and unrealistic fears. Being taken on a murder mystery is just a bonus. Adrian Monk is one of the better TV characters I’ve seen in a while, and I love how he channels his obsessive-compulsive disorders into solving crimes. The show tackles a case two ways, though. It either shows you upfront who the murderer is or keeps it a secret and leaves you guessing. I prefer the latter, as I like being given a chance to figure it out myself (even though I may be a moron). However, Monk often neglects to let you in on some of the most important details until the very end, when Adrian gives his “this is how it was done” speech. His solution is always clever and would have been difficult to piece together on your own. Considering he had all the clues and you didn’t, though, that’s not very fair.
Worst Week (Season 1)
Remember the movie Meet the Parents? Now imagine if that movie was stripped of Ben Stiller and cut into 20-minute episodes. Sounds like I’m about to wage a complaint, doesn’t it. I actually enjoy these kind of “disaster” shows like Curb Your Enthusiasm, where, despite the main character’s best intentions, everything goes horribly wrong. Sam Briggs attracts trouble like a small boy wandering dark alleys at night, holding a neon sign that reads: I’m filthy rich and completely defenseless. Sam isn’t very easy to commiserate with, though. You want to feel bad for him, because he really is trying to set a good impression on the in-laws. Most of his mistakes, however, could have been avoided with a small dose of common sense, and the clean-up afterwards could have gone a lot smoother if his first instinct wasn’t to lie. The trouble he gets into you can see coming, anyway, and there’s nothing funny about calling every plot twist. Still, it’s nice to finally see a sitcom that doesn’t utilize a laugh track or shaky documentary-style camerawork.
Firefly (Season 1)
FOX has a habit of canceling good shows, or so I’ve been told. Well… no, they really do (i.e. Arrested Development, Futurama). But in the case of Firefly, FOX brought down the axe a little too soon. I think Season 2 would have been a great place to jump into this series, since things started out rough but gradually got better and better with each episode. Space smuggler Malcolm Reynolds definitely gives Han Solo a run for his money and is probably my favorite of the two. But the rest of the cast is very hit and miss, and the Wild West influence leans towards suffocating. I’m not entirely against seeing cows and spaceships onscreen at the same time. Why should the future be a crazy place where anything goes? It even makes sense for the “outer planets” to be a bit primitive. But this is still the future, and if people can have things like hovercrafts and laser guns and digital pool tables, they should have also progressed past the horse and carriage and tacky cowboy hats. Don’t give me a horse and carriage and call it sci-fi!
Shaun the Sheep (Seasons 1-2)
I don’t particularly like shows where the animals are smarter than the humans but adhere to some untold law that says they have to play dumb and can’t let their masters know the truth. Half of the episodes of Shaun the Sheep feel like that. But since each episode is only seven minutes long, it’s easy to forgive the bad ones, while the goods ones—the ones where the flock’s curiosity only gets them into trouble—leave you wanting more. Well, as much as a children’s show can leave you wanting more. The stories here are pretty straightforward and are packed with enough safe slapstick to theoretically turn away any intellectual mind. Nevertheless, I still find the show amusing because of the infectious theme song that It’s Shaun the sheep. It’s Shaun the Sheep. He even— No. Stop that. Anyway, I still find the show amusing because of the top-notch clay animation and subtle throwaway gags, like characters’ funny reactions or clever props. And it’s all done without a drop of spoken dialogue. Nice.
TV Roundup: Volume 5
Hustle (Seasons 1-2)
I do like a good con, and when an episode of Hustle is on a high note, it’s every bit as fun as Ocean’s 11, only with 90% more British accents and 20% less pretentiousness. You do have to suspend disbelief while watching, but I suppose that comes with the territory. I mean, these characters are a little too lucky to find so many secretaries, museum guards, and bank clerks who never question a couple of strangers performing a spontaneous, unscheduled cleaning check. The show can become a bit silly and ridiculous, then, but we could just blame that on the fact that it’s English. Hell, I can’t even understand half the things they say. It’s hard to miss the heavy-handed “we only con greedy people” shtick that attempts to excuse their behavior, though. Regardless, in an early scene, ringleader Mickey Bricks flashes a wicked/charming smile at the camera at the very moment he knows he’s hooked the next mark. That smile sold me on the entire series. Whatever happened next, I knew I was in good hands.
Pushing Daisies (Season 1)
A part of me recognizes there’s a good idea behind the humble pie maker who can bring people back from the dead by touching them. The rest of me sees the final product for what it really is: an irritating and overbearing pile of moldy, used toilet paper. These TV studios need to realize you can’t make a successful “dark comedy” that deals in murder, cover-ups, and mutilated bodies and yet panders to an audience of teenage girls who eat up anything even remotely romantic or sweet. Pushing Daisies is so sugary, it’ll knock your teeth out with its cheesy computer-generated backdrops, goofy camera angles, awkward dialogue, disgustingly bright colors, sappy music that never lets up, and cast of characters who might pass as decent cartoons but who don’t make for very convincing humans. It’s not like they get many opportunities to demonstrate their acting chops, anyway, since the narrator does all the work. He basically reads the story to you, beginning to end, without any feeling, like a dullard of a grandfather who can’t tell a joke. Sleep… sleep… sleep!
The Middleman (Season 1)
Any show that tries to slip the Wilhelm scream into every episode gets an automatic thumbs down from me. But let’s be fair about this. The Middleman is what happens when you mix Supernatural with a can of Silly Putty and air it on ABC. It’s a classic mistake of taking something that reads well on paper and translating it verbatim to TV. Suddenly, all the long-winded, run-on sentence-filled dialogue loses its cleverness and just makes the actors look like they’re gasping for air. There is simply too much useless chit-chat for a show selling itself as a kooky paranormal adventure. Only half of each episode is even about investigating a case. The other half assumes you care for the main character’s normal social life outside of her humanity-saving temp job. Sure, it could be fun to see how she juggles the two extremes and hides her secret from her roommate, but the aliens and demons are barely interesting as is. When they’re absent, The Middleman has nothing going for it, and, unfortunately, those cheesy CGI ghouls are absent a lot.
Futurama (Seasons 1-5)
Futurama is a show whose enjoyment is proportionately related to how many years it took you to get sick of The Simpsons. I’m not sure what the exact formula looks like. Groening’s “gentle” touch is easily noticeable, which means the hilarious jokes and memorable characters are still there, but so are the sudden plot shifts, the disregard for continuity, and Tress MacNeille’s annoying voice. I almost favor Futurama, though, because it’s based in the future and in space where anything goes. Now all the over-the-top Simpsons-staple sight gags and non sequiturs feel right at home. Plus, the cast of characters is a little more likable. The lead female isn’t a helpless housewife, and the lead male (and mandatory idiot) isn’t trying to pass as a caring father figure. I’m sorry, Homer, but I think I’ve reached a level of maturity where, instead of watching a man endanger the lives of his family and friends every episode, I’d rather watch a robot endanger the lives of everyone in the whole universe. I love that crazy robot.
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