Would it be lonelier to discover you are the last person left on earth, knowing you will never again interact with another human being, or would it be lonelier knowing that other people are out there somewhere, to know that you could be talking to them and enjoying their company, but that you might never find them again? The Last Man on Earth began as a show about a guy who thought, wrongly, that he was all alone in the world, and then transitioned into a show about a guy who, if he wasn’t really the last man on earth, might as well have been. If the first season (back then I called it the “weirdest show on network television” and that hasn’t changed much since, more than that though it was also a very funny, sad, sometimes difficult and heartfelt show) was about the way that people can unwittingly force their own isolation with selfishness and pettiness, season two starts by exploring the way that relationships can make the feeling of loneliness more pronounced when those relationships are lost.
Month: September 2015
Willingly Bilked
When I was the mere wisp of boy, one of the chasms of TV time was Sunday morning. I was a good catholic boy. 1993 Ukrainian Catholic Metropolitan Cathedral Altar Boy of the Year. The pre-church festivity was an ordeal with my dearest mother putting on her fashion show of hats and heels as the Cathedral aisles were her own Bryant Park Fashion week runway. So there was a good window of chillin’ before actually going off to save my soul on a weekly basis. Sunday morning was a tough television landscape. Infomercials, political roundtables, live auto racing from Europe all had me just flipping – or forcing me to read. Continue reading
No Flipping or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Late Show
I’ve always been a Letterman man. I mean, Carson was king, but he exited the game when I was 14 years old. Even when Carson was on the air I watched him because I knew Letterman was on afterwards. Letterman was relevant, irreverent, and goofy; Letterman was hip because of his un-hipness. I’ve always felt Leno was a complete bore. Similarly, I find Fallon, while at times slightly endearing, painfully hard to watch. I was sad when Letterman announced his retirement—I mean, we knew it was inevitable, but still, an era was coming to an end. When the announcement came earlier this year that Letterman’s replacement would be Stephen Colbert, I must admit I was sceptical. Don’t get me wrong, I am a huge Colbert fan, however, the record of new hosts successfully taking over established late night shows was not good, at least by my count. I was worried Colbert’s “personae shift” would not work, I was worried expectations were too high, and ultimately, I was worried I would have to re-evaluate my opinion of one of my comedic heroes. Luckily, after having watched the first week (4 episodes) of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, I realized my worrying was for naught.
Clip Show
Remember when it used to be acceptable for a TV show to air a turd of an episode – an episode that had a loose frame but only 5% new content? Ah the clip show, that hated episode wherein the characters reminisce about past hijinx and the viewers relieve those once funny moments out of context. Why did they do it? Was airing a terrible episode really better than simply airing nothing that week? Folks, welcome to my Katie Man clip show!!!!
Remember When?: Growing Up on Playing House
WARNING: If this opening sequence makes you cringe, if it’s too sweet for you, you should probably stop reading now.
Playing House (one of USA Network’s surprisingly great shows, along with this summer’s breakout, Mr. Robot) is in its second season and stars Lennon Parham and Jessica St. Clair (both of whom you may have seen recently on Review) as two long-time best friends. St. Clair plays Emma, who left her childhood hometown of Pinebrook for China to become a super successful business-woman. Maggie, played by Parham, stuck around Pinebrook her whole adult life, got married and got pregnant. Maggie lives in her childhood home, too, the one she inherited after her parents died. The little playhouse is still in the backyard, now infested with a family of deranged raccoons – things are the same, with an added air of anxiety. When Emma returns to Pinebrook, she finds Maggie distraught. Maggie’s bumbling husband has been cheating on her with a woman online. And so, with Emma’s help, Maggie drums up enough courage to leave her husband. Emma then quits her job overseas, move back to Pinebrook and moves in with Maggie to help her through the pregnancy and, once the baby is born, raise the child with her. The world hasn’t changed so much in Pinebrook in the time Emma was gone but the clock kept ticking.
The Golden Age of Television 