One thing fans and foes of HBO’s controversial show Girls can all agree upon is that Hannah Horvath is a selfish protagonist. In the sublime season three finale, Hannah uses this controversial trait to pull herself up from certain despair demonstrating growth and ending the season on a hopeful note.
Email Roundtable #39 – Television Sick Days
Our good pal Jane isn’t feeling so hot this week and this endless winter has resulted in more than a few sick days for most folks. That got us thinking: what do you like to watch on TV when you are stuck at home or laid up in bed? Katie and Kerri chat about Television Sick Days in this week’s Roundtable.
The Long Walk Home: The humane zombies of The Returned
OK. Here goes: I’ve become obsessed with a show about zombies.
No, not that zombie show. I’ve only seen a few episodes of that one and didn’t have much use for it. No, this zombie show is different. In fact, I’m not so sure it is a zombie show at all (I’m using the term here for lack of a better word). In this show the zombies are as equally beautiful, smart, sexy and charming as their living counterparts just as they are dangerous, manipulative and insufferable. These zombies are awfully human.
The Returned (Les Revenants) is a French drama that aired on Canal+ in France and Sundance here in North America. The show is based on a movie called They Came Back and, rather curiously, has a very similar premise (dead folks coming back to life) as an American show called Resurrection that began airing last week. Even more curious, Resurrection is based on a book called “The Returned” but has no connection to the French show. It all has the makings of a head-spinny Abbott and Costello routine.
The Worst Show On TV
This blog stands as a celebration. For the most part we discuss the good stuff. We sit in awe week in and week out of the moving pictures crammed into a tiny wire and illuminated on our magic picture boxes. But the best can’t look as good without the awful. Bad TV is usually just boring. It wallows with trite jokes or thin plots. Spectacularly bad television has its own glory. Which begs the question: what is the worst show on television today? I’ll include reality fare and cooking shows …anything on TV. My vote is a broadcast that fails on every level, but still is a tremendous viewing experience thanks to its bus crash-ian, train-wreck allure.
LOL’ing
Ilana Glazer and Abbi Jacobson of Broad City
It’s been a funny few weeks of TV-watching. The Olympics have been on, forcing most of my favourite shows into hiatus, yet I’ve been laughing out loud more than usual. This was the week that I finally checked out Key and Peele (a sketch show that critics and friends alike have been saying I really should watch.) Would recommend. Not usually a fan of late-night television, I decided to watch Jimmy Fallon’s first episode on the Tonight Show for the novelty of sharing an experience with those who probably do care who the host of the Tonight Show is. I was pleasantly surprised. Would watch again. I also re-watched Extras on DVD, and like clockwork, laughed at David Bowie’s impromptu song about Andy Millman. The phrase “See his pug-nosed face” never fails to amuse.
While enjoying this sampling platter of comedy TV, I found two shows that I’m really excited about. Both are half-hour comedies and both are on Comedy Central. Very few TV shows consistently make me laugh out loud, and even fewer make me LOL while recalling past episodes. Even though using the phrase “LOL’ing” makes me sound like a dumb-dumb, I stand by it, because LOL’ing is exactly what makes me fall in love with a comedy. I can appreciate a show that makes me smile inwardly, but loyalty is forged through the act of laughing out loud. Continue reading
With a Little Help From My Friends
TV and friendship are two of my favorite things. Friendship on TV is pretty much the best thing ever. Last week, in particular, TV offered up some amazing moments of TV friendship. Continue reading
The Magic Tricks of True Detective
I love mysteries. I love secret codes. I love the thought of a hidden puzzle that is just waiting, begging to be uncovered.
The real reason I think I love a good mystery is that I’m a terrible detective. Mysteries work spectacularly well on me like a magic trick where I don’t see the sleight of hand. I’ve never met a red herring that didn’t throw me off the scent. I’m as gullible as all heck and take almost anything anyone tells me at face value. I pick up on clues but usually can’t put them all together until Angela Lansbury is halfway through her crime-solving wrap up with all of the possible suspects in the same room. I’m great at pretending I was clued in all along but I promise you I wasn’t. And so, when the murderer or thief is hauled away in handcuffs I am supremely satisfied, my brain thinking back on all the little clues I missed the first time.
I Hate to See ‘Em Leave, But I Love to Watch ‘Em Go
I’m really looking forward to it. More for history than anything else. Jay Leno will say goodbye to The Tonight Show this week. For good, so we are lead to believe. We can do the autopsy of the Leno administration – that he was likeable but vanilla; almost so mainstream that it almost went in a roundabout way back to edgy-ness. Rather, I like to look at the last five minutes, the goodbye and good times that have yet to be uttered. Its one of my favourite things TV has to offer; the comedy show goodbye. Not the last episode of a sitcom, although those are really fun too. When comedians are forced to be earnest, I find it compelling. This is no time for Bieber zingers, this is stuff that can be said over an instrumental version of Sarah McLaughlin’s “In the Arms of the Angel”.
Improv on TV
For this week’s blog, I searched out improvised content on TV. “Improv on TV” is a contradictory statement. Television is an edited medium and improv is spontaneous. As a result, the two don’t seem like a good pairing. Putting good improvised comedy on TV can be problematic, but when it works, it’s something really special. (If you need proof of the magic, skip down to the review portion of this entry where there is a clip of a talking monkey.) Continue reading
Willing to Belong – Pierce Hawthorne’s Last Offering
Community is often criticized for choosing laughs over its characters who lack soul and emotional stakes because they are said to be caricatures existing only to smirk at the audience through the camera lens. This week’s offering, “Cooperative Polygraphy”, squashes this criticism by delivering a character-centred episode of hilarity, depth and heart.
It’s an episode that couldn’t exist without the foundation built from the first three seasons (I refuse to consider season 4 in this discussion). For me the most interesting episodes of Community involve the exploration of the bonds formed by the seven member study group. The friendships formed between Jeff, Annie, Abed, Troy, Shirley, Britta and Pierce are as real as anything on television (camera winking aside) and have often moved me to tears both happy and sad. “Cooperative Polygraphy” is a look into what happens to these bonds when one (or more) of the group members are taken away. The group met at that cusp in their lives where your friends become family and the loss of a family member raises the emotional stakes to a higher place than Community has gone before. Pierce was the outsider of the study group, always looking in. He desperately wanted to be closer to the group but his meanness kept him on the periphery. Like most bullies his meanness masked vulnerability. His insults provided many moments of humour but also revealed moments of pain. In Spanish 101 when Jeff bails on their Spanish assignment the way in which Pierce shrinks into himself when Jeff leaves the room reveals an achingly lonely man in need of a friend. He plays a “type” to be sure, but what Community does so well is reveal the layers and complexities within that “type”. Everyone in the study group plays a “type”. It’s creates a dynamic that is immediately relatable but deceivingly complicated. Because Pierce was on the outside he was able to observe the group, taking stock of their deepest darkest secrets. It was a running gag that Pierce would use this information turn the group against each other. However, “Cooperative Polygraphy” reveals that Pierce was saving up some of these secrets and their revelation in tonight’s episode provides some of the shows funniest and most touching moments. Continue reading
The Golden Age of Television 