As I already blogged, I am super excited for HBO’s new series “Girls” starring creative triple threat Lena Dunham. The new Sex and the City except I’m guessing way less fabulous and way more anxiety-ridden “where is my life going” and “why aren’t they paying me for work,” with the same amount of “why didn’t he call me back?”
Image via hbowatch.com
Except, what the fuck 20 something has HBO?! Unless HBO hasn’t caught on yet from the subject of their new show or straight hard facts, 20 somethings don’t have money. They barely have jobs and their own apartments. They especially don’t have money for cable and ESPECIALLY don’t have money for premium channels.
So when it comes to ratings and keeping this hopefully awesome new show afloat, I’m not sure if their 20 something demographic is going to be reached at all. Sure, people are super excited about the show, but they’ll be excitedly streaming it from some Eastern European website since HBO doesn’t stream their episodes either.
I almost feel like it’s going to be a one season wonder, or maybe two, like our fave Party Down. Sometimes it’s better to have a short series because then it doesn’t get drawn out like the shit hole that is The Office, Two and a Half Men, Family Guy, you name it. But still, this series looks awesome. Let’s hope there’s more than one season and that people with money and HBO watch the show!
UPDATE: Maybe all the kids/20 somethings forced to live at home with their HBO-subscribed parents are who HBO is banking on watching. Let’s hope so, because there’s a lot of ’em! Thanks, economy!
Yearnings! O where art thou season 3? I feeleth less regal and less entertained without thine presence.
Here are some pictures of the Downton Abbey cast being normal, modern folk. Damn, they are one good-looing bunch. Guy who plays Matthew needs to take me on a date like, yesterday.
HAWT. Image via alicecloset-sewing.blogspot.com
Awwwww, the DA girls lookin’ all fashionista. I feel like they are MY sisters. And I NEED them back on PBS. September folks, September. We’ll just have to tide ourselves over with Downton Abbey paper dolls and internet pictures of one cousin Matthew Crawley. YUM.
This shit is gonna by SO FLY. Mid-20s, poor and fabulous. Ring a bell?! Lena Dunham is the chick who wrote, directed and starred in Tiny Furniture, which is basically the same premise of Girls, as it covers the same topics (20 something strife and living in New York City) and a couple of the same characters.
What I love about Lena is that she looks like a regular gal pal that you’d get drinks with, that would turn into being wasted on like, a Tuesday. But you’d have some really great conversations with even though you’re both kind of lost and confused about life. It feels a little bitchy to say she looks like a “regular gal,” but it shouldn’t. I just mean that she does not look starving nor perfectly formed from a surgeon’s table. So many tv shows and movies just feature gorgeous human beings who are so unbelievably not human in their roles. J.Lo, anyone?! It’s refreshing and infinitely more interesting to watch people, as opposed to “stars” tell us stories. Nobody relates to J.Lo. People can relate to Lena.
As a 20 something gal, I’m super excited about this show. After all, it’s always fun to watch something that is frighteningly relatable to your current life situation. Dating, unpaid internships, never having any money, growing out of friendships and making new ones, etc.
Watch Judd Apatow interview Lena here. She describes the show as that time when you’re not a girl, but not yet a woman. And yeah, she name drops Britney. LOVE IT.
Also, jealz!!! I, along with EVERY 20 something of our generation, wants to be on this show. I hope they come out with contests and shit. Or if the show goes on for a couple seasons, we’ll have to make a pilgrimage to NYC to be an extra on the show.
Saved by the Bell has recently become available on Netflix instant. From all the mornings before school watching this show, I thought I’d give it another chance as a learned adult. Here are a couple of thoughts concerning early 90s programming gold.
Cuz I’m saved by the be-e-elllllllll
I love that in the first episode of season 3, titled “The Prom,” that Kelly’s hard-hitting decision of the day is to choose who she wants to go to prom with. Problem is, Zach AND Slater both want to take Kelly to prom. God, to be in 1990 again.
Yeah, because it’s what all the cool kids do, DUH. Image via loldrugs.com
Also, many of the episodes are not even trying to hide the fact that they have a political/social agenda. For example, during the same episode, Kelly’s father gets laid off from a job at a defense company due to “growing world peace.” PUKE!!! The next episode in season 3 also mentions growing world peace during an ROTC visit to the school, that ends with a wary Zach deciding the Army is like, totally cool. Yikesssssss. Talk about some war propaganda during breakfast. I’d hate to live in a world where ‘growing world peace’ is seen as a bad thing. I guess the threat of nuclear war and a corporate 1% dystopia (yo what up Hunger Games!) is a sunnier world than people worried about the reality of world peace. YUCK.
DAYUM GURL! This is some straight up early 90s softcore porn. Image via popstar.com
The kids also tell us on numerous occasions to “not smoke dope.” I mean, it’s annoying, but do you remember high school? It was chock full of “abortion kills” bumper stickers, pledges to not drink alcohol until 21 and threats that weed would murder your soul and your family, instead of just make you hungry and giggly. Then you got to college and smoked the first thing someone handed to you, and realized that high school was a tiny bubble of fascists just trying to fit in. Awwwww.
The SBTB kids listen to tapes, fight over Paula Abdul vs. Janet Jackson, and can actually afford snacks at the movies. Jerks!
There’s also a lot of diversity that isn’t stereotypical. Lisa is a fashionista black girl and Slater is a iron-pumping latino who both don’t fall into the all too often played racial or cultural stereotypes. Granted, I haven’t seen every episode of this show. But it does suck to notice that 2 decades later dumbass stereotypes haven’t been erased. Somehow, I blame Dick Cheney.
The role of Mr. Belding is also interesting to watch. After a Bush decade of education budget cuts, a terrible generation of children and general educative tomfoolery, I could NEVER see a principal act the way he does with students as Mr. Belding did. Granted, it was a TV show. But any principal on TV nowadays would probably be some portrayed as a huge asshole who’s fucking some “slut” teenager for drug money. So bleak. I wish we were bored with world peace again. In the 90s, Zach offers to wash Belding’s car to get out of detention. In this day and age, students’ parents would sue Mr. Belding for ‘abuse.’ God I hate people.
On a lighter note and shying away from apparent societal (tv) decay, the fashion is AMAZING. I want Kelly and Lisa’s wardrobe, and Jessie’s for when I wanna workout/lounge around. Screech has some pretty amazing outfits too.
Jessie is a staunch feminist. And it is fucking AWESOME.
Dream couple of the early 90s. Zach is pretty awesome though. Maybe the best while male teenaged character of all-time. Big heart, quick made-for-squeeky-clean-tv vernacular. Brilz. Image via popstar.com
All in all, I’d say put it on in the background at parties, or in the background of an afternoon on the internet. In terms of observing American television from the late 80s/early 90s, it is a fascinating look into what the world on television was like when we were babies.
Up All Nightis a refreshingly progressive show. In the day and age of old, crusty white men hating on the womenz, NBC totally has their shit together with talented, powerful ladies like Amy Poehler on Parks and Rec and Tina Fey on 30 Rock. Up All Night is no exception.
The lady half, of the relationship, Christina Applegate, goes to work. She’s a producer at a successful daytime talk show that stars Ava (Maya Rudolph). She also happens to be a pretty type-A personality that would go absolutely batshit staying at home all day. And the man-y half, Will Arnett, leaves his post as a lawyer to stay at home with the baby. It’s less gender-forced roles and more focused on these two people as individuals with different personalities and talents that lead them to work or staying at home. Can you feel the fresh air? Ahhhhh.
The legend, the dame, Maya Rudolph. Image via hollywoodofficial.com
Christina Applegate and Will Arnett are an awesome on screen couple too. Their characters are very normal and reasonable, kind of hipster-ish, but the kind of hipsterism (that’s the worst word in the world btw) that exists in mid 30s folk who still have a yearning to be cool burning in them but they have a kid and jobs and responsibilities and shit.
Plus, anything with Maya Rudolph is totally worth watching. I can’t take my eyes off her. She’s brillz!!
What to expect when you’re expecting (this movie to be awful)
Speaking of men being hands-on fathers in entertainment, the movie What to Expect When You’re Expecting also spends a fair share of the film centered on a group of dads that tote their babies around parks and have a secret dad society. In this dad society, they totally own being a hands-on dad in their own way. It’s not feminized, like so many ‘stay at home dad’ movies in the past.
I am totally digging this new foray into movies and television featuring hands-on parenting by either sex. It really doesn’t matter which gender is staying at home, walking their kids, feeding them, etc., however it is nice to see some progressive jaunts into men’s men taking on the mighty task of staying home with the kids. Kudos, Hollywood!!
For realz. Reality TV is one of those genres that you really have know idea what kind of “creative” forces are working behind it, and this bugs me. Normal TV has writers, actors, directors, a story board, producers, etc. But reality TV is a little trickier. It’s supposed to lean a little to the documentary side of things, but that shit hit the fan after they realized alcoholics with rage issues who like to dance make reeeeeeeally good TV.
My Strange Addiction is nearly every first world problem you could ever dream of. Image via tlc.howstuffworks.com
My main problem with scripted reality shows are that they are fucking lazy. Seriously, were the big wigs over at studio xyz just super cheap fucks who didn’t want to pay for writers, directors or talented actors anymore? It’s gotta be suuuuper cheap to produce a reality show. You barely have to pay the “talent”, probably because they’re busy defecating on all the rented furniture. That shit adds up.
And forget writers! The producers probably get blasted on coke vodka redbulls and sloppily piece together ridiculous story lines, such as, “peeing on dancefloors“, “mental illness mambo” and my fave “alcoholicism is fun and not at all a serious problem!”
Image via locatetv.com
From watching hours upon hours of the Kardashians on Netflix (embarrassing, but whatevs) it is SO obvious that barely anything is spontaneous. The storylines just fit a little too perfectly, and everyone always seems to have a smirk on their painted on mugs that all but reveals “yeah, this is all bullshit. But you’d probably let Ray-J pee on you too if you had my paycheck, filthy commoner.”
Is reality TV like meth?
In terms of reality shows, I’ve gotta say those dating shows like The Bachelor, Temptation Island(T.I. is sick as fuck) and whatever the fuck Tila Tequila has been in are pretty much the rockiest rock of all bottoms. Way more rock bottom than say, My Strange Addiction. I’d gladly hang out with anyone who ate cigarette ashes and had a sexual relationship with their car over anyone who has ever been on a reality dating show. (The “Where Are They Now?” section of the MSA website is fucking platinum speckled GOLD. “Did therapy and help from friends convince Mary to stop eating cat treats and change her ways?” )
I’ve seen better turds in my toilet after a night of drinking than any Bachelor. Fuck, I could find better men on public transit. And if you’ve ever been on public transit, you know that’s a bold statement.
Also, the weightloss shows make me sad.
Yep folks, it seems as if the big, bad corporations have got this reality TV smut down to a T. Put alcoholism, mental illness and obesity on TV and you’ll be richer than all the Kardashians combined in like 5 minutes. I’ve got it! OCD Happy Hour Confessions: I Ate My Family. TLC is picking it up as I type.
Seriously, WATCH THIS SHOW. Zombie apocalypse, but done in a way classier and storyteller way than most gory and campy zombie movies. It’s amazing.
A sheriff wakes up from a coma to a world completely changed. The zombie apocalypse has happened. He goes on to find his family and other survivors as they deal with an entirely different society chock full of new undead enemies. Even if you’re not into zombies, this show takes it to a more realistic level in terms of story and character development.
As of now, the first season is just on Netflix. But, the second season JUST ended, and you can either surf a way to stream it or wait until those turd businessmen finalize a “deal” to get it to us through some paid network. (Seriously, you;d think they’d get this shit together by now. We’re either going to watch it on Netflix or Hulu, their website or stream it somewhere else. Get with the times, Hollywood. You’re embarrassing yourself more than usual.)
WATCH THIS SHOW NOW!!!! But not before bed, because you WILL have nightmares about zombies eating your skull.
I’m not a huge fan of theater shows on TV, because I’ve never watched one that seemed anything more than an overblown and out of proportion take on how people in theater act in “real life.” It’s also almost always done in a really campy, not relatable way that people who have never been in theater don’t understand.
Of course I’m sure we’ve all met people who have been in or are in theater. Sure they are a little quirky, but isn’t anyone in a creative industry quirky? However, not ALL of them are crazy weirdos like those creeps on Glee. (Read a good explanation as to why Glee sucks here)Don’t even get me started on the absolute shit hole that is Glee. Smashis nothing like Glee.
Hahahaha. Image via sodahead.com
First of all, I’m surprised at how well casted this show is. Anjelica Houston, Debra Messing, Katharine McPhee, Megan Hilty and the whole gang were all really good choices. It seems at any moment if you were to run into one of the characters in real life, that they would actually exist as human beings and be believable. Rachel Berry and company on the other hand…
Second, the show takes musical theater on Broadway to a more human level. None of the characters are decidedly so far off the spectrum quirky or “too” theater, whatever that means. The actresses vying for the role of Marilyn on Smash are hard working gals living in NYC who are immersed or trying to break into the acting world. That sounds realistic. And the writers, choreographers and producers seem relatively honest portrayals of professionals in the theater biz as well. They aren’t trying to ruin each others lives (yet) in what seem like cheap and easy, not to mention repetitive, story lines with horrible acting. (I hate Glee.)
All in all, Smash is the least self indulgent theater show I’ve ever seen on television. They’re not (yet) selling an album full of songs that are shittier than the original to everyone with too much expendable income. Basically, Glee is sloppy television and product marketing at its absolute finest; Smash is a tv show (with less obvious marketing) about musical theater in NYC. If I have to pick a show about theater on TV, Imma go with the latter.
Would it be Sunday morning without the Brady Bunch?
I haven’t seen this show since Nick at Nite in the 90s. It’s a historical culture shock. First, there are like NO people around. Can you imagine being in the butcher store (if people went to a butcher store instead of the Target meat section) and there are no people around? Except in Brady Bunch world that’s just a pleasant Tuesday instead of a depressing, rundown depression/recession era “lack” of consumers. There are so many people in this country, I don’t think we could EVER have a lack of consumers.
In one episode, Bobby Brady didn’t study and he did bad on a test. Instead of being angry at the teachers, Carol and Mike Brady tell him he should have studied more and it’s his fault he didn’t do well on the test. Why this makes me do a double take shocks me. Nowadays shitty parents blame everything on everyone else except their shitty kid. I think the explanation is crazy, indulgent parenting.
Anyways, the outfits are cool, the customs seem super bizarre and there’s like one black person a season on the show. Tripppppppppy.
2PF 