TV cancellations

Lunchtable TV Talk: Maron

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I don’t know of anything better than a certain self-deprecating humor, the likes of which Marc Maron has mastered in his podcast and further on his TV show, Maron. I binge-watched all four seasons in two days (could not stop), and read just as I slid into season 4 that the episodes shown this week would be the last ever. It did feel fitting and perfect, ending on his terms, well before some ho-hum inertia, repetition or dullness set in.

I think what gripped me about Maron is how the somewhat unusual parts, which appear in every episode, are still relatable. I was shocked to find how many times the plot points mirrored things that happened in my friends’ and acquaintances’ lives.

Cases in point:

  • A colleague forced an elderly, dying hamster on another colleague and then dodged her phone calls when she was trying to call and ask him about this sickly hamster. In the end she took the hamster to a veterinarian and had to spend about 200 USD to put the hamster down humanely.
  • A man I used to know was secretly living in his storage unit/garage. He built a loft inside. I did not know for a long time that he lived in a storage space, so was surprised when he drunkenly phoned me one night and reported that he had somehow fallen out of bed… onto the hood of his truck?! It sounded logistically impossible until I later learned he was sleeping in a loft above his vehicles.

I could continue this list but it’s useless. I only want to illustrate that there is something both real but unreal about Maron, and this is its perfect imperfection … and why it was utterly addictive.

(And, my god, who doesn’t love the cats?)

Lunchtable TV Talk: Lilyhammer – No experience leaves you unchanged

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It’s been a long time since I watched Lilyhammer on Netflix. And a long time since I moved to Norway myself. It was not a crash-landing as rough as that experienced by protagonist “Johnny”, the alter ego of an American mobster, Frank Tagliano, who goes into witness protection in Lillehammer, Norway after testifying against his cronies. Knowing the reach of the mob and relying on his love for the “Lilyhammer” Olympics (most of us just remember the Tonya Harding–Nancy Kerrigan saga), Frank manages to get his witness protection assignment in Lillehammer, Norway – which turns out to be a major culture shock not just for him but for everyone he encounters in the community. That includes the police force, social services, his new girlfriend, the hospital system… and everyone else.

He makes a strange bunch of new friends/colleagues, opens a new nightclub and changes the rules to suit him. Through manipulation and brute force, he pushes through quite a lot of his own brand of corruption, intimidation and coercion to impose on the naive, fairness-loving Norwegians. He also forces the residents to look in the mirror (e.g., an episode that deals with racism, refugees and “inclusion” – which is timely now during the recent refugee crisis). Frank can be insensitive and totally politically incorrect (and sexist), but has his own sense of fairness that comes from living in a multicultural society – even if a very limited one like the mob – and this rubs off on everyone around him and comes full circle until he starts to realize new truths about himself as well.

But no experience leaves you unchanged. While the Norwegians eventually bend and comply – and learn – from Frank’s ways, Frank too is softened by Norwegian life.

Lilyhammer was cancelled, so no more of the fun we got for three seasons… but luckily three seasons is an easy binge watch.

TV renewal tease: The Brink

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No!

It’s one thing when a TV show just gets unceremoniously cancelled. It’s entirely another when a show you like is declared “safe” and gets renewed for another season… only to have the network pull out the proverbial rug from under you. Seriously, HBO… why did you renew and then renege on the brilliant, satirical The Brink?

Tease!

HAPPYish endings

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HAPPYish took a while to grow on me, and as most entertainment media pointed out upon its debut, the world did not necessarily need another portrait of disaffected middle-aged-man at a crossroads. It didn’t always hit the mark but sometimes felt very satisfying, shining a light not just on middle-aged-man dissatisfaction but also on the disillusionment of moving away from one’s youthful dreams and clinging onto and valuing the important things you do find when you’re older and more mature… and realizing that even when you do stumble onto one or two of life’s few epiphanies, you are just as likely to forget and go on with your pettiness two minutes later. It also skewered the hollowness of the advertising industry.

In a reappraisal of the show’s first – and only, now that it has been canceled – season, I think I will miss it.