lunchtable TV talk

Lunchtable TV Talk: Survivor’s Remorse

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While I never heard of it and find the title a bit strange (survivor’s guilt? buyer’s remorse? I can sort of see the strains of this… but somehow it seems like its title would be better for the underrated and already canceled Getting On, while this show could easily be called Getting On…) for a basketball drama, I decided to dig in and watch after Survivor’s Remorse appeared on a few 2015 best-of lists. I would not go so far as to put it atop any best lists, but it’s rather entertaining.

The show riffs a bit on the family drama – a gifted young athlete becomes an almost overnight millionaire and his family tags along when he moves to the Atlanta team. We’ve seen stuff like this, but most dramas explore the exploitative aspects of the family (the family milks the athlete for all he is worth). You get a taste of that here, but mostly the family is close and the strength of that keeps it all together.

Nice to see the actress, Teyonah Parris, who played Mad Men’s first black secretary, Dawn, land here in a big supporting role. The show is ostensibly a comedy but quite handily deals with some serious issues, making light of divisive matters. Comedy flows, sometimes from the strangest places, but nowhere is it more consistent and hilarious than with the family uncle, Julius. Julius is a bit of a loser/hanger-on but always tells it like it is (usually in a way that’s comical). I won’t cite examples – it’s worth you watching yourself to see him ride with local police to chase down a ne’er-do-well bicycle thief, to watch him using his nephew’s new fame to score with a bunch of women or to see him go to a store to find a “dog repellent” and find one called “K Nein”.

I can’t say that the main character inspires much interest at all – but everyone around him is worth viewing, from the aforementioned uncle to the main character’s sister, Mary Charles, from crazy DeShauwn to the Chinese shoe “captain of industry” Da Chen Bao. They are worth watching.

Lunchtable TV Talk: Jane the Virgin

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I cannot count the times I nearly gave up on Jane the Virgin. When I get annoyed, somehow it reels itself back in. I can’t explain why – it’s not really my style. The overly theatrical craziness of the telenovela style doesn’t do much for me, which I suppose is why these kinds of shows (Jane the Virgin now and Ugly Betty a few years ago) bind themselves tightly with down-to-earth family stories that keep them from going completely off the rails. (Although all of the stories are crazy.)

The show routinely makes it onto a lot of year-end-best lists, and I can’t quite give it that level of approval. I keep watching, improbably, because most of the characters are likeable and when the show decides to ground certain things in reality (and there are remarkably few of these things), it goes all out. Jane’s struggles with new motherhood, for example, are pretty realistic. Her tiredness, her going days without taking a shower, the complete and exclusive concentration on her baby (to the detriment of her friendships) feel very real and well-timed (that is, her baby did not grow into a giant two-year-old boy in the course of half a season, and her struggles in each week’s episode feel well-paced enough to coincide with real milestones in her baby’s development and her development as a mother). Perhaps these are not reasons to keep watching a show, but there is definitely something compelling enough that I keep watching it while letting several other shows (such as, Empire) drift off my watch list.

Lunchtable TV Talk: Review

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Forrest MacNeil rivals my own knowledge of zip codes! He proudly declares sometime in season two that he knows all the zip codes, which makes his co-host roll her eyes (as she often does), and mutter, “That’s weird.” And yeah, it is. But sometimes it is moments like these that flip the switch for me – I like something but really decide I like it in small moments like that. Our zip code kinship sealed the deal.

I had been hearing about Review with Forrest MacNeil for a good while and could never find it to watch online (until now). Taunted by its presence in a list of TV’s 35 best shows (and my inability to see it), I sought it out and have now finally, greedily, watched it all. It’s been a trip into really committed absurdity. I’ve had a few laughs. More importantly, I’ve seen something here that I have not quite seen before. It is full of, as a recent article in The Atlantic describes, “cringe-inducing” humor, always imbuing the viewer with that dreaded sense that all best and earnest intentions are bound to go wrong coupled with a few visual gags that provide a juvenile chuckle or two. As the same article in The Atlantic points out as well, it is a show about a very average, milquetoast man who believes his opinions are important and in this belief transcends the limitations of his suburbanite timidity and dullness: “Like so many average men, Forrest thinks his opinions are important, a seemingly harmless belief the show carries to extreme conclusions.”

Forrest MacNeil is fictional tv show host who reviews life rather than tv shows or movies, and with considerable earnestness of his own and manipulative coaxing from his producer, pushes absurd viewer questions into insane territory… and ridiculous, insane consequences result. In fact, tragic results, if they weren’t so completely ridiculous. From taking an ultimately tragic space flight to leading a cult, Forrest MacNeil’s explorations on behalf of other people’s curiosity are preposterous (and seem to adversely affect those he loves most of all – from ruining his marriage and his ex’s future happiness to destroying all his father’s homes) – and his own complete obliviousness, disregard for anyone else’s feelings or for what is appropriate (in the name of his “mission”) lead to disaster.

I do wonder: is Forrest MacNeil a psychopath? Hard to tell – he’s an insecure guy who does love and wants to be loved. But constantly putting his show ahead of his own well-being and the well-being of those he loves has made him blind to consequences. He nearly dies a dozen times and descends into lunacy. And just as he decides to delve into what it’s like to believe in a conspiracy theory, he decides the show’s producer, Grant, is the villain who has conspired to kill him through his show’s review process. Until Grant slyly shoots down the theories with:

“People are constantly asking you to review dangerous things because they already know what the easy stuff is like. They can do that themselves. Living on the edge like this, things will go wrong and people get hurt.”

In some ways this feels a bit like a meditation/commentary on reality TV and how as a society, our craving for more – both living vicariously through others and demanding the most extreme actions through them – has pushed the edges of normalcy and decency to … abnormal and indecent territory.

All in the name of entertainment… the show must go on, right?

Lunchtable TV Talk: Falling Skies

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I am combing through a long list of TV I have watched … a lot of it. It should not have, but it did stun me when I realized I had seen 30 of 35 of the best shows of 2015 (according to Vox). The Vox list was a longer version of other recently published 2015 reviews, most of which cite similar lists. I think it’s easy to forget some of the really good stuff that happened earlier in the year (like Better Call Saul – it was not perfect but it was so much better than a lot of stuff on TV) because we are so spoiled by a constant stream of high quality programming. It is easy to leave out stuff that felt new and exciting, felt groundbreaking, or really just felt like something powerful. Because there is just too much of the stuff.

With that in mind, I wanted to say just one or two words about Falling Skies, which ended this year without much fanfare. It was never going to make anyone’s top-ten or even top-35 shows. It was over the top and too much for most of its run – but it had its moments. It went too far and squandered its potential most of the time. Some of the storylines about infighting among humans were just… overwrought and took away from the bigger stories, which might have been explored with better handling had there not been so much wasted time. After all, we are sometimes brought down by the enemy within or near – pettiness, power struggles, etc. – and external enemies can just stand on the sidelines and watch us tear ourselves and each other apart.

I can’t say, even at the end, that things became particularly clear. What was the point of this show? It was a less well-executed version of The Walking Dead – a group of people running, hiding and fighting an enemy greater than itself. Sure, in The Walking Dead, it’s an enemy that is greater only in number. In Falling Skies, the enemy is extraterrestrial invaders with exponentially superior firepower who destroy almost everything except some kind of fighting spirit in the humans who remain. (There was way too much thinly veiled American-style patriotism here, with the protagonist being a former history professor who cites tales of Revolutionary War “heroes” and battles while backed up by a few actual military personnel, who have together formed a new militia, making the whole show feel a bit like a post-apocalyptic Revolutionary War re-enactment. I suppose this was by design, but it felt heavy-handed at best and inauthentic at worst.)

What did the show get right? Questions of suspicion and trust. Who do you trust when your back is against the wall, when survival is at stake? In this case, aliens invade. But when a different group of aliens arrives and offers to help, claiming that the original invaders are a shared enemy, do you cautiously accept their help and choose to trust them or reject all outsiders, anyone not like you, because it is more likely to be a trap? These kinds of themes are timely in an era where American presidential candidates want to do things like create databases of Muslims in America and shut out all new Muslim entrants?! Fundamentally, who is the outsider, and by what definition or authority is it okay to suspect everyone for the heinous actions of a few?

The show, improbably, shows the power of the collective. When a group of people band together in solidarity for a single purpose, they can achieve the impossible. The odds were against them. But the group, for the most part, survived. But the show also reveals (much as we have seen in The Walking Dead) that survival is only part of the equation. It’s not going to happen without losses, and no one gets out unchanged.

Maybe they were able to pick it back up again, but in this case at least, the sky really was falling.

Lunchtable TV Talk: Treme

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It’s hard to characterize Treme, a little-watched, slow and critically praised show that sometimes felt like it lost its way, even if it never had one. It meandered, and in many ways, that felt quite intentional. Much more like real life than the way television moves forward with unrealistic plot points and devices that are thrown in not to serve the story but to keep drama churning. But do you need non-stop drama to keep you caring?

Treme never had the slow-burning intensity or high stakes that its creator’s masterpiece predecessor, The Wire, did but it was also an entirely different story, a different kind of story. Could a collection of loosely interwoven tales of people’s lives in post-Katrina (I struggle with the fact that this was already more than ten years ago – it seems like yesterday, and I imagine it feels recent for people dealing with its ongoing aftermath) New Orleans hold together tightly enough to make people watch? Perhaps not – but Treme gave us a reminder that there still are serious after-effects of the storm as well as memorable characters from all walks of life who live with those after-effects day in and day out.

Perhaps that is the characterization: the show is about characters a lot more than it is about stories. Very gritty and real-seeming characters whose lives are in no way tidy or “decided”. Everyone is as ambiguous as real people are. There are no moral epiphanies and black-and-white rights and wrongs here (in that sense it is very much the rightful successor to The Wire, which brought us moral and legal ambiguity in a host of different shades).

Lunchtable TV Talk: Wilfred

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A long time ago I saw the first season of Wilfred and although I liked it, I forgot all about it. Recently I binged my way through the subsequent seasons during an equally all-encompassing baking binge and was surprised by how poignant a show it turned out to be. Questioning our sometimes tenuous links with reality, the quality of our relationships and the very meaning of existence at times, Wilfred never delivers answers and seems only to pose more questions. Its absurdity drives its stories and is its engine while its heart is as cruel, as manipulative, as misleading, as deceptive, as multilayered but ultimately as soft as … humanity. And that seems to be the point.Humanity and our relationships with other humans (or humanized canines!) is cruel and manipulative, among other things. And perhaps worst of all, our own minds can be playing tricks on us – and as Wilfred asks more than once, how can you tell the difference?

Given that answers are all left open to interpretation, Wilfred leaves you with a few laughs, some frustration and a lot of triggers for emotional response and analysis.

The premise – depressive and suicidal young man begins having conversations with his neighbor’s anthropomorphized dog, Wilfred. No one else can see the dog in this form. And from this basic and frankly silly idea, there is a lot more under the surface – and continuing the awkward and ill-formed analogy – a lot of bones to dig up and chew on.

It’s no masterpiece, but Wilfred felt like a quiet but powerful wave. I was easily sucked in, never once felt taxed or bored and was left with a lot to think about.

Lunchtable TV Talk – The Best at Year End

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Call me crazy, call me lazy, call me ambitious… but whatever you call me, I have seriously seen all of 30 of 35 of the shows in this best-of-2015 rundown. And the writer is right on the money about everything in the list – at least of the things I have seen. I’m not big on animation, which is ultimately why I haven’t seen stuff like Bob’s Burgers (it is in my Netflix queue) or Rick and Morty. I tried to watch Review but could never find it to see. And I had never really thought of The 100. I admit that I don’t even know what it’s about.

Unfortunately I am too tired to dream up a list of what else is out there that didn’t make the list … nothing likely tops the Vox list – it includes some of my favorites, even the almost-never-watched stuff like Manhattan (which came into its own in a big way in the second season), The Knick, You’re the Worst, The Leftovers, and Rectify. Even Justified made the list.

What strikes me as weird is that I somehow managed to watch all 30 shows, and that is not even the tip of the iceberg in terms of the things I have watched this year. It’s usually on in the background, but still… so.much.tv.

Revisiting Girlfriends’ Guide…

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When I finished watching the first season of the asinine Girlfriends’ Guide to Divorce, I swore I would not return for more brain abuse. But then I did. I guess I needed, as I wrote previously, more reasons to roll my eyes. The first season had fleeting moments of poignancy in that it dealt on occasion with the sweeping themes of pain, loss and confusion after breakups. But the majority of the show was frivolous and shallow, and the second season largely continues to dredge the dregs. The attempts at evoking depth also come off as exceedingly shallow, trivializing real problems and emotions.

The only exceptions have been (in this order):

  • The appearance of Retta as Barbara. While her character is framed as a bitter and divorced managing editor, she is the only voice of reason/reality in this twilight zone of non-reality. I’d keep watching the show if it started following her.
  • The breakup confrontation younger-man Will forces once his heart is broken by Lisa Edelstein‘s Abby. While I still find the relationship unrealistic and have no clue, given what we’ve seen, why or how this guy imagined he was in love with the clueless and totally self-involved Abby, his reaction seemed spot on.
  • Finally and repeatedly exposing Abby for the self-involved, “it’s-all-about-me” asshole she is. While all the characters are a bit hollow and narcissistic, very rarely considering that there are consequences to their selfishness (they almost all, in fairness, do realize that there are consequences after the fact – the over-the-top acting always reveals these “shock-hurt” facial expressions when someone confronts them on their selfishness). When Will confronts Abby, and also when close friend, Jo eviscerates Abby more than once for her fair-weather-friend nature, these moments rang true.

But dear god, what a stupid show – redeemed in moments that expose the deeply flawed nature of these people.

 

Lunchtable TV Talk: Master of None

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Where can you hear Townes van Zandt, Bobby McFerrin, Lou Reed, “Cool It Now” from New Edition, Father John Misty, a Chinese song “Yue yuan hua hao“, Bollywood “Jap Chaye” and about a thousand other eclectic, off-the-wall, past and present hits and obscurities? Including “Africa” by Toto, which seems to be the anthem of millennial bar-goers – they freaking go nuts over this song (on TV and in real). Hmm.

Aziz Ansari‘s ace Master of None on Netflix. I am not sure I have ever experienced such a diverse and rich soundtrack in any TV show. Who is responsible for this magic?

And maybe the only TV show I’ve watched in which they mention boba/bubble tea! Haha.

I could ramble about how the show is slightly genius in its random observations and is also really funny, sweet and pleasant. I’ve loved it, even down to the background music.

Lunchtable TV Talk: You’re the Worst – Don’t Give Up

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Surprised by the first season of You’re the Worst, in which two unpleasant people – but still somehow, sometimes, likable in their vulnerability – fall in love, I looked forward to the second season. It began a few weeks ago, and at first, I was a bit disappointed. There were episodes that seemed to try too hard, in which things were neither funny nor thoughtful. The only thread that seemed to be woven, subtly, through the season was Gretchen’s increasingly irregular behavior. This is revealed to be a downward spiral into clinical depression, and this is where the story came together once again. Oddly, the seemingly disconnected nature of the story to the point that Gretchen’s behavior was explained all led somewhere – but so subtly.

The most recent week’s episode, in which Gretchen starts stalking a couple that looks perfect and idyllic to her from the outside, and insinuates herself into their life, only to discover that she’d bought into an illusion, was sublime. Gretchen is almost manic in her shift from elation at witnessing this couple and connecting with them (she seems to find a naive hope in what she perceives as their happiness) to being visibly crestfallen when the man in the couple (played by an always amazing Justin Kirk) starts confessing – spewing, even – his discontent. The look on Gretchen’s face, expressing this dawning and deepening disappointment, is bewitching in its reality and relatability. As Gretchen and Jimmy leave, Jimmy totally oblivious, rambling in his careless and carefree way, he does not even notice as Gretchen silently falls apart.

It was unbelievably touching in the sense that… well, I think we’ve all been there if we’ve ever found ourselves depressed on any level. And as much as I don’t like Gretchen most of the time, she made me feel for her.