Brush Your Teeth, Comb Your Hair, Eat an Apple or a Pear

[vovat]

With tonight's assignment out of the way, I might as well post about the Simpsons and Family Guy season premieres. Honestly (because normally my reviews are total lies :P), I didn't think either was that great. Maybe I would have liked the Simpsons episode better if I'd ever seen Flight of the Concords. Those guys carried the brunt of the episode, and while I found them likeable enough, I'm not familiar enough with their style of humor for it to really click with me. The subplot had some amusing moments, mostly in terms of the horrible things Krusty had done, but it was kind of a weird fit with the main plot that presumably took place over a period of several weeks. How long were Homer and Bart in the Netherlands, and who was putting them up for all that time? Also, the bit near the beginning with Maggie filling her diaper was rather too low-brow for me (not that I never like low-brow comedy, but I kind of have a sore spot for poop jokes, so you're going to have a put a little more effort into that kind of gag to make me laugh), but she had some other good scenes. I'm not sure why her cutting the new pacifier like a cigar was one of the jokes that stuck with me, but it did. With Family Guy, I give the writers credit for bringing together a lot of characters who don't often interact, and revealing that James Woods had wronged everyone in the town was pretty funny. While some of the character interaction was good, though, the episode as a whole came off as rather too predictable. Not that I guessed who the killer was ahead of time (there really weren't even any clues, were there?), just that it went through the motions of the clichéd murder mystery without adding much of a twist. I also have to wonder why the Griffin kids came along when nobody else brought their kids (no Neil Goldman or Tom Tucker's son with the upside-down face), but I guess they didn't want to make the cast any more unwieldy than it already was. By the way, Seth MacFarlane stated on Twitter that he does consider the deaths to be canon, but it's not like making sense has ever been a strong point of the show, so who knows?

It sometimes strikes me as odd how little TV I watch compared with a lot of other people. Yeah, I know some of you don't watch ANY TV, but for me I think it's mostly a matter of not knowing what shows might be good, combined with preferring to spend my free time online. I usually watch the new episodes of House and Glee with bethje, which I guess basically means that Fox has a monopoly on my television viewing. Is there anything else I really should be watching? There are a lot of shows that I can tell are crap from just a brief bit of watching (Two and a Half Men, for instance), but is there something actually good that I'm missing out on? I sometimes felt like an outcast for never having seen Lost, but what I heard about it didn't make it sound worth seeing, although I'm curious as to what a smoke monster looks like. Didn't Godzilla fight it once? Or was that the smog monster?

Comments

[dragonxbait.livejournal.com]

We like 30 Rock, also Eureka, Warehouse 13, Fringe and Castle. The middle three are sci-fi (although Eureka and warehouse 13 are funny/quirky sci fi) and Castle is a cop show, but also humorous and it has Nathan Fillion from Firefly. So basically I am apparently just a huge sci-fi nerd. We only watch TV on Hulu so all of those are available online (though generally just the past 5 episodes. Oh! And I like Community, although Tom doesn't really, so take that for what it is worth.

[dragonxbait.livejournal.com]

Also, The Guild! But you may need to have played an MMORPG to really get into that. Although maybe not, it's pretty amusing. I think all the back episodes of that are available on their website. I think maybe I am a huge geek. Oh well.

[vilajunkie.livejournal.com]

The Guild is hilarious! It's also up on Youtube, along with their music video "Do You Want to Date My Avatar?"

[ozma914.livejournal.com]

Castle's one of the most fun shows on TV right now.

[poisonyoulove.livejournal.com]

This is what a smoke monster looks like! And since Lost is pretty much my favorite show ever, I'll ignore that crack about it being not worth seeing . . . It's not to everyone's taste, true. ;)

[ozma914.livejournal.com]

What a ride Lost was -- and well worth taking!

[vovat.livejournal.com]

To be fair, I think my lack of interest is due more to a desire to reject what's popular than anything about the actual show.

[ozma914.livejournal.com]

Understood, you're not alone in that. Since I was there from the very first episode of Lost that doesn't count with me, but I tend to just like what I like, regardless of whether it's popular or not. I've never been entirely clear on why people should reject anything just because a lot of other people like it -- or vice-versa.

[revme.livejournal.com]

I thought the Simpsons ep was a complete and total slog. The Glee kids were thankfully brief, but still pretty fucking lame, and, well, I don't like Flight, so... yeah. They just had too much of the episode doing their lame Tenacious D ripoff schtick. That one was a definite watch-checker. I remember checking my watch when it was halfway over and going "GOD, there's another 15 minutes of this?" I didn't care for the Krusty plot that much either, but it was better than the Lisa plot... but considering it was just barely Lisa, and more FotC.... feh.

Cleveland was Cleveland. I really hope they put that one out of our misery. It doesn't even have the decency to be awful. It's just so utterly mediocre.

I actually liked the Family Guy ep, though. I thought that one was pretty well done. I mean, that's a standard Murder Mystery Whodunit Trope, but they had the decency to make sure it worked. (Due to the plate/gun/timer setup, I thought it had to be either Consuela or Priscilla, since they'd have access to the mansion before, but the explanation with Diane made sense, since as a recently jilted lover, she'd probably have access too... or at least know the layout/etc. of the mansion so she could prepare.) I kinda like the ones where they play a bit with the setup. I thought this one was better than "Brian & Stewie" (I think that was the name of the bank-vault one), mainly due to the absence of a long, poo-eating-related plot point -- and it actually moved at a good clip and kept me interested. I do like that the show is Canon, which'll be pretty awesome. I'll be interested if Tom Tucker's also dispatched; all they'd have is Lois' testimony that Diane confessed... but they may not even have a body for her. But I am thinking WAY too much about this one.)

I adore Adventure Time. You should watch that, either on TV if you have cable, or online if you don't.

[vovat.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I didn't think the murder mystery episode was great, but it didn't have anything about it that I particularly DISLIKED, unlike the bank vault one with its talk of poop-eating.

[vilajunkie.livejournal.com]

I watch it on TNT, so I don't know for sure what channel it's really on, but I like "Bones" (with David Boreanz (sp?)/Angel as one of the main characters, and even more wit than his Angel character). It's a forensics crime show, but everyone on the show is sufficiently nerdy in some way, except David's character, so it's actually good and not dumbed-down like CSI. I also watch "Law & Order: SVU", but again that's a crime show, and I don't know if you or Beth like those. "NCIS" is another good crime show, and it actually has a goth character that's weird but not in a perverse way! Beth would like NCIS and Bones for the gory bits, which I'm sure is part of why she likes House.

[ozma914.livejournal.com]

Bones is still on my list of favorite shows still on the air, along with Fringe, Supernatural, Castle, and just a few others.

[vilajunkie.livejournal.com]

Because David is on it, or you just really enjoy some other aspect of the show? Btw, why did Hodgens' lab partner (the clean-shaven guy even younger than him) leave the show? From watching later episodes of the same season, it sounds like he compromised a case.

[ozma914.livejournal.com]

I *started* watching it because of DB; at the time my youngest and I would check out any show with a JossVerse veteran on it. But I stuck around with shows like that and Castle because I love a great ensemble show that's funny and shows the group gathering into a family of a sort. Snappy dialogue and great characters, with a dash of humor, always draw me in.

Oh, no! I can't tell you what happened with that Zach. You *must* watch the final episodes of his last season -- it's something that has to be experienced, not told about. I think the last episode of S3, "The Pain in the Heart", is the big reveal.

[vilajunkie.livejournal.com]

I have to admit, seeing DB on a new show is probably what made me go "Hey, I gotta watch this!" Except I didn't go out of my way to watch it for him at all. I saw an episode here or there while channel-surfing and found out I really liked the show for the whole cast. The only thing about the show that slightly bugs me is: Where are all the important members of the agency that are over 40? Even what's-her-name, the director/lead doctor/whichever, seems like she's not much older than 40. Otherwise, all the other characters seem to be in their late twenties to mid-thirties. (Sorry I don't know all the names; unless characters repeat their names constantly, like they do for Dr. Brennan, Agent Booth, Angela, and sometimes Hodgens, I tend to forget what characters' names are.)

Damn! I guess I'll have to torture you to find out the answer! :)

[ozma914.livejournal.com]

Many of the characters are grad students working under Dr. Brennan, which explains their age -- the young age of the others can only be explained by the fact that the average TV viewer just expects to see young people playing the roles, regardless of how old they'd be in real life. The truth if, in real life older types rule the world, while the entertainment industry has convinced the younger generation that *they're* in charge -- even though the only thing they're really in charge of is entertainment and advertising. That sounds harsh, and the worst part about it is that I didn't figure it out myself until I was past the Young Punk period; when I was writing in my teens, all my characters were the same age as me or only slightly older regardless of what they were doing. I remember once writing a story in which almost the entire crew of a spaceship was made up of teenagers -- and years later that really happened on a TV movie!

Anyway, you're in luck -- there's a torture chamber in my basement. Hey, wait, I'm not the one who wants to be strapped in! If I want to be tortured, I'll watch C-Span.

[vovat.livejournal.com]

I'm kind of interested in Bones because I like the Deschanel sisters, but I don't really know anything about the show. I do remember hearing, however, that it's based on a series of books, but Brennan's character is totally different in the books and the show.

And if the young 'uns are in charge of entertainment, why are the Oscars always so full of old people?

[vilajunkie.livejournal.com]

Which one is a Deschanel sister? You might actually like Dr. Brennan in the show, because I have a theory that she has Asperger's. Yes, I know, I normally nag about people assuming that TV characters are autistic even when there's no in-universe indication that they are, but Dr. Brennan is highly intelligent, uses stilted and formal language, is as logical as humanly possible, and (more importantly) is awkward in social situations and doesn't understand typical reactions to things, such as telling families and friends how their relative/friend died explicitly and then being confused over the reactions. Oh, and she seems to get along better with animals than most humans, as in the dog fighting episode where she walked right up to a guard dog and started playing with it. I think the fact that she's, well, a she is why other people might not be able to see it the way I do.

Oh, and as for the Oscars, the voting committee is mostly made up of old-people actors and votes for other old actors. That may explain why action movies (of the anti-intellectual kind), comedies, fantasy films, comic book films, and animated films rarely get awards or even nominated. When they do, it's like the case of Heath Ledger as the Joker; the committee was pressured by everyone else in the universe to give him Best Supporting Actor, even though it was a movie based on a comic book. However, that still doesn't explain why Jack Nicholson and Cher are given seats and screen time every year, even though they haven't done films for ages.

[vovat.livejournal.com]

I'm pretty sure it's Dr. Brennan who's played by Emily Deschanel, Zooey's older sister.

[ozma914.livejournal.com]

The Oscars! The Oscars have been meaningless for a long time, just like so many other rarified air prizes given out annually. Just the same, as long as we have CBS we'll have older people on television. (Little network joke, there.)

Yes, Kathy Reichs wrote a series of books about forensic anthropologist Temperance Brennan, who on the show writes a series of books about a fictional forensic anthropologist -- named Kathy Reichs. The books are absolutely nothing like the show, and don't even share any of the same supporting characters. Me, I came for the Buffy connection (although there's now a nice Oz connection, considering Zooey Deschanel costarred in an episode), and stayed for the fun and the snappy dialogue. I could do without the sometimes stomach turning visual effects.

[vilajunkie.livejournal.com]

Hey, the visual effects are nothing compared to the gross-out CGI of House! And that show even makes it a requirement to gross you out visually each episode. :X

[ozma914.livejournal.com]

Sounds like Bones and House have the same requirements in their series bible: Make any viewer who watches our show with dinner regret it!

[vovat.livejournal.com]

I've never really been all that bothered by seeing blood and guts while eating. On the other hand, if it's something involving poop, all bets are off.

[ozma914.livejournal.com]

Last year we weren't watching any shows at the time they aired, and we had a running gag (pardon the pun) that Bones always seemed to come up in rotation whenever we were watching a show with dinner. The gore doesn't bother us, either, with the exception that I can't stand eye stuff. However, when someone starts vomiting -- that's when all bets are off, in my case.

[vilajunkie.livejournal.com]

I just find it funny because on other crime shows, characters under 40 are mostly relegated to minor recurring characters (such as the cops' kids), victims, criminals, or the "fish out of water" new cop. Bones is the one crime show that I know of where the main cast is under 40. Even on shows with "young and hip" characters, such as Abby on NCIS, there's still no guarantee that the character is as young as they act. Is it terrible of me that on shows where there are people around my age acting how twentysomethings are "supposed" to act, e.g., Jersey Shore, I just *facepalm* and change the channel as quickly as possible? I think I'd much rather watch a team of forensic scientists solving murders than a team of drunken and spoiled slobs getting more drunk. :P

There's a torture chamber in your basement, huh? Did you install that before or after Emily professed her love for Dr. Frank N. Furter? :D

[ozma914.livejournal.com]

And now you know my great secret: I don't watch many crime shows. *gasp* Oh, yeah, and there's also that torture chamber in my basement, which Emily helped me design in what she called "early Time Warp".

Now that I think back on it, many of the shows I'm currently watching do feature older characters: Walter on Fringe, for instance. On the other hand, I look at characters like Ted on How I Met Your Mother and think, "How can you possibly be old enough to teach a university architecture class?" But I've done no scientific survey on this, and I'm already thinking of older characters from Adama to Castle. My thinking may be based on the fact that, for many years, I tended to watch the same shows my kids did, in which the older character was the fish out of water around a bunch of youngin's -- Buffy the Vampire Slayer with Giles, for instance.

[vilajunkie.livejournal.com]

To be fair, the architecture class may be an undergrad class, and part of getting your Ph.D. involves teaching or TA'ing at least one undergrad class. My cousin is working on his Ph.D. and is "only" 37, so it's possible for younger folks to be teaching in a university. Of course, I never watch How I Met Your Mother *gasp! but it has Alyson Hannigan!*, so I don't know how young Ted is really supposed to be. Speaking of the show, is it supposed to be Alyson and Neil Patrick Harris getting married by the end of the series? Those are the only actors on the show I really know, and with them being such big names, I figured they were the couple implied in the title.

[ozma914.livejournal.com]

Yes, and also to be fair -- the older a get, the younger other people appear to me. :-) Also, the guy who plays Ted -- a character I thought to be in his late 20's -- is actually 36, so there you go.

No, Alyson's character is happily married on the show, while at this point Neil's character is happily sleeping with every woman through any underhanded means he can find. At this point -- of course -- we still don't know who the mother (Ted's future wife) is.

By the way, some of the Buffyverse guest stars on HIMYM include Morena Baccarin, Alexis Denisof, Amy Acker, Tom Lenk, and Harry Groener.

[vilajunkie.livejournal.com]

When I was in high school, I thought I could tell almost anybody apart by age and be able to figure out what grade they were in (if they were 18 and under). These days, I just don't know anymore. I used to think it was an accomplishment for anyone (especially guys) to look like anything but an unshaven slob by 30, but now that *I'm* almost 30, I keep seeing people who are 40 and look amazing/athletic and even more attractive than a lot of people in their 20's and 30's, and not just celebrities either. Maybe it's part of the culture? I mean, looking back at photos of people from 100 years ago, there weren't many athletic-looking people past their early 20's, and more and more people today look "better" by the time they retire.

Wait a minute, the show's been on for how many seasons and we still haven't met "the mother"? I mean, hey, at least give us some possible leads!

I don't recognize any of those actors' names. Except for some of the main cast, I don't know anyone from BtVS. But...I know on Big Bang Theory, one of Leonard's coworkers is "Darlene" from Roseanne, the very girl Leonard's actor's previous character dated on Roseanne.

[ozma914.livejournal.com]

It may be part of culture, but I think it's also perspective; people look different to us as we get older, and in addition we get older and realize, at least subconsciously, that we didn't know as much as we thought we did. On the other hand, back a century ago looking unfit was actually a sign of wealth -- you were well-off enough that you didn't have to work with your hands anymore -- so looking unhealthy was a desirable thing! Then there's the fact that they didn't know nearly as much about healthy lifestyles back then.

There's been lots of leads about the Mother: For instance, Ted met the mother's roommate, and she was in a classroom where he taught briefly before realizing he was in the wrong class. There are rumors that we'll meet the mother this year, but we'll see.

Let's see: The actors played Inara on Firefly, Wesley on Buffy and Angel, Fred on Angel, Andrew Wells of Buffy and one episode of Angel, and the Mayor on Buffy.

[vilajunkie.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I think those are all some pretty good points. Thanks Mr. Older-Than-Me-And-Therefore-Wiser-Guy! :)

Maybe the HIMYM team is thinking of the "mistakes" that, say, Mad About You made, such as finally giving the main characters a proper marriage and a child, thus bringing about the end of the show and a lackluster series finale. Maybe the producers are afraid that once we meet Ted's wife, it will be an end to the series, and thus they have to move on to a new project.

[vovat.livejournal.com]

Having a character who's been established as a bachelor get married has been considered a death knell for TV shows for years now. That's not to say that I don't think it could ever work, just that TV writers and producers tend to fall into the same traps over and over again. Regarding HIMYM specifically, I've never watched it, but I have to say the title pretty much implies the show will end once the parents get together.

[vilajunkie.livejournal.com]

"Cathy", the daily newspaper comic strip, seems to be the only thing out there where the eternal bachelor(ette) got married and the series continued on for a while. Of course, "Cathy" kept most of the same stereotypes and replaced the "single female" stereotypes for "married woman with a career" stereotypes. And it was recently announced that the creator is ending the series once and for all (about time too, since it was a crappy comic strip anyway).

The comic strip "For Better Or For Worse" and the TV show "Seventh Heaven" also had characters grow up and get married and change the series dynamic, but these two solved the problem by killing off most of the main cast (pretty much everyone but the original mom and dad characters) and replacing them with an entirely new cast. But then you get really, really weird plots about the neighbor teenage boy living with the parents while the teen's mom has disappeared for good and the teen's dad is off in Iraq.

[ozma914.livejournal.com]

Heh -- every time I think I'm getting wiser with age, I just think about the people my age who never got any smarter at all!

Absolutely, I can name a dozen or more shows that hit the skids after their "will they or won't they" relationships become "they did". Moonlighting is the earliest off the top of my head: Great chemistry, fun show, went completely to hell as soon as the main characters fell into bed together.

[vilajunkie.livejournal.com]

Ha! Must be a result of not being a scifi nerd to begin with. ;)

On the other hand, the "will they or won't they" between Ross and Rachel on Friends was ridiculous. I don't think they really fit together since their interests were so different, but I guess since they were both insufferable gits it made sense to hook them up. I'm kinda surprised Phoebe ended up with someone relatively normal, but the writers really toned down her weirdness in later seasons, until she was a normal person with only occasional lapses of being spacey. Tapanga on Boy Meets World was the same way; her character at the end of the show was absolutely nothing like her character at the beginning.

[ozma914.livejournal.com]

I'm always amazed that the original plan was for Friends to revolve completely around the characters of Ross and Rachel -- they were so *not* made for each other, although you're right about them being gits. Sometimes it's best to just let the characters stay separate.

[ozma914.livejournal.com]

It was a smog monster that Godzilla fought -- the smoke monster was a fairly cool piece of special effects, though. Much as I loved Lost, I don't think you'd like it: Too many inconsistancies and loose ends, and I can overlook that kind of thing more easily than you can. Which is to say, I can turn off my inner critic and take the low road!

[vovat.livejournal.com]

It's not that I necessarily mind shows with inconsistencies and loose ends, but I'm less willing to excuse them when the show is actually supposed to be building up to something, which I understand was the case with Lost.

[ozma914.livejournal.com]

Yes, that certainly was the case. I forgave them because I was having too much fun to worry about it, but a lot of loose ends got discarded along the way to the final episode -- which gave the characters a satisfying send-off but didn't bother to answer a lot of the questions the show raised.

[rockinlibrarian.livejournal.com]

Okay, i'm one of your friends who doesn't watch TV, but I can tell you all about PBS's kids' shows-- and to that effect, there's a show they play for grade schoolers in the afternoon called "Word Girl" that is totally hilarious and you'd probably get a kick out of it too. No worries about inconsistancies driving you nuts, because it's all very meta and the inconsistancies are made blatant.

[vilajunkie.livejournal.com]

Speaking of PBS kids' shows, Neil Gaiman will be on "Arthur" as himself inspiring one of the characters to write a graphic novel. I think that episode airs October 25th.

[vovat.livejournal.com]

Will he be an anthropomorphic animal?

[vilajunkie.livejournal.com]

Yep, as a cat person. And, no, I don't think there's going to be an invasion of the Cat People like in that early horror movie. :P

[ozma914.livejournal.com]

I watch "Word Girl" whenever I can! Love the show -- it's one of those programs that really does have something for both kids and adults.

[(Anonymous)]

This is full of fucking shit

[vovat.livejournal.com]

Perhaps, but why single out this post in particular?