(Not) Gone to Pot: Weeds Season One

It seems unlikely that anyone pitching a show would have an easy job of it. A man pitching "Magnum, P.I.," for instance, might say something along the lines of, "...and Tom Selleck will run around in obscenely short shorts and fire guns and solve crimes." That wouldn't fly well. Nor would, "Silver foxes past their prime lounge about and talk of all the hot sex they used to have." So, one might imagine the shock a Showtime executive received when he heard this pitch: "A recently widowed, upper crust Jewish housewife and mother sells pot to her equally upper crust white Jewish friends and gets her dope from wise-cracking Mama, who be calling her a skinny bitch."

And yet, that is the basic premise for Showtime's ingenious series, "Weeds." The pilot wastes no time in semantics and begins in full-fledged medias res. Nancy Botwin (Mary-Louise Parker) lost her husband to a heart-attack witnessed by her youngest son Shane (Finding Nemo's Alexander Gould). She's already selling the MJ to suburban dads at soccer matches, already making pot-lemonade from the metaphoric lemons with which her late husband left her.

The writing is snappy and sharp. (Do the writers not indulge in this mauie wowie, I wonder?) . That doesn't mean that it doesn't veer into well-charted territory. It's as though "Desperate Housewives" moved from Wisteria Lane to Agrestic, California and, rather than sleep with the gardener, they move pot and sleep with the drug lord of the community college. Nancy's friend, or rather, PTA associate Cecelia Hodes (Elizabeth Perkins) is the vindictive, perfectionist mother that hides laxatives in her child's hidden stash of Hershey bars so she'll lose weight. There are cheating husbands, dead husbands, and - most importantly for Nancy - pot smoking husbands.

Nancy must quickly find a covert cover-up business before suspicions start to arise of how she's maintaining her expensive lifestyle. And why not open up a bakery, where her product can be consumed without the damaging affects to the lungs. But things aren't exactly 'smoking' for her.

You've got it all here. Intricate plot, disturbed children who imitate terrorist videos and then wave to Mommy, sexually charged deaf teenagers, and even poop humor. And the added bonus of seeming really cool when you talk about "Weeds" with your friends.

Don't mow the lawn; the grass can wait. It's this entertaining joint where you want to be.

Quote of the Day: Andy Botwin: How can you be so blindly pro-Bush?
Doug Wilson: I like his wife Laura... I used to buy weed from her at SMU.

The Dog Days of Summer

Some people tend to be partial to summer. No school, lazy days spent by the pool, no worries. But - of course - that also means no new shows. Yes, as the month of May wanes, so too does the quality of entertainment. Gone are the hopeful Oscar contenders, the art films, and even Blockbusters. In their place are crude facsimiles, usually to do with some talking rodent or a grown man in neon tights. Oh, and lots of explosions and things that go...

BANG!

WHIZ!

BIFF!

No new shows, alas. I am lost without "LOST," I want to be pushing up daisies with no "Pushing Daisies," I'm going mad without "Mad Men." (I won't tell you what activities the lack of "Weeds" encourages). Yes, there are the redemptive media apostles, Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert - but the world needs more. More than pundit jokes about current events. More than clever taglines and theme music. But ... how? September seems like some sort of unobtainable Grail, an Elysium of plot and character development. Have faith, O ye with anxious eyes and worn sofas.

There is hope.

Here are several ways to hold on:

1. Revisit Old Favorites
What was that one thing that Michael Scott said to Dwight that was just so inappropriate? Or a steamy love scene featuring Jonathon Rhys-Myers? Thanks to modern technology, DVD's allow it. So figure out the mysteries of LOST, find out what made Betty ugly, and see if saving the cheerleader really does mean saving the world. (I'd argue, save the Nielson, save the show, but that's why I'm not an important television executive).

2. Discover Something New (That Might be Old)
There are a wealth of films and television shows that simply go under the radar. Find movies that were nominated for an Oscar but didn't win (some of them simply get the shaft when they are, in fact, the better film) and be amazed. Or, discover the beauty of television gems of yesteryear - "Boomtown," "Freaks and Geeks," and of course - the short-lived but epically entertaining "Cop Rock."

3. Do Something Old-Fashioned
Books. Ever heard of them? Sometimes they're in the pockets of DVD's and explain special features. They are heftier versions of scripts and screenplays. And some of them are pretty entertaining. And then there's hoop-twirling, four-square, and flashlight tag, for starters. For the more advanced, there are regattas, parades, poodle grooming, and French lessons. Très amusant, non?


Be strong. Please, do it for the television.
September will be here before we know it.

Quote of the Day: "Are you blue?"
"Only in color, Michael."

The Brill and the Aggro - The British Invasion

The Office. The Daily Show. Sanford and Son.

What do these three seemingly unrelated shows have to do with each other?

Is it that they're funny? That they deal with important issues like race, bigotry, and ignorance? That funny front men do inappropriate things?

How about they all hail from a small island in the northern Atlantic where the inhabitants drink tea and use proper grammar? Yes, that's right. Your favourite (as the Brits might spell it) television shows have their roots from Merrie Olde England. If it wasn't apparent with the recent super bands (Coldplay, Radiohead, Snow Patrol), then maybe it's the encroaching fashion. In any case, they came. They saw. They inserted their oddball humour.


The craze started as early as the 1960's and '70's when shows like Sanford and Son emerged after the British Steptoe and Son. Both dealt with racial bigotry and socioeconomic class, sure, but there is the whole accent thing to get around.

Big fan of TLC? Then you'd be a fan of the BBC as well; nearly all of TLC's programming has its roots in British television, from Trading Spaces (British alias Trading Places - see what they did there?) to the more famous What Not to Wear. The British version of the aforementioned is not nearly as polite. The brazen co-hosts, Trinny Woodall and Susannah Constantine, have no qualms against breaking into the victim's changing room and pointing out vast amounts of "poodge" that a pair of capri's are causing. Americans Stacy London and Clinton Kelly tend to tone it down and allow their guests to keep as much dignity as possible. Shut up, Stacy! I'm not even kidding!

And those of you who avidly watch the crazy antics of Jim, Pam, and Michael Scott? It started as the crazy antics of Tim, Emma, and David Brent. Only after a few desperate years did the comedy get transposed for American audiences. (And beer me strength, it did). The quirks and comedy was obviously adapted for American audiences, the insane accents, the obscure slang and the like.

So next time you're enjoying one of the Davids singing on American Idol, remember that it was Pop Idol first; Simon Cowell still offered his capriciously thorny criticisms; the only difference is the contestants on Pop Idol could understand him. So crack open a nice cold Magner's hard cider, pop on the BBC, and keep tuned, in a year or two you might be seeing a doppelganger show stateside.

Quote of the Day: "Bears. Britain. Battlestar Galactica."

What to Watch if You Can Ony Watch One Show For the Rest of Your Life

"Arrested Development."




That is all.

"The Bachelorette" Made Me a Widow: Several Reasons Why Reality Television Should be Forgotten like the Hackneyed and Trite Pseudo-Scare of Y2K

A few months ago, I had a behemoth of a cold. We are talking the Hindenburg of nasty viral infections. I was sick as a dog, I should have been quarantined and not have been allowed to resurface until Hilary is elected in office (meaning, of course, never). My point being, I had some unwonted free time, as rare as a lunar eclipse or Brittany Spears wearing more than one layer of clothing. Excellent, I thought. Now I can catch up on all of the quality television shows I’ve missed when I have so diligently been studying 18th Century British Literature.

False.

I turn on the tube only to find a terra nullius of shows—“Survivor,” “Big Brother,” “The Bachelor,” “My Super Sweet 16,” “Next,” – in fact, any show on MTV. (That network, at one point, used to play music, right? Or was that just a Buggles-induced fantasy?) The infamous Writer’s Strike of 2007-2008 had deprived me—and, by proxy—the world, of intelligent, plot-driven shows. Nowhere to be found was “The Office,” “Lost,” “Pushing Daisies,”—anything. It was a vast and desolate wasteland of shoulder cams and cleavage. Studies have shown, people have lost brain cells by watching “Fear Factor.” “Joe Schmo” has been known to cause uncontrollable drooling. And “Flavor of Love” has killed thousands of babies because of its asinine lack of plot and Flava Flav’s wardrobe choices.

Whatever happened to worthwhile, quality television that was both educational and entertaining, that stimulated a few dozen neurons and dendrites while being mildly interesting? While you’re shoving Cool Ranch Doritos in your pie hole with the same lusty vindictiveness in which Gerard Butler slays the Persians in a skimpy man-skirt watching “Big Brother,” is there any activity between thalamus, hypothalamus, and cortex? I’ll take a stab in the dark and say, probably there is not.

But it’s just a hunch.

Though I was young and naïve and had the thin veil of ignorance and callowness and extreme amounts of sugar from Hawaiian Punch, I remember the glory days of “Sesame Street.” And, of course, there was the wonder of “Wishbone,” a mid-90’s PBS show about a literature savy Jack Russel terrier who takes the viewers through lush landscapes of literary masterpieces. Ivanhoe. Paradise Lost. Great Expectations.

Now, the only Great Expectations viewers can hope for include the nagging question if Tela Tequila will ever find true love through the vast sea of sexually confused C-list actors and actresses. It is the basest form of television for those who will not or cannot follow simple story arcs and character development.

ABC recently broadcasted a teaser commercial proclaiming “The Mole” to be “the most fun you’ll have all summer.” Thanks, ABC executives. Why yes, before “The Mole,” the best hope for fun I had this summer was lathering SPF on Great Uncle Al’s back and trimming his nose hair. Geez. Just give me an embolism already.

In specific terms, “Kid Nation” is the Pol Pot of the reality TV show. Not only is it mind-numbingly dull to watch, but there are moral qualms as well. In a word, the show is about forty children, ages 8-15, who are left to their own vices in a ghost town in New Mexico. The ghost town looks suspiciously similar to the set of 3:10 to Yuma. It’s a western Lord of the Flies.

Or it would be, if not for the constant, irritating, and heavy-handed interference of the lobotomized CBS executives. Of course these children are not by themselves. They are surrounded by cameramen, producers, and child psychologists. And, like its’ big brother, “Survivor,” it is not the simple subsistence of surviving on an island or ghost town, but a heavily contrived romp of game-show like challenges and confessionals.

The children are split up into four teams—red, yellow, blue, and green. And from the get go, live, work, and play in these predetermined groups. Moreover, the socioeconomic status for the group is determined who wins the challenges. Say the Blue Team pushed all of their wagons over the finish line first. Then they become the bourgeois, and the others are below them. But do you see the flaw? (Loaded question, yes, but I mean within this context.) This is not a social experiment. It is the basic reinforcement of class and socioeconomics. In a word, it is reiterating the sordid underbelly of the American lifestyle.

The medium of television has allowed for this sort of meta-reality. It is not reality, but neither is it fictitious.

Even if this society would be autonomous—without the interference of ‘grown-up’s,’ there are the moral questions. Has television really sunk so low that they subject children to manipulative submission for the entertainment of a nation? In the “Kid Nation” contract, for example, there is a clause that reads something along the lines of the parents cannot sue and surrender all rights, including but not limited to if their child ingests bleach, looses an appendage, dies, or is sexually assaulted. For that matter, what kind of parent would subject their kid to this? And for a paltry $5,000 stipend, no less.

Excuse me, I need to release my vexation with this show and eat some Teddy Grahams.

It is called the Idiot Box for a reason, yes. But, what of what critics say—that we are in the Second Golden Age of Television? If that is the case, then there are a plethora of shows of which to chose that can be defined as entertaining, but with actual redeeming qualities. (Of course, the media is what I study, so I justify being able to watch 13 hours of straight TV). Post-Writer’s-Strike-Draught, there is a digital Babylon of quality shows. What of “30 Rock,” a wickedly intelligent comedy about writers in New York? Or “LOST,” perhaps the most intricate show to grace television since the dawn of, well, television?

What it boils down to is that people don’t want to have to think when they watch television. It is an escape, a means of travel that doesn’t cost $4.00 a gallon. It takes the viewer from the sofa to an abandoned ranch in New Mexico or an island in the Philippines without the hassle of having to follow intricate plot lines. That is, there is very little invested in reality television. You can just as soon sit down and watch season five of “Big Brother” as the pilot, and understand what is going on. Not so with “24” or “Dexter.” It’s the difference between a seven-course meal versus fries, a burger, and a shake at the local Burgers ‘R Us. One is delicious and takes time to ingest and discern, one is a quick fix.

And Americans have spoken on which of the two they like. Keep your giant hamburger with onion rings and pass me a book.

I think I’ll stay in bed with that cold.

Books versus Film: A Case Study of "Atonement"

At the Oscars, in the category of best picture, there are two distinctions: Best picture from material previously published or produced, and best original screenplay.

But where do they get the material for that?

Aliens?
Divine inspiration?
Woody Allen?

Short stories, yes. Paintings. Songs. All of those. But - the most obvious (and the most ambitious) is certainly the novel. The superlative Sistine Chapel of writing endeavors. Ian McEwan's epic novel, Atonement, is grandiose in a much subtler way than the film. Though each are confined on a simple medium (paper and plastic, respectively), they are both epics, without refute. McEwan takes luxury and delight in the most intricate of descriptions. In the scene by the fountain and the breaking of the vase, we find out why it is the most expensive possession of the Tallis family - that Mr. Tallis' brother fought in World War One, found it from a destroyed museum, and died a few weeks before armistice. Rich details like these are simply not practical for the medium of film.

At variance, director Joe Wright's already legendary five-minute tracking shot from Dunkirk is an impossibility to paint in prose. That is, the effect would be lost. From the chaos of shooting wounded horses, to drunken soldiers riding a carousel in celebration, to the scale of 3,000 men on a beach in France - gives the viewer the most accurate portrayal that one can hope to achieve (barring virtual reality and actually being there, of course). We see what the jaded, war-weary Robbie Turner does, experience what he does, feels his struggle through pictures, not words.

So which medium is better? Can it be phrased in such simplistic terms? Or does each have its own particular merits?

Yes.

Quote of the Day: "The cost of obvious daydreaming was always the moment of return, the realignment with what had been before and now seemed a little worse. Her reverie, once rich in plausible details, had become a passing silliness before the hard mass of the actual. It was difficult to come back."
Atonement, Chapter Seven

Jumping the Shark, Healing the Deer

"Monday, Tuesday, happy days.

Thursday, Friday happy days.

Spending the week with you..."

Glad to spend another week writing the Bethertainment weekly blog. Glad to be here after an epic tornado in which i was trapped in a grocery. Glad to maintain my dignity and not die next to chicken cutlets and Frosted Flakes.

And, glad to write about a new and exciting bit of entertainment fodder.

This week's theme? Jumping the shark. A popular colloquialism among television theorists, the idea of jumping the shark stems from a 1977 episode of "Happy Days" in which the Fonz, while water skiing, jumps over a shark. Many argue that this was the point in the show that reality was thrown out the window (arguably with good writing) and the future of the show was on the downward spiral straight to the loo. It is, in essence, the loss of the show's original charm, where the plot and/or characters have diverged far from their original beginnings. it is, in a word, a ridiculous moment where viewers furiously yell at their television sets, "YEAH RIGHT! that would never happen!"

So why pull this out of the bowels of obscure television history? Not only for educational purposes, dear readers, but to appertain to modern-day instances. What shows have or are Jumping the Shark? Which ones can argue it is part of the show's confines?

1. Grey's Anatomy.

Seasons 3 and 4 proved a tumultuous roller-coaster for producer and creator Shonda Rhimes. What with the fledgling "Private Practice" needing constant attention (much like Cristina after a rough day without a cutting-edge surgery). Managing both proved a strain on the show's essence - a sort of liminal "cuteness" (read: whiny self-indulgence) that kept audiences coming back for more.

This show's shark jumping did not, however, involve a large cartilaginous fish; rather, a poor dilapidated deer in the back of a pick-up. Izzy Stevens (Katherine Heigel) is seen "Healing the deer" to prove a point to her interns that she's a credible resident over her fledgling interns. See if this term doesn't catch on. I certainly hope it does.

2. Degrassi, the Next Generation

Teenage pregnancy? School shootings? Canadians? All of these are seen in the-n's "Degrassi: the Next Generation." The show follows Canadian teens as they navigate the halls of Degrassi High and the streets of suburban Toronto. One girl gets pregnant. Another gets syphilis. One is bi-polar. A student is shot and bound to a wheelchair. All very real and consequential issues that are dealt with on a weekly basis.

But what of the past few seasons? It's gone from covering controversial issues - from Manny Santos' (Cassie Steele) eating disorder and abortion, where the episode was deemed to 'racy' to air on American television, to JT Yorke (Ryan Cooley) selling drugs to support his unborn child to the token Christian Darcy Edwards (Shenae Grimes) worrying about losing her virginity. While this isn't a true "jumping the shark" moment, the resurrected "Degrassi" might need to go to detention and think long and hard about what they've done.

Quote of the Day: "Some advice: find a dictionary and look up "pathetic".

(Courtesy of "Degrassi" - thank goodness for angst-ridden, French-fry induced adolescent insults.)

Don't Worry, Be Jewish!

I am not a New Yorker. I have never claimed to be. But this weekend, I packed my bags and made the journey to the Big Apple - New York City itself. (Yes, you thought I wouldn't have any entries about travel, as I am somewhat land-locked to a small cornfield in southwest Ohio. Well, as fate would have it, you were wrong.)

A short flight and a terrifying cab ride later, I was on E. 80th and Lexington waiting for my friends to return from breakfast in Central Park. The smell of the city, the rush of traffic, the absolutely apathetic, gaunt faces of true New Yorkers clutching a designer bag that cost twice my college tuition and chain smoking some Marlboro's, all entered my senses. The sun beat down pleasantly, workers emptied their vans of fresh broccoli and carrots, or overpriced chez lounges. It was a beautiful day in the city. Minus the fatal crane accident in the city Friday morning.

For those who have never experienced New York, it is a necessity. There may be other places one must see - London or Paris, for instance - but, ah, New York. Not going to New York is like calling yourself an American and not liking baseball, or Republicans, or reality television. Bad example. But it's still a sight worth seeing. The woman I sat in the terminal with at La Guardia was on her cell phone, shoving jalepeno poppers in her mouth like a refugee and gabbing loudly on her cellphone to a friend: "I don't know who would want to visit that city. It's disgusting. It smells like stale hot dogs and pretzels, the subways are coated with germs, and there's homeless men on every street corner. And it's so damn expensive!"

Really, lady? Then why go?

Some of the weekend's events included getting horribly, horribly lost (we're talking crossing the Brooklyn Bridge lost) as well as the best Thai rice noodles in SoHo. Oh, and the Sex and the City premier. My friends and I were first in line. I'm not quite sure it was worth it.

Sunday morning began with grabbing a legendary H&H Midtown Bagel (blueberry with plain cream cheese) with a friend and relocating to Central Park. around ten, we noticed ... there seems to be a whole host of activity from roundabouts Fifth Avenue. Turns out, it was a parade to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the declaration of freedom from the British mandate of Palestine in 1948. First, the sounds of marching bands reached us, then bagpipes (?), then - most importantly - some girl singing Bobby McFarrin's "Don't Worry, be Happy," but with slightly altered lyrics.

"Don't worry ... be JEWISH!"

Quite amazing. I know New York.
I need New York.
I know I need unique New York.

Quote of the Day: "...and then i just looked at her, you know? What else is there besides New York? A lot of cornfields and fat people." - A woman on the 6 Train.