Letters to the Editor
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Thanks Heather
I'm so glad someone else sees the Matt / Harriet Whatever as Studio 60's potentialy fatal flaw. Sorkin's been down this road before: Season 1 of West Wing featured a storyline about Josh and his ex, Mandy, bickering with the love/hate in the workplace thing. It was hard to tell if it was supposed to be a central storyline, but at the time the actress was the most well known woman on the show. It was a failure and they dropped that character without even explaining where she went. This feels like the same thing. Except the actress and her character arc are interesting--but this is basically SNL right? And she's supposed to be the comedy genius? Why didn't they get a funny woman? There are plenty of hilarious women available who don't get many jobs. Cheri Oteri? Molly Shannon? Jane Kriatkowski? Parker Posey? I mean come on....Other than that Studio 60 zings along. I think this is a godsend for Matthew Perry's career.
Meanwhile...David E. Kelley. What a juvenile little one-note he is. Boston Legal was entertaining briefly, but we've seen all of these tricks over and over again. But Ally McBeal was good for about a half a season too.
I guess I'm alone in not seeing the appeal of Grey's Anatomy.
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Keep it up!
I love your column, read it regularly, and share your wittier insights with my friends.
I couldn't agree more about Studio 60, it's the most well-written crap I don't care about I've ever seen.
You are really more entertaining than some of the shows you write about. Thanks again!
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So we're not chickens, but retarded sheep now?
This much I know; Havrilesky has delivered the death blow to "Heroes." I don't care that she doesn't understand comic books; she hasn't cracked Scott McCloud's "Understanding Comics," neither have a lot of people. (Then she hasn't figured out how doorknobs work, either.) It shouldn't matter. Fiction should stand on its own, no matter what genre.
The show has been moving at a snail's pace, not by comic book standards, but even by soap opera standards. We've seen the people with powers, who are mostly unappealing and not very bright. The Japanese time-warping guy was the most interesting out of the gate, but the Rose and Thorn imitation (the schitzophrenic murdering stripper) has been slowly growing in sympathy. But she won't get to do too much in the three weeks left to the series, before NBC drops the axe.
Because it's impossible to care for these people, more frightened of their new abilities instead of recognizing their incredible utility. And part of it is that there are so many of them. Large "ensemble" casts are really just a way of taking a bunch of characters and throwing them against the refrigerator door to see which ones will stick. There's little vision in these series, little passion or focus in the show's conception, so we get a dozen characters with differing personalities, in the hopes that one of them will become the Fonzie or the Urkel that will make the show popular.
This trope has been used on so many shows ("The Nine," "Six Degrees") that it's clear that no one knows what this year's audience likes, and the business has grown so conservative that everyone's terrified to guess.
Maybe that's the way Havrilesky is, either. We've gone from being chickens to sheep. She seems to be hunting around for the best insulting diminuitive with which to label her readers. I guess next week we'll be Congressional pages or Amish schoolgirls.
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"Pushy horn dog"?
The character in question was a rapist. There was a short (but very clear to me) shot of another young girl with an extremely troubled expression on her face as the two went off into the dark; I commented to my fiancée that she was obviously an earlier victim of -- at best -- "date rape." But what happened between Claire and the "horn dog" was very, very clearly attempted rape. That, normally, would have ended with the victim dead.
And this rates a label of "just another pushy high school horn dog"?
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Studio 60 Hasn't been Cancelled Yet?
Are we still watching Studio 60? I saw the second show, Tivo'd the rest, and just last night deleted it after I realized I was never going to watch it. It is so very sickeningly melodramatic. I do not care about the behind the scenes shenanigans of annoying TV writers. I can't believe I'm saying this, but you're better off reading a book than wasting time on that crappy show.
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Heroes getting axed in three weeks?
Sorry, Tomreedtoon, but not gonna happen. Not only was it #2 in the ratings last week, it's been given a full season pickup.
I'm glad, I have to admit. I'm a sucker for overwrought, portentious genre shows, so Heroes is totally my Monday night tv crack.
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Matt/Harriet Romance
Sarah Paulson's portrayal of Harriet on Studio 60 doesn't ring true. Part of the problem is the material she has to work with. Sorkin, apparently, has a hard time writing believable dialogue for a character who's supposed to be an evangelical Christina. However, there's no denying that Paulson's sexual orientation makes it hard for audiences to believe in the romantic relationship between Harriet and Matt. In turn, that undercuts a good deal of the dynamics in Studio 60.
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Studio 60 Romance Prediction
I'm on board with Matthew Perry's character, and I'm liking Amanda Peet's character more, now that she has been revealed as a former reckless drunk, so why not pair those two up instead?
Because it seems to me that Sorkin is setting up a romance between Amanda Peet and Brad Whitford, not between her and Matthew Perry. I agree that they haven't shown why the Harriet character is such a mesmerizing performer but I disagree that the show is tanking. I still find Sorkin one of the cleverest writers on TV and I think it will take a few more episodes before we know whether the concept can carry the show for the long haul.
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Boston Legal and Grey's Anatomy both jumped the shark early this season
Heather, while the "lady-focused" soft porn of Grey's is giving you a little wet spot, it's starting to turn my stomach.
Imagine my disgust at finding out so late in life that what women yearn for is a hook-nosed, weak-chinned, unshaven narcissist. McDreamy? Oh god, get me a bed pan, stat!
They should have kept Izzy's love-patient "Denny" (Jeff Morgan) and killed off Patrick Dempsey. At least "Denny" looked like he could really throw one, pacemaker not withstanding.
I mean come on, Heather. You really get hot watching Dempsey scrape his sandpaper beard all up and down that chimp-faced Ellen Pompeo? Eeech, I think I'm going to be sick again.
I don't believe you have the authority to say "creator Shonda Rhimes clearly knows what women want." However, I think she knows what YOU want. I love your reviews, but I think I just learned more than I want to know about what gets you horny.
Anyway, no matter. This will be the last season for Grey's. Rhimes is running out of credible plot twists already. Maybe George will bang Yang. Maybe Dr. Bailey and Alex will start humping in the broom closet. Maybe Dr. Burke will make Izzy dizzy. Maybe in the last episode of the season they'll drop any pretense of this being a hospital soap and just have all of them get together in a heap on the floor.
But I agree with you completely about Boston Legal. That show didn't just jump the shark, it cleared it with a pole vault this season. James Spader and Bill Shatner profess their love for one another so often that there is only one place for the plot to wind up. I really don't want to see that.
Thank God for cable.