Letters to the Editor
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Re: Lieutenant McDreamy
Apparently, the doe-eyed bachelor is actually a playa. At least according to postings by people who know him on the Bachelor message boards. I agree that the Star-Spangled Banner serenade was out-of-this-world corny and ridonculous, but the singer did get a rose!
I kind of felt like his "not only these girls are beautiful, but they like have careers and stuff" line was quite sexist. Imagine that! You're a good-looking, albeit short,* man, and you have a career, and so do some beautiful women. Shock!!!
I'd also like to point out that after the first rose ceremony, all of Texas has survived, but none of New York did. In fact, Texas now represents 40% of the running, and Dallas is 26.6% of the running, up from 16%. South Carolina is 20%. Therefore, Texas and South Carolina make up 60% of the running!
* Andy is indeed short, as the worst of the sea donkeys pointed out. If you watch the "first impression" part again carefully, you will see that the taller women had to wear flat flipflops with their beautiful evening gowns, and some of them were still taller than the lieutenant-doctor-triathlete.
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The possible end of "The Bachelor"?
There's a very simple reason why the broad sung "The Star Spangled Banner." It's in the public domain. The show doesn't have to pay for music clearances for it. This same economical choice of music was done on the late, damned Jenny Jones Show whenever they wanted to show off a little kid's "singing talent." They never thought of varying the PD repertory, but then, maybe singing "Old Black Joe" might be considered too edgy a choice.
Again, Havrilesky's lack of common knowledge blows it. This Navy doctor was doing his best to sound like Will Stockdale, the part played by Andy Griffith on Broadway and on film in No Time for Sergeants. I was half-expecting him to arrange the gadget that would let all the toilet seats "salute" at the same time, in his work as Permanent Latrine Officer. In the movie, in an early version of political correctness, Stockdale felt he was not supposed to deal with the sex of an officer (in the play it was the race of the officer), and when asked to look at a WAAC officer, he said "Sir, I don't see a woman." This sent him back to the shrinks. In the case of this particular Lt. McDouchebag, MD USN, he just seemed to be informed by official memo that women existed, and was aghast and confused at their existence.
The awfulness of The Bachelor this season may finally kill the show. The original concept was to find somebody who was rich, glamorous and a fitting object over which predatory, greedy gold-diggers could compete. Because somebody decided to suck up to the Bush Administration and provide a military "hero," the show parodied itself. Imagine these glamorous whor...um, ladies...fighting for the right to inhabit cockroach-infested base housing, live off food stamps and charity because military salaries are so low, and have childbirth in Walter Reed. (Again, a real-world situation that the Cappucino Queen would know nothing about.)
And speaking of childbirth, Notes from the Underbelly is due to become a future trivia question that few people will answer. People don't watch sitcoms to see situations, they want people in situations. From the endlessly-run promos, there are no people in this show, only cliches. Which is scary, because the promos contain the best parts of these shows. Six weeks, no more.
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Just asking
So what's the opposite of a flaccid sidekick?
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Friday Night Lights
Just won a Peabody. A downpayment for all the awards this truly excellent series will win - just as 'Freaks and Geeks' did before it.
It didn't save F&G but I'm keeping my fingers crossed that there are just a few suits in Cloudcuckooland who want that tiny bit of class to, you know, make up for all the other drek they program.
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common knowledge?
"...the part played by Andy Griffith on Broadway and on film in No Time for Sergeants."
Not sure if this passes for common knowledge. If I stopped someone on the street and asked if that woman over there reminded them of the wealthy aunt from 'Gigi', they'd probably have to be someone over a certain age who had an interest in movies.
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Hippity Hoppity Heather Havrilesky
Happy Easter HH, and thanks for another delicious chocolate egg wrapped in a tinfoil television antenna.
I wouldn't/couldn't watch "The Bachelor" if I was strapped to a chair with a loaded gun to my temple, no matter how many times Heather's snarky summations make me snort with laughter. I'm so glad she's paid to watch some of this crap so I don't ever have to.
However, you nearly sold me on "Friday Night Lights" -- if only the show was about something sensible, like BASKETBALL! Please tell me FNL is even half as good as "The White Shadow," which I recall with such fondness from my childhood. Now THAT was a show with gritty drama and themes plucked from real life: inner-city high school struggles, setting the pick and roll, girl troubles, and proper follow through on jump shots. One guy could actually dunk! Plus there was another amusing fellow who had a large afro. Or maybe I'm thinking of "Room 222." I was pretty little when that one aired. But I'm pretty sure they don't make shows like that anymore.
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Evalio, it's a matter of knowing your subject.
If you are truly passionate about a field and care to see it improved, you know things like this. I'm better than Havrilesky (which isn't saying much) but there are many people who could beat me hands down.
Several years ago I listened to Harry Knowles of "Ain't It Cool News" at a convention. I didn't even ask a question. He was talking to other people at his autograph table and I eavesdropped. He showed knowledge of movies, foreign and domestic, that was both deep and wide; foreign films I'd never heard of and intricate details of schlock films. I concede that he might have bamboozled me on his knowledge, and his critical integrity is very tarnished. But from what I saw, he knew his stuff more thoroughly than many published critics, and he was smarter in person than he is in print.
The more you know about entertainment and its different forms, the more you can see parallels in it, how history may repeat itself, and how an individual work may be part of a bigger trend. In this case, the big, friendly, clean, intelligent Navy officer puts the best face on the American military at a time when it is a questionable career choice (to say the least). That happened in the 1950's with No Time For Sergeants, stuck between Korea and Vietnam, and with Gomer Pyle USMC, the only Marine who would ever think "frag a gook" was one of them modern dance steps for Saturday night.
And enough knowledge can save you from mistakes. For instance, when I first saw this Doctor McPoopdeck, I thought of the old Jackie Cooper series Hennesey, a program lost to TV history about a Navy MD - and arguably the first dramedy, which didn't have a laugh track and occasionally slipped into serious drama. But Dr. Hennessey was a lot smarter, working at the top of his intelligence all the time, and this Bachelor dude was too golly-gosh about everything. He wasn't a Hennesey, but I wish he would take Hennesey's place way down in the depths of the memory hole.