Letters to the Editor
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FNL
When Friday Night Lights was a seriously brilliant TV show, no one watched it. When they tried for a ratings grab last season, and the show was absolutely painful to watch, no one watched it. Hopefully they will decide that if no one is going to watch no matter what then they may as well be brilliant.
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Chewbacca Deserved His Own Plotline
I'd say if you threw out most of Christiansen's wooden acting and a bunch of footage of Ewan McGregor riding around on a giant lizard and simply cut to Chewbacca and a posse of Wookiees ripping through the scenery with loud, inarticulate snarling, you'd have done the Star Wars franchise a signal service. Maybe this would work for Friday Night Lights, too.
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Step It Up and Dance: Off On the Wrong Foot.
"Step It Up and Dance" has only had two episodes so far, and both have featured judges lecturing male contestants in the final round about being "faggy"(in the words of one contestant, whose choice of words was nodded at by the judge) or not appearing "masculine" enough. Keep in mind that the first week's challenge was about the dancer's own self-expression and in the second week's case, the male dancers were in a routine where the characters those dancers were playing in the routine were specifically gay or bisexual.
So, I'm not sure how the judges decided that strict gender expectations were somehow criteria for either the dancer's "personal expression" (i.e. demanding that a guy who genuinely isn't butch act butch in that routine wouldn't exactly fit with the idea of 'personal expression,' would it?). And in a challenge where the dancers created gay and bisexual characters, how exactly did the judges determine the scale of "acceptable" gender specifics for those characters? (Are the judges judging or participating in the challenge?). Also, holding to Bravo's general attempts to be a wee bit more professional than other reality competitions, couldn't we have judges who have at least caught up with some of the major choreographers in the last couple of decades or so who are actively challenging stereotypes like the ones the judges seem intent on pushing?
The show obviously felt a need to make a big issue of this twice now, and humiliate at least two different gay male contestants over it, two weeks in a row. Keep in mind this is a show on Bravo. About dancing. Hosted by camp actress Elizabeth Berkley. Ummmm hmmm.
Talk about a show that needs to buy a clue really quick before it pisses off and loses one of its core target audiences.
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Friday Night Lights
FNL may have gotten some of the broad strokes wrong last season, but it's still the best show on network TV at the level of fine detail. For instance, the whole body-dumped-in-river plot was misguided, but that didn't make the scenes between Landry and his dad any less true-to-life or heart wrenching.
I've found that once a show has made me care about its characters, I tend to cut it some slack on story-line. Personally, I'll follow Landry, Riggins, Tyra, Buddy, Matt, Lyla whatever places the writers want to take me, even the unrealistic ones (i.e., Matt's affair with the Mexican nanny; Landry dumping a body in the river.) I just love that little show and everybody on it. It's earned it.
By the way, I don't think Landry is any less charismatic than, say, Matt. Less pretty, but equally interesting. That show was in drastic need of a main character with a little homeliness anyway.
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Sniff the tears
And just film your own show with a cellphone camera and some relative with Parkinsons. It's gritty it's real it demands to be taken seriously.
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That...is why you fail.
No, not Havrilesky. Given the awful stuff she had to review, she did a fair job. The only thing I can fault her on is her continued affection for Friday Night Lights, an insane show to love, because it is about the two things that were most evil about America before Bush took office; football and small-town life.
Aside from that, what is it possible to say about the dance show? Aside from the fact that fewer people will watch it than the hick football thing? Based on the description, they have the nastiest farewell to a loser since the Executioner used to humiliate and drag contestants off stage at the Apollo. A person has been shot down because of his or her percieved incompetence at a creative act, and then must say farewell with another creative act, which won't get the loser any points or sympathy.
Bravo, The Gay Network That's Not Showtime, has come up with the closest thing to dumping the unconscious body of a reality show loser in a lagoon of pig feces. That will undoubtedly be the next big exit strategy for the next reality show. And it shows how cruel and petty are the producers, the networks that buy these series, and the subhumans who continue to watch.
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subhumans
Okay, now that Mr. toon has finally said it outright––that people who watch certain TV programs are "subhuman"––will he retire his robe and gavel? Probably not. The masses are out there and we need to find out who is human and who is subhuman.
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i see it
it is good and i like it
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Bravo?
Why do I like these shows? Does anyone know. Answer that for my husband too, who's commented about how corny they are from across the room. It started as something to make time go by at the gym. That's all fine but then I brought it home.
BTW - If my husband acted any other way, I'd worry.
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Step it Up Fraud
You seemed not to have noticed...
The black woman was ridiculed by the white judges, as a black, for admittedly not knowing how to dance hip hop. Pure racism.
The contestants were told the first night was a party, for before the things got under way, when in fact the show had planned it as a harshly-judged competition. Pure dishonesty.
The show ought to be boycotted and the producers/judges treated harshly.
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What I want to know from Bravo ...
is when they'll be getting a show for graphic designers. I want my chance at the 100k and a new Saturn.