Random Info

I have never done a happy dance of joy this early in the morning, but there is a first time for everything, and this is totally worth it. While going through my morning routine (see post below) I found out that two of my favorite shows have been renewed for the 2008-2009 season. And those two shows are: Supernatural and Gossip Girl. The most despised show of evilness (otherwise known as Smallville) has also been renewed, along with two of my guilty (except that I do not feel this emotion) pleasures: One Tree Hill and America's Next Top Model. Announcing the Fall line-up (what got renewed, what is not coming back, what is new) is usually done circa late April/early May, but this year has been so ridiculously crazy anyway. So why not make good choices and make viewers aware of them? Make no mistake, the renewal of Supernatural and Gossip Girl are good, good, good choices. Another year with the Winchesters, another year with the Upper East Siders, what wonderful news in the morning.

The TV Girl

Random Info

Okay, KP asked me a question. I mention Kristin all the time, and I thought I had made it clear who she it, but I am mistaken. This is not a person that I know in real life, though I hope someday to meet her. I also hope to have a job similar to hers. She has a page on the E! Network website (www.eonline.com) and it is called "Watch With Kristin." It is in the drop down menu under "Gossip." My friend Lauren clued me into her site. Kristin is the television correspondent for the E! Network, so on her page are interviews with TV actors/actresses, show producers and creators, information on upcoming plotlines, recaps of the previous evening's shows, and coverage from TV sets and TV related events. She is a bit enthusiastic for my taste (translation, she likes many shows I cannot stand), but she always has funny interviews, and the latest news. I check her page probably half a dozen times a day. The stuff I think is really important I have been passing along, but if you are like me and cannot stand not knowing what is going to happen next, (or want to know about shows I am ignoring) this is where I get all my information. Reading Kristin is a set part of my morning routine, right after my e-mail, my bank account, and right before the NY Times.

Veronica Mars (8): Season Three, Was It Worth It?

For hard-core Veronica Mars fans, like myself and now KP, the real reason Season Three is worth watching is the moral victory. Season Three is the weakest season, but when you get to the end you realize that this show was cancelled because the TV watching population is idiotic. Season Three is worth it to kindle a burning coal of righteous indignation in your heart.

Attempting to attract more viewers, the producers changed the format of Veronica Mars. Instead of a season long overarching mystery, there are two mysteries (nine and seven episodes each) and five completely episodic mysteries. (Just as a really inconsequential side bar, this is a mirror of the way Angel developed. That show move from episodic villains to season long struggles.) The format change was intended to make the show accessible; people would not be put off by the idea that since they had not seen the beginning they would not know what was going on. I like the format change for the very reason that Season Two disappoints me. Since the emotional impact of Season One’s mystery is not reproducible, having smaller cases allows the viewer’s interest and attachment to be compatible with the time he or she spends with the case. The finite interest the case can evoke is matched to the time it is open.

The two cases are not equal in my opinion. The first is a redressing of the Hurst campus rapes, which are introduced in Season Two. The second is the murder of Dean O’Dell (sorry to spoil this if you did not know). The first case is more thought provoking; what will people do to prove a point, when does justice become vengeance, when is trusting the people we love more important than finding the truth? The second case is more tawdry (and sort of more compelling); extra-marital affairs, drug-addict exes, gambling, fake suicide, shattered hopes, and unfortunate accidents. The inequality as I see it is not in either the merits or the execution of the respective storylines, but rather in the conclusions. The character reviled to be the campus rapist just feels like a cheep scapegoat. There is a logical incongruity in this character being the culprit, so you end up feeling like they just picked someone out of a hat. (There is an unforgettable Logan scene as a result of who the rapist is. It is one of the funniest things that happens in all of VM, but the scene would exist no matter who the rapist turned out to be, so it is just kind of band-aid to the spirit, not really a redemption of the conclusion.) The conclusion of the second mystery is much more satisfying. It is surprising, but prepared for. Also, it doesn’t come across as smug (which the first mystery does). The explanation of why the person does what they do is plausible, realistic, and compatible with the personality as reveled to the viewer. It is a more film-noir, potboiler storyline, but it works out logically and is appealing to the viewer.

I said above that Season Three is the weakest season, and there is an obvious reason for this. The overextension of Season Two turns into just cast-packing in Season Three. New characters are added, and they do not have enough to do to justify their immediate acceptance. One of these characters is Wallace’s roommate Piz (Chris Lowell). After the immediate bonding experience of retrieving his stolen possession, all of the characters act like he has always been there. For a show that began with such a reticent, untrusting heroine, it is irksome that acceptance is given without reservation. Similarly with Mac’s roommate Parker (Julie Gonzales), who after being given a compelling plot importance, disappears and reappears at almost random intervals. She vacillates between major and minor character status, frustrating the viewer. Wallace is reduced to almost a cameo, and both Veronica and the show suffer. My friend Calah is particularly bothered by the fact that in Season Three we seem to be exposed more often to Veronica’s flaws than her strengths. Part of the problem is that Veronica starts as a distinct and (in some ways) mature character; there is not a lot of room for her personality to expand. I think that the reduced influence of both Wallace and Keith accounts for Veronica’s increased unpleasantness. She is still Veronica, still one of the smartest, funniest, most engaging characters, and I still love her, but don’t be surprised to be a bit annoyed with her overzealous independence in Season Three. In a way, this is what happens in the first year of college, but the problem is that Veronica’s actions have fairly serious repercussions, and she seems determined to ignore the relationship between her choices and the resulting consequences. The most egregious offense occurs in the season finale (and it still makes me sad that it is a season finale, not a proper series finally). While I had no desire for a “happy” ending, the way we leave Veronica seems unnecessarily bitter.

Even with problems, Season Three is still better than ninety percent of the shows airing during 2006-2007, and I anything that has taken its airspace on The C.W. pales in comparison. The producers of Veronica Mars did everything that they could to get people to watch this show. I was willing to make concessions if it allowed my show to remain, but America wallowed in collective bad taste and thereby deprived me of my love, and the show of a chance to rectify its missteps. While I will never watch Season Three with the joy I experience watching Season One, I genuinely cherish the entire series. Veronica Mars is a decisive testament to the potential of television as a medium.

The TV Girl

Lipstick Jungle (6): At Least It Is Not Cashmere Mafia.

In an effort to be completely unproductive on Saturday, I browsed the major network websites looking for something to watch. I have seen all the ads for Lipstick Jungle over the last month, and while I was not bristled by it (as I am by the very title Cashmere Mafia, who came up with that?), I did not feel strongly inclined to tune in. Well, sloth is the mother of desperation, so I said what the hell. I am pleased to report that while Lipstick Jungle has flaws, there is every indication that this show will only improve over time and become an endearingly entertaining show to relax with.

I am not going to go into detail about the premise of the show. It is your basic “women with high-powered jobs, amazing wardrobes, and complex personal lives” type show, but with some elements that distinguish it from its progenitor Sex and the City. (Both shows are based on novels written by the same author.) For example: two of the three main female characters are already married, so this is not just an exploration of how single women fill their time; the high-profile career is not always on the upswing, Victory (Lindsay Price) is having a complete professional disaster; not everything fits into teeny-tiny purses, the most realistic part of the show is the pack-horse necessity of transporting all a woman requires during the day; and most noticeable, the show is not tied together by a central intelligence narrator who recaps the life lesson for the audience at the end of the episode.

The distinctions give the show room to develop its own personality, but as I said above, there is need for growth. One major stumbling block for this show is the opening credits. I want to put these opening credits and the Season Three Veronica Mars opening credits in a room together and maybe they would confuse each other out of existence. Most shows now do not have theme songs; either a pop song is imposed upon it (Dawson’s Creek, Friends), or the show title flashes on the screen for a moment set to a snippet of instrumental music and the cast list runs on the bottom of the second scene (Ugly Betty, Pushing Daisies). Therefore it is kind of nice that Lipstick Jungle attempts old-fashioned opening credits, but the outcome is just ridiculous; the pictures that make the show appear to be a shoe commercial, and the trite fortune-cookie expressions of the breathy vocals seem immensely incongruent with the age-range of the characters.

Furthermore, the interaction between the main characters is not exactly forced, more kind of stiff. Wendy (Brooke Shields), Nico (Kim Raver) and Victory are supposed to be best friends, and the more casual conversations appear natural and realistic. It is when things get sentimental that plausibility gets stretched. Almost as if the show creators feel the need to apologize for the hardness these women adopt due to their career demands, the displays of feminine solidarity are hyperbolic, and I mean that in the classical sense. As I viewer I believe that these particular women would feel the kind of attachment to each other that they express, I just don’t believe they would expresses it in the way that, and to the degree to, these scenes are written and staged. I am not accusing the show of falsity, just overstatement. As the actors become more comfortable with their characters, and as the personalities are developed, I think there will not be such a sharp contrast between the drinking moments and the hugging moments. Sometimes there is just some creakiness when a show starts out.

And despite the creakiness, I do not foresee myself abandoning ship. I am not in a place in my life where I can “relate” to the concerns these women face, but in general they are bright, funny, and sympathetic women. What I find most compelling about them is their (for the most part) lack of self-pity. Nico has a, shall I say, interesting demarcation of priorities; when she meets Kirby (Robert Buckley) the twenty-five year old with whom she is having an affair, she asks him to guess her age before she tells him that she is married. Yet, she confronts honestly the reality that her actions have consequences. She hasn’t really made a choice yet, but she isn’t wondering why things are going wrong. Victory is affected by what others say about her, but she doesn’t allow that to stop her from pursuing what she thinks is right for her life and her career. Even though Wendy faces complex logistics in her marriage, she recognizes that a oh-poor-me attitude will only make things worse. It is refreshing to watch women who practice what they preach, and not be preachy. I do not necessarily want to be any of these women, but I do not want to throw rocks at them.

On a shallower note, Brooke Shields verges almost on the tranny look; she has all of this hair that does nothing to frame her face, which makes her features look harsh and her hair look fake. Cosmetically she needs to be softened. I adored the detail that her character does not try on shoes in the store because the clerks judge her for her long feet. It made for just a funny little moment that both humbled her character, and reminds the audience that fashion is not magic.

As a very, very shallow conclusion, Kirby (what an unfortunate name) is a wonderful piece of eye candy. Soulful eyes, disarming smile, beautiful body; I would totally have an affair with him. I am trying not to get attached; I don’t think he will stick around long. But I will thankfully enjoy the view while available.

The TV Girl

quarterlife (0): Not All Experiments Are Successful.

Maybe I have been watching Ratatouille too often, but I decided to go out on limb, try something new. It is not that I am unwilling to try new shows (I watched just about everything that premiered in the fall), it is just that I am tired of falling in love and being disappointed by unnecessary cancellation. But when I heard a rumor that the web-based show quarterlife (I did not forget to capitalize this word, this is how is looks on the web site) featured none other than Majandra Delfino (you know, freaking Maria from Roswell) I had to give it a try. I missed its network television premier on Tuesday, but I had an hour to kill Friday afternoon. There doesn’t seem to be much danger of my falling in love, and cancellation may be for the best.

I learned two things. First of all, Majandra is not in the Pilot episode. Disappointing, and based on the second thing I learned, I may not stick with this show to see her when she shows up (according to IMDb she is in 5 of 6 episodes, so I can only assume she is in the next).

The second thing I learned, and this is ironic, is that twenty-five year olds blogging is extremely annoying. I am only twenty-four, so I have about six more months before I become extremely annoying. The premise of the show is that the main character Dylan (Bitsie Tulloch) begins a video blog on a beta site called, you guessed it, “quarterlife.” While she calls herself a writer, Dylan does not seem to have a single creative idea in her finely structured head, so she talks about her friends. This serves the technical purpose of introducing the audience to the other characters, but it makes Dylan weak and repugnant right off the bat, and it smacks of laziness on the part of the show’s writers. Furthermore, Dylan’s assessment of her friends is self-righteous and immature. She says she “sees what other really feel,” which seems unlikely, since she doesn’t manage to see much outside of herself, and her dislike of those around her. She operates on the assumption that calling yourself an artist or a writer absolves you of any moral obligation to those who may be affected by your choices. And while she has every right to her opinion about her friends, she really has no right to post it on the Internet. (I only talk about my friends’ taste in shows, there is a difference.) She demands that her friends raise awareness of hybrid cars and she cannot manage to run a comb through her hair. Who at the age of twenty-five thinks it is appropriate to go to work, at a place that seems to be career oriented, looking like a ragamuffin? I admit there are days I have gone to work looking less than stellar, but honestly! According to Lisa (Maitie Schwartz) the nymphomaniac, Dylan is a strong woman because she can give herself an orgasm. Somehow I have missed the logic leap the show took to reach this conclusion. Apparently in reaction to men defining women according to their sexual significance, women will do so for them. Whether you objectify yourself or let someone else do it, you are still an object. But, good for Dylan for having a least one talent.

Before I choke on my own hypocrisy (critiquing something for being overly critical), I will warp this up. Quarterlife takes all of the awkward and difficult parts of the post-college but pre-marriage/children/home time, but manages to present the difficulty as the glory, instead of addressing the difficulty as difficulty. Similarly to the age range the show centers around quarterlife is neither engaging fluff nor compelling drama. It just is until it is over.

The TV Girl