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Aloof Girls, Awkward Girls, Egomaniacal Girls

While my post last week concluded with a disappointing draw between dude-led and lady-bred Top 40 pop music, this week it's all about the females. Another handful of mid-season pilots ("Hey guys, Coach said we were good enough after all!" they scream obnoxiously from the sidelines) were aired in the past couple weeks and I managed to catch exactly zero of them when they aired. In fact, if it weren't for the newfound magic of network television web sites airing full episodes and a fancy VGA cord to connect my laptop to my shiny new flat screen, I would have absolutely nothing to blog about this evening. What a frightful and inconvenient past we now have behind us! Anyway, all three pilots I semi-randomly decided to try out happened to each have their own unique take on one brand of protagonist: The Neurotic Woman. Take a look-see...

The Return of Jezebel James: Being a one-time Gilmore Girls junkie (I vowed to stop watching the show when Luke and Lorelai finally got together, and I easily kept my promise), I had to see what the pastel-hued khaki-colored Diablog Cody of the early to mid 00s, Amy Sherman-Palladino, was up to now. Honestly, I wasn't expecting much from a half-hour sitcom about a children's book author/editor/publisher/I don't even know because they barely touched on her job even though half of the pilot took place in her office. However, I've always wanted to like Parker Posey in something (the closest I came was Suburbia) and I sure can dig Lauren Ambrose in Six Feet Under, until I stopped liking the characters, aka the fourth season. So I gave it a shot. The laugh track kills it. Seriously, if they just removed the laugh track, I might want to watch another episode. Maybe we've been spoiled though - despite the inexplicable love for How I Met Your Mother amongst a small faction of The Blogulator, no smart people like shows with laugh tracks anymore. So why put a smart writer/creator and two smart actresses in a show for dumb people?

It reminds me of the plot of the obvious-yet-still-fascinating The TV Set, a movie where David Duchovny tries to turn a good idea into a good show, but because of network airheads worried about ratings and conventions, it turns to crap. I believe the show in the movie was even originally called "The Rob Wexler Chronicles" or something similar to this show's inane title. Man and now I'm running out of space to talk about Posey's neurotic character Sarah, which feels so heavily edited to mine for laugh-trackable jokes that she loses all semblance of a personality. She says she's comfortably single, she says she's happy with her very successful career, and yet is more aloof and freaked out about the future than my cat after I take her food dish away. Add fast talking and a constant worried expression and you've got an uninteresting and vague version of Lorelai Gilmore. Oh well. Better luck next time, Sherman-Palladino (hint: stay away from Fox).

Miss Guided: I am indeed one of those people who says, "anybody from Arrested Development gets a free pass in my book" (as if anyone shouldn't live by this credo). So despite my hatred for ABC programming, and especially their lamer than lame attempts at comedy, I took a break from catching up on Lost on abc.com and gave a gander to Judy "Say Goodbye to These" Greer's return to television as a nerdy high school guidance counselor working at her alma mater. There's no laugh track, so at least it's better than Jezebel James. However, it liberally uses the Ferris Bueller/Zack Morris gimmick where almost all of the characters (that's right, not just the main character, which would be annoying enough) take a break from the hilarious antics of the story to turn to the camera and talk to you, the viewer. When all is said and done, the fourth wall seems to be broken during approximately 55% of the show's 22-minute pilot, which gets monotonous and nauseating, since (and this may be my mind playing tricks on me) the "whoosh" sound effect and camera sweep is utilized every single time.

Chris Parnell as the Vice Principal is the highlight of the show, playing a power-hungry version of the brilliant Leo Spacemen from 30 Rock, but still the pilot focused almost too heavily on Greer's character. It's better than Posey's character, because at least it's cohesive and not scatterbrained, but at the same time, the perpetually single awkward girl trying to gain a foothold in her lonely adulthood is more hilariously and 3-dimensionally personified by Tina Fey in the aforementioned 30 Rock. There's so many angles this show could be going with, and it's still focused on getting her together with the cute Spanish teacher. Still, it was harmless enough that I'll watch another couple episodes if I find the time.

Canterbury's Law: I really had no interest in watching this show, but after a mere 22 minutes of relaxation post-work, I needed something else to tide me over before I got to motivating myself to do some more grading (midterm madness) and Julianna Marguiles's stern eyes pierced my soul until I pressed play. I had no choice - I knew it was just a rote legal procedural, surely soon to be another entry in the long list of failed law dramas with C-list actors that act too hard (such as James Woods in Shark). I was so confused though, because I really could not comprehend why anyone would think that another generic law drama (with no twist like she's a lawyer...but she's also a paraplegic who is also superhero!) needs to be television. Even the new cop shows that come on now have some kind of UMPH! that make them stick out slightly above your CSI or your SVU. There has to be something new and different about it, right? But no - ER's former Nurse Hathaway is just your run-of-the-mill criminal defense attorney who won't take crap from no one (to the point of neurosis of course!) and is always right about everything. Sounds like a certain eye-rolling doctor I know that's also on Fox.

And yet, just like House, Elizabeth Canterbury (I am trying so hard not to complain about the terrible memories of high school British Literature the show trudges up) and her inflated anti-hero ego is so curious and sharp that the show, at moments, rises above its inherent mediocrity. Melodrama between her and the supporting cast (which includes performers who just clearly don't care anymore like Aidan Quinn, but also includes small fries I've always liked such as Ben Shenkman) does bring it way down below the watchability level at various times, but in the end, it's actually a show that has a complex female lead. I don't know what else about the show will be worth watching, but at least it's got one reason going for it.

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  1. Blogger Unknown | 8:30 AM |  

    Parker Posey! Come on! Best in Show! She's great in that! On a weird coincidental level, I started watching the first ten minutes of subUrbia last night until I realized that it was not the David Cronenberg-directed eXistenZ, the two movies I confused in my mind because of the stupid capital letters in the middle of the words. Oh, Richard Linklater (director of subUrbia), I lost my respect for you when Ethan Hawke said something about "the poetry of day-to-day life" in Before Sunrise.

  2. Blogger chris | 9:58 AM |  

    Ah yes, how could I forget Best in Show. That's probably why I want to like her.

    Haha I like the "When Did You Lose Respect for Richard Linklater?" game. I was indeed suprised that Before Sunset was so much better than Before Sunrise, but I would have to say I officially lost respect for him the second "dreams" and "life" were used in the same sentence for the third nauseous time in Waking Life.

  3. Blogger DoktorPeace | 2:38 PM |  

    I like both House and Canterbury Tales (I took a whole class on just that book in college). To your last section, then, I sayeth:

    As forleyn whan the morn's ble clech,
    And swallewed in the etheeth;
    The tright in sommere's glawdin hainde,
    Hath trivelled myne soote, Polleth!

  4. Blogger chris | 5:38 PM |  

    As fornication when the mourning bell clutch?
    And swelled in the ether?
    The triton in Sommer Sanders' glorious hinderparts?
    Have trivial my soothing Pollock?

    I think I agree.

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