Watching TV with Americans

The Walking Dead and Doctor Who are TV series that had been rendered all-but unwatchable by the egos of their male showrunners. They have been redeemed by placing women at the helm of the program.

James Franco may be a PR problem for HBO’s The Deuce but as it stands they can only do without one of him.

The Simpsons really comes through for its milestones.

Eli Roth’s History of Horror documentary is as deceptively intelligent as his fictional horror filmmaking.

CNN don’t seem to get that Anthony Bourdain’s genius was his self-effacement. The posthumous re-branding of Parts Unknown as a coded suicide note is not only distasteful but also unravels his legacy.

Big Mouth on Netflix is the only puberty story I have ever related to. We live in a post-cartoon era where TV animation has become synonymous with social realism and its documentary counterparts are openly bullshit.

Last Week Tonight with John Oliver makes us all look bad. For even trying to be funny and say things. Especially if you’re trying to do so on a weekly basis.

There is a sub-genre of restaurant commercials that makes food look like open wounds.

Married at First Sight is the TV equivalent of foreplay. Content and form are utterly diverged.

It’s culturally necessary for some variant of 90 Day Fiancé to be on the air all year round. Every relationship in that show is a microcosm of the American struggle for dominance and subjugation.

I’ve never missed a show more than Better Call Saul and never wanted there to be more episodes of a show less.

It’s difficult to predict who will exert the greatest influence over American politics in the coming years but a list of the least popular Saturday Night Live guest stars might not be a bad place to start.

Halloween is upon us so it’s time to start watching horror movie franchises out-of-order and without key installments.

Sesame Street is a show about dysfunction and vices. And that they’re ok in moderation. No other children’s show has ever gone there.

Is there anyone out there who still genuinely believes that the Real Housewives spontaneously decide to take a vacation with all the current cast members every year at exactly the same point in each season … with an itinerary that just happens to incorporate all the sponsors of the program and an unlimited budget that directly contradicts the facts of many of their financial situations?

Somehow NYPD Blue without Andy Sipowicz is more unthinkable than Roseanne without Roseanne.

I’m in a play about Telenovelas and we’ve been asking our audiences to name TV shows they watch with their loved ones. Somebody responded “Ed Sullivan”. This should tell you all you need to know about the vitality of regional theatre audiences.

Fall is when episodes of Frasier magically turn into quadrants of holiday-themed movies on your DVR.

The Kardashians seem to do more social interventions than O.J. and Kanye combined!

I dig Curious George. Not because I’m a father of a young boy. I actively choose to watch it. It’s really good.

Television adaptations of podcasts have either got a long way to go or never will.

James Gandolfini’s son Michael is playing a character in The Deuce who in all ways resembles Tony Soprano’s son because apparently David Simon shows are getting too easy to follow.

I don’t know why Marriage Boot Camp on WeTV always looks like a seventh generation Widescreen VHS copy on my TV. But no show on any other network does.

I’m not exactly clued up on what the prevailing moral of Pinkalicious and Peterrific is supposed to be, but it does seem to legitimize ruining everyone else’s day with your own sense of entitlement.

Whatever they’re paying Martin Short to do The Cat in the Hat on PBS Kids is not enough: Fact.

I think all that’s keeping me watching FX these days is the prospects of seeing post-credits sequences of Avengers movies as the DVR recording of something else starts.

The Better Call Saul Season 4 Finale is the only Abba jukebox musical I’m interested in there being in the world.

Modern Family has been back on TV for a month. I have literally heard nothing about this.

I’m not ready to celebrate the return of Chris Hardwick or the anniversary of Bill Maher. I don’t think either have been sufficiently exonerated for me to party with them just yet.

I wonder what will “end with Season 3” next …

This entry was posted on October 18, 2018 at 09:04 and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.