Watching TV with Americans

It’s difficult to watch Making a Murderer Part 2 in a political vacuum. Everything in it seems to be the inevitable outcome of a Republican state legislature wielding power unfettered.

Andrew Lincoln’s exits from The Walking Dead and Teachers were identical in every conceivable way.

Peppa Pig is one of the best satires of the modern British middle-classes that exists in TV. Americans can find out more about us a nation than they would in a decade of Downton.

Outlander is a high-concept show in its post-concept period. Discuss.

The Conners needs to look worse. I’m really missing the blurriness around the edges that was the hallmark of Roseanne and blue-collar sitcoms since time immemorial.

I’m suspicious that 90 Day Fiancé is a soft open for the new Twilight Zone with its storyline about a robot and his mail-order bride.

I watched a Thomas & Friends episode where the (somehow American) tank engine was enslaved in the Yorkshire equivalent of Terminus from The Walking Dead Season 5.

Bravo attempts to sell LA Times’ Dirty John to its viewers as a Real Housewives of Orange County spin-off.

I’m happy that Doctor Who is just a TV show again.

The Deuce is notable in David Simon’s canon for having his worst and best dialogue in the same episode.

The documentary Jonestown: Terror in the Jungle felt like an unmade horror movie. Except the movie would have ended with the survivors escaping the jungle to find out it was just 2018 America all along.

Never DVR an R-rated movie playing on AMC ever again. That’s not advice. I’m just putting it online so you can remind me.

Someone should remind Vicki Gunvalson that the last time someone did a face-morphing montage on a national TV series was Roseanne Barr. And she thought she was indispensable to her show too.

Fresh Off the Boat is the perfect ABC sitcom. It’s set in the past, highlights Americans of color and kicked its creator off the show after one season.

I would not be surprised if it was revealed that Married at First Sight: Honeymoon Island was filmed in a park.

AMC is trying to convince us that turning old or out-of-favor shows into TV movies is something that has not been done before.

Given that it was the last thing we saw Anthony Bourdain do before he disappeared from our TV screens forever, I’d like to try and make “eating eggs with John Lurie” become the new “sleeping with the fishes”.

I get the logic of playing The Godfather movies all day long on Thanksgiving. It’s families eating large amounts of food while tearing their delicate fabric apart in a matter of hours … watching classic American cinema on TV!

Hans Zimmer’s work on The Simpson seems to consist mostly of self-pastiche.

Flipping Out has been cancelled. If a jerk boss fires you and there are no cameras to cover it, does it count?

Alec Baldwin once again celebrated getting a network talk show by making it impossible for them to air it.

Calling a TV show Timeless is really just asking for the network to cancel you.

Conservatives picking fights with Saturday Night Live and CNN is a case of biting the hand that hands you an election.

TV lost The Bachelor mansion to fire. And the Bachelor in Paradise beach to crabs.

The Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade on NBC could have doubled as The Today Show Veterans Day Parade.

Those retro-futurist Mickey Mouse cartoons seem to have been created to alienate kids from 1 to 92.

Love After Lockup seems to be targeted at viewers who find 90 Day Fiancé bland and underwhelming.

A Million Little Things is to This is Us what Donovan is to Bob Dylan. This is Us is Dylan’s Christmas Album.

George H. W. Bush was a pioneer in television. He trashed The Simpsons years before anyone else did.

I saw a commercial for a product called Egglettes where you break an egg into an egg-shaped mold and then boil it in a pan of hot water. I think it’s a shell corporation.

The Keeping up with the Kardashians episode where a pregnant Khloe finds out her child’s father has been cheating on her was the best reboot of 24 yet.

Seeing movie stars on TV is still a bit like seeing Diana Ross in coach.

Orson Welles’ film The Other Side of Wind premiering on Netflix is the Video Killed The Radio Star moment of 21^st Century television.

This entry was posted on December 8, 2018 at 21:28 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.