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I think I've actually been enjoying Glee this season. Season 4 has had its not-terrible moments, thanks to a change of pace in the fake drama school in New York, a handful of particularly well-crafted musical numbers, the open shaming of Finn Hudson (despite being unfortunately paired with Cory Monteith's real-life personal matters) and the overall lack of Will Schuester. Regrettably, "Shooting Star" was the worst piece of crap this show has produced in a very long time... if not ever, so much so that it warrants this addendum blog post to the forthcoming recap. Here's why:
It's obvious what Eva Longoria and NBC were trying to do with Ready for Love: Cash in quite belatedly on the fame of The Bachelor using the "science" and snark of Millionaire Matchmaker. Unfortunately, this show is so poorly edited, egregiously sexist and clearly low-budget, it's much closer to The Choice meets Fashion Star and has all of the authenticity of Burning Love. Rather than validate Ready for Love by giving it a straight-up review, I'll instead list the very worst things about the show.
We're big fans of Jason Mantzoukas here at TWoP, in no small part because of his character Rafi on The League, Dennis Feinstein on Parks and Recreation and his musings on the How Did This Get Made? podcast. When we first learned he'd be playing Haley Dunphy's boyfriend in "Party Crasher," it was the most we've looked forward to an episode of Modern Family in a long time. It should come as no surprise, then, that after watching this mess, we're a bit more disappointed than usual.
I don't know what terrible thing I did, but clearly having to watch an entire hour of 2 Broke Girls must have been some sort of CBS-mandated punishment, right? Both "And the Big Opening" and "And the Silent Partner" were forgettable, nonsensical and just plain bad episodes filled with gross sex jokes and lots of fat shaming. In the first installment, I don't understand what the point was of bringing Johnny back. I'd all but forgotten him, and he was never that great of a character nor such a wonderful match for Max that I felt that we were missing something without his presence (can't say the same about Andy, who has an abundance of sexual chemistry with her but barely any with Caroline). As for "And the Silent Partner," I didn't really buy that Caroline would be disgraced by "only" having one small cupcake shop in a popular mall in one of the trendiest parts of New York City, especially at the age of 25 after her family lost all of their money and possessions. But whatever; clearly this show isn't supposed to make sense logistically, so let's just get to the groans:
I just want to point out "And the Three Boys With Wood" started out with Max tending to a horse, and ended with Caroline grinding with an Amish boy -- causing him to instantaneously orgasm and have a panic attack and then get taken away in an ambulance -- and shortly thereafter, she got an odd text message from Andy who immediately came outside and started making out with her. Oh, and then a stray cat with really fake sound effects growled at Max. This is real show on network television.
You know why scripted workplace comedies like The Office and Workaholics are so appealing? When they're good, they capture that sterile, mundane environment that comes with desk job, but fuse in odd characters and strange storylines in order to combine the familiar with the strange, leading to funny jokes and often even some compelling interpersonal drama. LOLworkkind of does that, only without actors, or writers, or humor, or literally anything that would make it remotely watchable at all, aside from a few cute videos of cats which you can just watch on their freakin' website, or anywhere on the Internet for that matter.
As an actual guy with kids, I feel I can say with some authority that NBC's new Jimmy Fallon-created sitcom Guys with Kids is terrible. Say what you will about the uneven first season of Up All Night -- the network's other baby-centric comedy -- but in its best episodes that show nailed the details of new parenthood in a way that was both identifiable and hilarious. Guys with Kids, on the other hand, feels like it was conceived by a team who have never met a child, let alone watched a good sitcom before.
Having grown up in the '80s, I have fond memories of watching the Michael Crichton-directed movie version of Robin Cook's best-seller Coma during its endless run on cable. While by no means a classic of its particular subgenre (the science-fiction laced medical thriller; see also The Andromeda Strain and the recent Splice), that 1978 film is a lot of fun and almost compulsively watchable, one of those potboilers that you stumble upon a few minutes of and feel the urge to stick around until the end. Since the original is admittedly dated in some respects, though, I was looking forward to A&E's new two-part miniseries, which updates Cook's book to the present day. With the heavy-hitting cast (Lauren Ambrose! Geena Davis! Ellen Burstyn!), experienced production team (including Ridley Scott and his recently departed brother Tony), and good source material, I began watching the first installment -- which aired last night, Part 2 premieres this evening -- anticipating, if nothing else, a solid Labor Day diversion.
Bravo has recently aired two cases of cast members quite obviously cheating on their partners, and we're trying to figure out which incident was more disturbing:
In the latest of Bravo's string of TV shows that aren't about Real Housewives in title, but do circulate around a group of over-privileged idiots, Gallery Girls premiered last night. The series is about several unpaid interns who work at various mediocre galleries throughout New York City. Based on both the pilot and the season preview, there seem to be some turf wars, money problems and probably a lot of other things that have absolutely nothing to do with art or anything remotely transcendent brewing.
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