Climbing up the mountain, ready for the tumbledown

[itsallovernow]

In the off chance that my head really does do as threatened and explode, crankygrrl gets all my stuff, mostly because no one else would want it and I like the idea of her trying to wear all my pink sparkly accoutrements in tribute. Of course, I'm sure she wouldn't really want the stuff that had exploding head bits on them, but I'm relatively restrained in my outfit today and so the really sparkly stuff would still be unsticky.

Which is to say, OMFG why does my head hurt like this and why can I not just say Fuck it, I have nothing to do, I'm going home?

In a world where we're about to advocate torture as an American value, I will ignore that in favor of talking about TV. If I talk about any of the things going on in the world of human rights, and government, I really will explode, so let's leave it be.

So, Studio 60.

Dear Sorkin,
We get that you're pissed off about members of your audience not recognizing your sparkly bright genuis. Suck it up and get over it. Writing a show around your coke habit does not balance out the fact that you are unreasonably bitter about not always being the golden boy of the internets. When Josh Lyman was fighting with the internets, that was mildly amusing because Josh, for all that I loved him, was kind of an asshole and got sucked in and mostly deserved it. Snotty remarks from the ACTORS IN A TV SKETCH SHOW just makes all of you look petty. These are not taste makers nor policy makers to anyone but 13 year old boys and if you want me to believe that a sketch show is going to change the world, you damned well better prove it.

That being said. Yes, the Gilbert and Sullivan was genuis. But you know what? The bulk of that viewing audience would not have known what the fuck you were talking about if you paid them. I'm guessing that half your TV viewing audience didn't know what the fuck you were talking about unless they'd watched the West Wing ep when they sang G&S to Ainsley Hayes. Genius, yes. Plausible? Even less so then the entire fantasy liberal White House.

Matt and Danny. Yes I love them. Yes I loved their terrible pep talks and their professionalism and the frigging clock.

However, just for a moment, I'd like to address the sheer, total lack of women in the writer's room. Because that blows. You can make the network president the equivalent of a teenage prom queen, and that's fine because I love the idea of Jordan even if Amanda Peet didn't impress me at all this week. But you'd better frelling put some women in that writer's room or I am out becuase you consistently leave words as something that only men do. It's a theme. And it's one that's starting to grate. Women can wrangle the writer's, they can be in charge, but why are they never the one's who find the words.

In closing, if you manage to remove yourself a little more from this show, it'll make me happy. You've got a great cast, and some lovely possibilities, but you're going to sink yourself. I don't want to watch a show about Aaron Sorkin. I want to watch a show about two friends who are kind of fucked rising to a new challenge. They need to fail gloriously. They need to want this show as something more than a stop gap between movie deals.

You're doing good work in the midst of the ego-stroking and audience fucking, so please do be doing it a little more consistently. When it's on, it's on. And you know what the best moment of "The Cold Open" was? It wasn't the G&S tribute. It was the clock. It was seeing the countdown, seeing the show go live, and seeing Matt walk into the room and have the whole thing start over again. That, that was good TV.

Thanks,
Thea

And Heroes,

This was a show that I almost wanted to watch in another language, partly because the dialogue and blocking are fairly clunky, and the parts in Japanese were sort of beautifully surreal and hysterical in the way that Japanese snacks are sort of beautiful and weird and surreal. You could have done the show without dialogue, with better dialogue, but the scope was fantastic. (Except for the doppleganger, but mostly I think Ali Larder is not a very good actress and is mostly there for the eye candy, but I don't like blonds, so whatever. However, I do find the Indian geneticist very, very pretty in a skinny pouty sort of way, so that's cool).

I loved the moments when it found a universal voice, the way the powers are playing out, and the twist at the end when it was the brother who flew.

I'll be watching again, because if this works, it could be utterly lovely, and if it doesn't, it'll be the worst kind of cheese.

Comments

[suzy_queue]

I disagree with you on one point - there was a woman in the writer's room. According to closed captioning, her name was Deb. She had the first suggestion, the Democracy Act that prevented voting, sitting next to the guy who suggested the puppet show. And then Harriet was in on the writing of the skit and stuff, with the Big Three. So: underrepresented, but there. Although, wasn't Tina Fey the first and only female writer on SNL, so recently? It seems to be a trend.

Plus, CJ on the West Wing brought the words just as much as Sam and Toby and more than Josh.

I agree with everything else, though. There are some great points to this show, but room for improvement.

[raithen.livejournal.com]

I disagree about CJ -- she did the spin, she was the spokesperson, the mouthpiece -- but she was NEVER (well, at least not until season 6 or whenever it was she became chief and I stopped watching because it was a hassle to be able to do so and the show no longer enthralled me sufficiently to make the hassle worthwhile) the one shown to have the gift for words, the affinity, the creativity, the true passion for CREATING language. She was never shown to be able to do what Sam could do with the Galileo introduction, nor did she share Toby's great angst at coming up with the perfect sentence for a statement of condolence or a speech or whatever. She used words, yes, but she didn't BRING them in the same way Sam and Toby did.

[suzy_queue]

That's true. They were incredibly gifted. But at the same time, Sam and Toby crafted their work in their offices, revising and rewriting. They had that luxury. CJ went out without a net, was the spokesperson of the entire administration and gave the daily quotes for the newspapers. I think they brought the words in different ways, but equally important ones.

[raithen.livejournal.com]

my point is not that she didn't create language. I agree with you on your point. My point is more in the way that Sorkin (and come to think of it, he was gone when she became Chief...) REPRESENTED her as a bringer of words. She was never shown to have the same love of language, affinity for WORDS as Toby and Sam. She shared their passion for ideas, for ideals, for representing things well and for getting the right spin on things -- all of which she OF COURSE did with language, with words. But they were shown to be more of a tool for her, a means to an end, rather than an end in and of themselves. And in this, she is qualitatively DIFFERENT from the men.

[thassalia.livejournal.com]

Oh, I agree on the import. Sorkin writes smart competent women very very well. And someday, he'll learn how to write them as not being relationship morons.

[thassalia.livejournal.com]

One woman in the writer's room, yeah. But Sorkin doesn't put the crafting of words in the hands of women.

CJ was the voice of the White House, but when the craft of writing, of creating words was discussed it was always Toby and Sam, etc. And part of it is that theme of the way that the two men shape each other and their creation - Dan and Casey were the prototypes in a lot of ways.

I'm more annoyed by the recycling, the unthinking recycling of Sorkin's personal trope, then I am by the underrepresentation of women which is probably pretty accurate. Still pisses me off.

*therapeutic non-thinky comment*

[raithen.livejournal.com]

{{AntiHeadSplodeyVibes}}

*hands thea ibuprofen/tylenol (your choice - either or both), coffee and chocolate. and a hottie to provide a soothing neck rub*

Re: *therapeutic non-thinky comment*

[thassalia.livejournal.com]

Thanks dear. I chose the "I work for corporate america, don't have anything to do today, so I'm using my benefits and going home" option:)

[life-on-queen.livejournal.com]

Yes, the Gilbert and Sullivan was genuis.

Agreed. And it might have been enough to get me to watch the show if not for the audience fucking. Once again - self-satisfied wanking as opposed to actually doing something meaningful. Fuck you, buddy, I got better shit to do.

Also, please don't explode your head, I'd look like Dumbo in all your pink sparkly stuff. Although I'm touched that you think of me...

I passed on heroes and watched the VM download instead. I actually read comic books and I'm kinda less than taken with the "OMG we have powers" storyline... dunno why. Jus' grumpy I guess.

BTW - the jesus fucking cat has taken to spelunking in my goddamn stove!!! The fuck?!

[thassalia.livejournal.com]

I liked Heroes. I don't read comic books, and I liked the different reactions that everyone had to these things happening to them, the way they took to them in response to their real lives. They didn't look at them as heroic qualities per se, which I liked, and truthfully, Hiro is wonderful.

And dude, Georgie spent a good six months trying to live in the fridge. The stove is warm. Don't be surprised if Tully starts sleeping on it.

[life-on-queen.livejournal.com]

Okay... so cats are nuts and I have to learn to deal... argh.

[scrubschick.livejournal.com]

I agree with what Suzy said above about the woman in the writers' room and it also appeared to me that, after the revelation on the cold open, Danny sends Tom and Simon home for clothes and their shaving kits. "It's us. Let's move!" Tom says, "Harriet, too?" and Matt replies "Harriet, too." I inferred that Matt, Tom, Simon and Harriet would be working on the song together. I'm not staying up late to watch SNL any more but I seem to remember that some if not most of the comedian/actors also got writer credit and, since Harriet's been on the show for 7 (?) years, I wouldn't be surprised if she contributed to writing the sketches.

I pick nits. It's what I do.

And Heroes was intriguing. Mohinder is sexy-hot. But Claire's repeated attempts at bodily harm really disturbed me on a very emotional level. The chick with the doppelganger didn't work for me but I absolutely adore Hiro. So cute!

[thassalia.livejournal.com]

But we don't really see it. When I see a women wielding words ( in the process mind you) in the same way that we see Sorkin's boy heroes do so, I'll be happier. Like I said, it's about the recycling. It's also about his mythos, and it kind of pisses me off. This isn't SNL, and we, as the audience have no way of knowing who's getting credit, and it's about the craft, the magic of writing and it's something that I frequently feel like he denies women. Just my opinion.

[octavia-b.livejournal.com]

I've skipped your Heroes assessment because I still haven't watched it, but you pretty much crawled inside my brain with your Studio 60 assessment. The first thing that hit me in the writers' meeting was "where are the women?"

And the snide comments about the fat blogger drowning under her cats just fucked me right off.

There are some great things about the show but it's so smug and condescending that I'm wavering about whether to keep watching.