Intelligible Television:TV’s most annoying characters, The Hit List
August 17, 2009 at 6:58 pm | In Entertainment, Intelligible Television, Media, Shows, Television | Leave a CommentTags: Bones, True Blood, According to Jim, Sookie Stackhouse, 90210, Gossip Girl, The Big Bang Theory
Ever felt like strangling someone from TV? I do loads of times. Some characters get to us. They bother us in ways that real people can. You pray for that accident or season finale that sends them packing. If they happen to be in a show you like, well then that’s doubly difficult because you have no choice but to watch them, week after week, invading your peace. Here are a few I think are particularly annoying. Some from shows I love, and some well I thankfully couldn’t care less about.
Before you begin… those of you kind enough to be reading this kindly put your pitchforks and daggers down should you come across someone you like in this article. This is NOT representative of anything or anyone’s opinion save mine. If you have a list like mine, share it here and find the same therapeutic experience that I am looking for.
Sookie Stackhouse, True Blood: It’s bitter-sweet to watch Anna Paquin do such a good job, portraying Sookie. She gets the nuances and the traits spot on and credit goes to her for playing the small town Southern belle so well. But all of it gets so very lost on me, by the fact that I have never come across a more vapid, emotionally inconsistent and ditzy fictional character. She has the attention span of an eight year old and zero sense of self-preservation .I am hard pressed to believe that this simpering, complaining, telepathic mess of a girl is the object of desire of not one but two very sexy vampires.
Temperance Brennan, Bones: Great intellect is apparently no guarantee that you won’t be obnoxious and insufferable. While social ineptness combined with disinterest in regular human activities, works so well for Sheldon in The Big Bang Theoryit only seems to make Brennan a snob without cause. While I have nothing against smart people and their awareness of their abilities, Brennan’s conceit seems baseless for the most part. The character is insulting to anyone who doesn’t confirm with her beliefs, looks down upon the rest of society and justifies it with highly suspect logic. If it weren’t for the rest of the funny and quirky characters and solid story-lines, I don’t think I could stand watching this show.
Jim, According to Jim:Abrasive but lovable suburban father? Really! The whole regular guy meme is a sitcom favorite .The guy who loves his family but is far from the ideal father, who is not above resorting to some amount of lying and deception to smoothen things. Who won’t take art classes or know about poetry. When handled well, it can give you an Everybody Loves Raymond. When pushed over the top like with Jim’s character it borders on sexism , is offensive and plain unfunny.
The ensemble of Gossip Girl: If I could differentiate one manipulative, self-absorbed, back-stabbing teenage brat from the other, I would maybe list their names. But any time I see them on the screen, they’re just one big designer clad blur. By the time I make out who’s screwing whom over, I’ve usually lost interest or changed to 90210 and haven’t realized it yet.
Marissa Cooper, The O.C.: The rich have issues. We get that. There is no need to plague one girl with every problem from the troubled teenager’s manual. Lacking any originality or substance, Marissa will perhaps go down in history as the worst walking clich� of the poor little rich girl.
Intelligible Television: Sometimes, Good Shows Have Bad Days
August 16, 2009 at 1:58 pm | In Entertainment, Intelligible Television, Media, Shows | 3 Comments
Rachael Leigh Cook guest stars as Shawn's girlfriend in He Dead
I was at a class trip all day yesterday and came back at at around half past midnight. Unfortunately my faithful torrent client failed to run the auto download I’d set up on the RSS feed which I’d set on both my laptop and desktop so that there wouldn’t be such a break-down. But since, technology screwed me over anyway I had to wait an extra half an hour for the download to get done to finally watch this week’s episode of Psych.
My verdict: I could have probably waited till morning. This wasn’t the best episode and If I had to be harsh, it barely made it to being a good one. ‘He Dead’ finds Shawn ( James Roday) and Gus (Dule Hill) entering the world of the rich and their clichés. Christine Baranski guest stars as a billionaire hedge fund manager’s widow who dies in a mysterious plane crash but only after he extracts a promise from Shawn to find out who killed him. Hilarity unfolds as usual as Shawn stumbles upon the signature skeletons in the double door walk in closets of the rich- affairs, scandals, estranged children, white collar crime… the works in efforts to find the murderer.
While the crime plot was interesting and fun there were too many issues I had with the episode to make me a fan, the first of them being the criminal under utilization of Lassie (Tim Omundosn) and Jules (Maggie Lawson). They had like three lines…combined which while I understood were the compulsions of the script is something that bugged me. Thank God for the totally kickass, ATV/bike (I don’t know what you call them) scene, or I would have been very unhappy.
Coming to this season’s endeavor at exploring Shawn’s love life and complication with the presence of his high school sweetheart Abigail (Rachael Leigh Cook), this episode did not impress me and none of it had anything to do with the fact that I root for Shawn and Jules. In the past, efforts at addressing some of the issues in Shawn’s life, which he does have plenty of has usually been very well executed considering the small ratio of time it’s awarded in proportion to the mystery solving part of the show. But this time, there was a lot left to be desired. While I do have my own biases about the whole Shawn and Abigail situation (duh!). Objectively, I didn’t think much of her presence on the show in this episode. The earlier chemistry from ‘Murder, Anyone, Anyone…Bueller’ and ‘An Evening with Mr.Yang’ was simply missing between the two characters due to no fault to the actors who played them. Where are the clever lines and the comebacks people? Relationship Shawn is kind of boring and suddenly I think I see the wisdom in the decision of the powers that be to keep Shawn and Jules apart. If this is the way they should behave in a relationship, I wouldn’t want them getting together too.
Regarding what Abigail did about meeting Henry ( Corbin Bernson) behind Shawn’s back, I cannot say I approve. One for the obvious reason that it was clearly not her place. But then she’s dating Shawn and since Shawn would so do something like that and we would clearly enjoy it a lot, It would be hypocritical of me to judge her. But my lament is that it killed what could have been perhaps a very funny and entertaining introductory meeting between the three characters. Instead we see this bland coffee meeting between two characters without any of the context. Similarly the dinner scene too turned out to be this highly uncomfortable thing but not in a good way. The context once again was missing. It is understandable that it is difficult to squeeze in a personal storyline in a procedural, but this whole thing just felt forced and flat even though it was an interesting premise that held potential. I am glad that this wasn’t selected for the season premiere. I would have been disappointed.
Look Who’s on Twitter!
April 11, 2009 at 4:11 pm | In Entertainment, Media, New Media, journalism | Leave a CommentTags: Aston Kutcher, Biz Stone, Blogging, Demi Moore, Face Book, Micro Blogging, Networking, Obama, Robert Pattinson, Ryan Seacrest, Social Media, The Colbert Report, Tina Fey, TweetDeck, Tweets, Twitter, Twitteroid, Vanessa Hudges
The Twitter Brower: flowingdata.com
Obama is on it, so is Ashton Kutcher, Demi Moore, Vanessa Hudgens, Ryan Seacrest, Tina Fey, Robert Pattinson and a lot of other important and less important people. Who needs paparazzi to tell us what celebs are up to when they can do it themselves in 140 characters or less at that. When Shakespeare said ‘Brevity is the soul of wit’, You know now he was talking about Twitter, the micro-blogging service where you can find people posting updates, networking, promoting, looking for jobs, getting fired from jobs and having fun sometimes. There are even fictional characters like Shawn Spencer from USA’s Psych twittering online.
I joined Twitter many months ago out of sheer curiosity and then let my account gather dust. It seemed so silly to keep posting updates about what I am doing to a bunch of strangers. But in a vague moment of boredom a few weeks ago, I made a post and pretty soon, I realized I liked it. Now I make an average of three posts a day sometimes two in ten minutes. I think for the first time, I would stick to a social networking site after the initial enthusiasm wears off.
My past experiences with the social networking scene have not impressed me to the degree, where I could think of it the way a lot of journalists do. Orkut was fun till it got mildly creepy with pretty much anyone and everyone wanting to be your friend for no visible reason. The ‘frandship’ requests alone were enough for me to renounce my account with little regret. Plus I’d found Facebook by then and it seemed like a classier and more private alternative to being on Orkut. But then it became so over loaded with features, that you dreaded logging in, lest someone had challenged you to some inane game or quiz that didn’t make sense to begin with. It’s become the legitimate spam portal where anyone can push anything into your face. The only reason I am still on it is because I love my friends and I have to find some way of keeping in touch with them. Plus it’s sort of uncool not to be on it, even if I check my account like say once in three months.
Twitter is like the ultimate no frills Facebook. It is less complex, more creative and definitely cooler. It’s fun to think of the mundane daily activities in the form of witty, staccato sentences, and I think that’s really what people enjoy a lot more than the connectivity. Co-founder of Twitter, Biz Stone was on The Colbert Report the other night, and he said “Twitter is like the messaging service, we didn’t know we needed.” I have to agree, since it is exactly the kind of messaging service I’ve been looking for. Free, fast and done through a key board.
More than the technical features of Twitter, it is the social dynamic which is more interesting. Why do we take so much trouble to worry about our privacy and then write about what time we got up or where we’re gonna go for dinner? It’s almost like most of the time; we’re trying to make our lives appear more interesting than it actually is or just making a performance out of things, because there is a hypothetical audience out there for it, reading about us.
It’s probably the reason why there are so many celebrities on Twitter, after years of telling the media to leave them alone that too. Biz Stone says its because Twitter is a simple and quick way of controlling information about yourself and that’s why it attracts so much Hollywood traffic. Plus it also acts like an improvisation of word-of mouth in a way, allowing you to promote stuff as well and create a closer bond with the fans. My Space and Blogs require a different kind of structure of information and moderation which they may not have the time or inclination for.
Micro blogging has been around for some time now and Twitter takes it to a whole new level by bridging it with cell phone activity and that’s probably appealing to a lot of users, given the number of special applications cell phones have come up with to facilitate Twitter on cell phones. Android came up with Twitteroid. Adobe has come up with TweetDeck to bridge Twitter with Facebook, a web application that I am trying out right now and liking.
I don’t know whether to get too excited about it all, because a lot of good things on the web have taken a turn for the worse, simply because they became too popular for their own good. I hope the same doesn’t happen with Twitter.
How Technology can Breed Complacency
March 31, 2009 at 9:20 pm | In Media, New Media, journalism | 1 CommentPosted for the TNTJ March Debate on what traditional skills are we losing?
For some time now, new media has been heralded as the second coming of journalism worldwide. Everybody marvels at RSS news feeds and tweets and blogs, and celebrates the slow death of the newspaper. While this immense explosion of web journalism is something that is phenomenal for many reasons, it has its pitfalls.
One of the primary issues with new media journalism is credibility. Even as more and more people are turning to the web for independent news and commentary, the question of credibility does give them pause. Who is this random blogger who reports from his or her community and why should I take his/her word?
It’s a shortcoming that web journalists have been trying hard to overcome, and have succeeded partially. Perhaps the fact that bloggers are getting more recognition as good journalists will help the case.
In a way it’s related to the loss of a few traditional news gathering skills. The technology available to journalists have led them to circumvent any real field work, or face to face interaction. While this is completely justified given the short deadlines they work under, its given rise to a lot of surface scratching and incomplete research, where we’re only as knowledgeable on a subject as Google allows us to be.
The visible amount of carelessness that creeps into a lot of writing on the web in terms of typos, incorrect or lack of attribution, grammar and rudimentary editing is another reason why web journalism lacks the kind of credibility that print or television enjoy. Good and accurate writing is not as dismissible as many think just because it’s on the web. It’s a serious issue which bloggers should ideally take note of and pay attention to.
Intelligible Television: More New Shows and not all impress
March 19, 2009 at 11:39 pm | In Entertainment, Intelligible Television, Media, Shows, Television, Uncategorized | 1 CommentTags: ABC, BBC, better off ted, Castle, doll house, dollhouse, Eliza Dushku, fringe, HBO, Jill castle, Joss Whedon, Nathan Fillion, No.1 ladies detctive agecy, Portia de Rossi, Television, the listener
Reserving judgement on Castle paid off. The second episode was impressive and more than compensated for the average pilot. In ‘Nanny McDead’, Castle and Beckett investigate the death of a nanny whose body is found tumbling in the basement dryer of an apartment building. What ensues is your regular crime drama route with cheating spouses and obsessed lovers before our duo nail the guilty. It’s entertaining because of Nathna Fillion ’s apt comic timing that cracks you up at the most serious moments in the episode. If he keeps it up and which am hoping it does, Rick Castle may just join the elite and yet endless number of wise cracking and devilishly charming crime solvers that we disapprove of but can’t help liking. Side note on nannies on crime shows? First Psych, now these guys.
- Things get more interesting on Dollhouse.
- Castle is promising with dead pan humour and one liners
Dollhouse continues to simmer with untold mystery as Echo (Eliza Dushku) becomes a blind woman to infiltrate a religious cult, suspected of being a cover for trafficking activities in last week’s episode. Laurence’s ( Reed Diamond) dislike of Echo and his fears that she is following the same path as the elusive Alpha become more evident in this episode, as he attempts to trap her in a fire by knocking her unconscious.
Another interesting development is the budding relationship between Victor (Enver Gjokaj ) and Sierra (Dichen Lachman) who are drawn to each other despite having no idea of what attraction is. The show has managed to maintain a steady momentum and according to show creator Joss Whedon, it’s about to get so much better. This week’s coming episode brings our star even if slightly malfunctioning active face to face with Paul ( Tahmoh Penikett) in what should be an interesting setting. Check out more juicy spoilers and news on what’s next on Dollhouse on E Online!
On the subject of new shows, I caught a slew of them over the last few days and some of them I am definitely putting on my RSS feed while others, not so much. The Canadian show, The Listener about a telepathic paramedic played by Craig Olejnik, who uses his gift to solve crimes is strictly okay and doesn’t really do much for me. The pace of the episodes is a little too sluggish and it doesn’t have a very definitive hook that could set it apart from the any number of crime series on television. The same can be said about The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency, a BBC and HBO joint production which has premiered in the UK and is dues to be broadcast in the US. Based on a series of novels that go by the same name by Alexander McCall Smith, the show is about Botswana’s only female detective, Mma Ramotswe played by Jill Castle. The plot is a tad simplistic and reminiscent of crime fiction for children ala Enid Blyton. But some might enjoy it precisely for it’s simplicity, because its a throw back to a ‘follow the suspect’ sort of investigation instead of the complex procedurals that we get to see most of the time. In the first episode which is 55 minutes long, Mma Ramotswe solves three parallel cases and jumpstarts her near to bankruptcy agency.
If you though Fringe was ridiculous you’ll simply love Better off Ted where they freeze employees alive, a new sitcom on ABC about an unscrupulous mega think tank and it’s ethically plagued R & D Chief. Jay Harrington plays Ted, a single father and corporate hot shot who along with a healthy mix of managerial and lab staff makes everything and anything from uncomfortable office chairs to pumpkin bio weapons. It’s funny and brilliant and absurd and I love it. Portia de Rossi, Malcolm Barrett, Jonathan Slavin, Andrea Anders and Isabella Acres co star.
Intelligible Television:Winter Line-up, Dollhouse and why I am liking it..
March 11, 2009 at 11:43 pm | In Entertainment, Intelligible Television, Media, Shows, Television, Uncategorized | 1 CommentTags: ABC, Castle, Crime, CW, doll house, dollhouse, Drama, Eliza Dushku, Fox, Nathan Filllion, Privileged, Psych, Show, Shows, Television, The Mentalist
It’s been a bad year for television and not just in a budget cuts, recession way. Many of the new shows which premiered this fall expected to be runaway hits, fell flatter than their non-existent storylines, with a few not even making it past their third episode. The only visible smash hit off the year, The Mentalist is nothing more than a grim, sophisticated knock off of the quirkier and definitely better Psych while Privileged, yet another tapered down and PG-13 take on rich and famous and completely fabulous teenagers who can’t seem to get through high school without everybody sleeping with everybody else has been left hanging in the air with no green light for a second season yet.
Shows that premiere in winter are seldom given the kind of hype that Fall line-ups receive. You’re already thinking, they’re on now because they weren’t good enough to be on in September along with the other new shiny on TV. But Dollhouse has been the entire buzz for quite some time before it went on in February. Yes, it is one more high budget, sci-fi show based on an utterly ridiculous premise that the people at Fox seem so adept at coming up with. But just like the other super absurd show on Fox, a little marvel of directionless yet interesting writing I like to call Fringe, it has me hooked.
People who can be made and unmade for specific tasks and engagements through a process of imprinting and then wiped clean when the job gets done: That’s what Dollhouse is all about. Eliza Dushku plays Echo, one of the ‘actives’ of the dubious company with a sketchy past that has driven her to having her memories erased and becoming a blank slate or the Tabula Rasa. She floats around in her spa like residence, swimming and doing yoga and gliding clueless by her other inmates when she’s not being transformed into a K & R negotiator or a safe cracker by a narcissistic genius scientist, Topher (Franz Kranz). Throw in a Fed obsessed with finding the Dollhouse, a mysterious, Frankenstein ‘active’ gone wrong whose out for Echo, and a former cop with ethical dilemmas turned bodyguard to empty headed Echo who can’t help being a trouble magnet even if the poor thing can’t remember it and you have quite a show on your hands. Oh also, the thing about our doll- her slate is not quite so blank. She’s assimilating bits and pieces from each of her assignments and no one has realized it yet.
- Eliza Dushku in Dollhouse- She can be anyone you want!
Castle, which premiered on ABC this Monday starring Nathan Fillion and Stana Katic is a crime show about a bad boy author and a prudishly cold homicide detective who partner up to solve a copycat case based on his book. Think Brennan and Booth, but not really and you’ll get a sense of what Castle is about. Rick Castle is our rakishly, irresponsible (he hands a glass of champagne to his under age daughter, convincing her to generate wild stories about teenage years to tell her offspring someday) uber-successful author who doesn’t care for the rules, having just killed off the lead character of his books, much to the chagrin of his ex-wife/publisher and is going through the convenient writer’s block that has his upcoming book nine weeks over-due. Enter Kate Beckett, homicide detective, who has read every book he’s every written but is not a fan of him or his ways. Pit the stiff- upper lip crime fighter with the ‘ I only speak in sexual innuendos’ crime author and you have a partnership that simmers and bubbles over with sexual chemistry unlike the carefully restrained and amusing even if , antagonistic bickering of our Bones duo.
The crime plotline is secondary at least in the first episode. Given that Castle has found his muse and next lead character in Beckett whom he intends to stick with for the purposes of ’research’ , it is likely to stay that way. The show is promising because of it’s ‘ I love to hate’ lead character even if it may not have the most engaging sub-plot. Hoping that it finds the right angle of humour if not substance, I think I’ll reserve my verdict until the next instalment.
Reaper comes back for a devilish second season
In other news, Reaper is back with a much awaited second season, taking the place of afore mentioned Privileged on CW. So, Sam is the son of the Devil. It’s official! A fact that doesn’t seem to bother him nearly as much as it should. He’s found a possibility of getting out of his deal as bounty hunter after meeting a soul whose managed to get out of hell for good. Soc has an Asian step-sister, he has a completely inappropriate crush on and Ben is finding romance with a renegade demon who’s after Sam. Yup, seems just about right. The episodes so far have the same mix of quirky humour and action that made me a fan last season. Satan is temptation himself, playing his part to perfection as he goes about spreading evil because it’s fun and the trio manage to lead their directionless lives and sending souls back to hell, when they’re not goofing off work.
All in all, the winter line-up seems a little more interesting than Fall and hopefully with the reduced clutter of reality junk and other shows, some might actually get the chance to develop into wholesome entertainment.
Intelligible Television
December 5, 2008 at 12:11 am | In Entertainment, Media, Shows, Television, journalism | 1 CommentHey, here I go again. Starting one more of my famous segments. I know it’s a little weird that I keep doing that given that there are no comments to show anybody is reading what I write. But then, you know… Blogs are anyway about seeking attention, or so I read in The Hindu once.
So I watch a lot of television, and I mean a lot. But the thing is, Its not really on TV as such. Its largely American shows that I download from the internet. I kinda gave up on Indian TV a long time ago. Right about the time, I started college and went to stay at a hostel. Having no TV of your own, forces you to resort to finding other means of entertainment. The momentous discovery of utorrent has probably been the most defining point of my life. Given the sacharine dipped, melodramatic fare that is served to you on Star Plus and Sony, I think I made the right choice in switching loyalties to ABC, CW, CBS, NBC and Fox. Call me unpatriotic, snobbish, west -obsessed, or whatever. I think a selected and emphasis on selected here, portion of American primetime programming is really phenomenal compared to the staggering, repeat motion sequences of our soaps and reality shows.
For one, these shows are seasonal and weekly. You don’t need to agonize over missing a day or sit glued to the television all year long. Secondly, they actually have something of a plotline, not just families in over-the-top clothing, sitting in their living rooms and talking about themselves. They also have more genres of programming. Not everything is a love story or a family soap. There are investigative series, teenage dramas, sitcoms, variety shows, comedies and such.
So given the obvious advantages and my own aversion to soppy content, I have now regularly timed myself with the fall season of the US. Ask me about season premieres, returning series, hiatus, holiday specials, cancellations and I can tell you exactly what they mean. Ask me who’s playing Tulsi on Kyunki.. I won’t have a clue.
So here’s a list of the shows I watch- Desperate Housewives, Fringe, Priveleged, The Big Bang Theory, How I met your Mother, Bones, Psych, The Colbert Report, Saturday Night live and 30 Rock. So here’s what I am going to do henceforth. Taking inspiration from some of my favourite television blogs like RTVW and TV aholic , I am going to try and do some reviews and commentary on these shows. While part of it will be as proffesional as I’ve learnt from three and half years of journalism, sometimes I’ll just engage in some feel-good gushing.
So watch out this space in case you’re looking for any help in deciding your schedule.
New media is the place to be
October 19, 2008 at 2:28 pm | In Media, New Media, journalism | 1 CommentTags: job, journalism, New Media, profession
What would my ideal journalism job be? The question takes me back to elementary school composition exercises. What do you want to be when you grow up? I pretty much knew I wanted to be a journalist for most of my life. There was a period when I thought I wanted to venture into genetics or architecture but my less than stellar aptitude in Science, Physics and Math pretty much negated those options.
I never gave much thought about what kind of journalism I wanted to pursue till a few years ago. If you’re English educated in India, the only place you can be is in the national press. For those who get their liberal higher education in the metros of the nation, writing in local vernacular papers or magazines is unthinkable. It’s not something we do. So we slog away in colleges and journalism schools hoping to say someday that I am from Times of India or The Hindu or some other equally illustrious metro based national daily which is read by about 3-4% of the country. The phenomenal growth of 24×7 news channels in India in all the Indian languages and especially in English and Hindi changed to a great degree. Aspiring journalists switched their preferences over to television which is currently, more prominent and better paying. Not me though. I can’t think of a job in television. It’s repetitive, highly monotonous and limits creativity.
Like most aspiring journalists, I do have the one paper or magazine I absolutely must work for before I die and that is The Hindu one of the finest newspapers in the country. But it doesn’t have to be a long gig; a brief internship stint would be just fine. I want to be on the inside of a newspaper that I love and admire and see why they are the way they are. If I could stretch my imagination and my capabilities, I guess being part of the foreign correspondence bureau of The Hindu would be awesome.
On a more long term basis, I think web journalism is where I truly want to be. Like most people of my generation, I think New Media is where the future lies. It’s nascent and not institutionalized in the way print or television has been. That is what makes it so much more exciting to work with. It’s a chance for one to change traditional ideas about how journalism should be. To break down the old understandings about news value or narratives, to maybe invent new ones. My ideal job would be having my own website with maybe a small scale staff and finding that middle path between news and feature writing .To achieve the balance between hard hitting stuff and infotainment like Salon.
But on the whole, it’s not something I plan on doing right after college. Ideal jobs are ideal when you get them at a stage in your life when you feel you’re ready. Before that you must pay your dues, gather experience, take what comes your way and branch out into different fields before settling where you think you belong. I believe that any job in journalism has a lot to teach us – about good and bad content, about principles, about realizing what we’re good at and zoning into what we really want to be doing. To be steadfast to an immature dream that we chart out at 16 or 18 and not let the profession change us for the better is a great disservice we do to ourselves. We shouldn’t be putting up with a job but rather try and enjoy it , do our best with it and take from it whatever we can to something better as when the opportunities come along.
Blog at WordPress.com. | Theme: Pool by Borja Fernandez.
Entries and comments feeds.
