Episodic Blockbusters = Commercial Magic

By on May 11, 2012 in Tinseltown | 1 comment

(Revised! See the afterword below!) The recent box office success of The Avengers got me wondering: why don’t blockbusters ever start on the small-screen? Why can’t the stories behind these tentpole movies (which are often novels or comics) be reformatted episodically and aired as limited-run series? Wouldn’t advertisers be tripping over themselves to put their commercials in such a broadcast? Wasn’t the six-part Roots adaptation one of the highest-rated television events ever? That got me to running some numbers. Let’s imagine the final Harry Potter book as a 36-part series by arbitrarily splitting the story into the novel’s 36 chapters (grouping the epilogue in with the last chapter). Such a series would run nicely between the beginning of September and the end of May—the span of the normal broadcast TV season—even if the series took a week off for...

The Blog Post Where Plot Twists Go to Die

By on Mar 21, 2012 in Inanities |

Or, Everything That’s Ever Been Spoiled For Me Try as hard as I might, there’s no escaping spoilers in my role as (amateur) TV critic. As I’ve said before, I’m incapable keeping up with all the worthwhile, buzz-worthy, quality TV on the air today. And while most blogs and publications are good about preceding spoilers with warnings and burying plot reveals in the body of an article instead of leading with them, others are not so conscientious. And even with the diligent outlets, there is a statute of limitations with spoilers—at a certain point, after an arbitrary amount of time has passed, it has to be allowable to rehash and discuss major plot points without recrimination. So I don’t always blame the spoil-er for the spoiling; I just regret that it happened (unless I just don’t care). At the risk of paying the sin forward, here are all the twists...

“Mad Men” Poster Madly Dissected

By on Mar 1, 2012 in Inanities |

If I were a student at a small liberal arts school in rural Massachusetts, and my Media Studies professor asked me to analyze the newest Mad Men poster (in no fewer than 3 pages, double-spaced, 12-pt Times New Roman), here’s how I would totally bullshit that paper. (Disclaimer: all of the papers I wrote in college involved hours of research, much soul-searching,and extensive meta-analysis.) Here’s the poster, and below is the pretension. The female mannequin has no face, indicating how little Don Draper is concerned with his sexual partners’ identities. The male mannequin has no face, representing the flux of Don’s own personas and identities. The female mannequin’s lower sexual organ is concealed, representing society’s expectation for him to remain chaste in extramarital contexts. Don’s face is inscrutably impassive, representing the constant...

Shit My Boyfriend Says

By on Feb 1, 2012 in Inanities |

or, A Television-Related Word Association Experiment With the Love of My Life Here’s a list of every current show I watch, and my boyfriend’s instant reaction to each. 30 Rock “Oh, Tina Fey…” (smiles) American Horror Story “Thrills me.” Boardwalk Empire “Costumes…” Breaking Bad “Oh, I don’t know.  I don’t know.  Come back to me with that one.” Burn Notice “Never saw it… oh, but that guy is hot.” Californication “Gah… can’t get into it… but I want to.” Community “Growing on me.” Cougar Town “Stupid.” Covert Affairs “Oh, Piper Peek-a-boo.  That’s what my dad calls her… looks pretty stupid, though.  It looks like a dumbed-down Alias, if Alias could be any dumber.” Curb Your Enthusiasm “I hate...

2011 Primies: Best Shows

By on Jan 30, 2012 in The Primies |

My year-end accolades (or year-beginning ones, as the case may be) always come with a disclaimer: I haven’t watched all the awesome TV out there. There’s no Boardwalk Empire on this list, no Homeland, no Game of Thrones… and I can’t even award Breaking Bad because I’ve only seen three episodes of this year’s season! But, c’mon, every TV critic must be missing out on something worthwhile… at least, those TV critics with social lives. (And I should know—I used to not have one to speak of!) Anyway, enough navel-gazing. Of the shows I’ve followed consistently, here are my favorites. American Horror Story The Good Wife (2010: #8) Modern Family (2010: #4) Justified (2010: #10) Dexter Parenthood Community (2010: #5) Parks and Recreation (2010: #7) Fringe (2010: #6) True...

2011 Primies: Best Moments

By on Jan 27, 2012 in The Primies |

We all watch television in eager anticipation of those watercooler moments—those moments so shocking, so emotional, so incredibly awesome that we have to a) rewind to watch them about twenty times and b) rehash them to death with all of our fellow watchers. And I honor my picks for those moments here, along with video clips of each moment from YouTube and Hulu (which will hopefully still work in six months). Bear in mind that I did not (and surely could not) see every worthwhile show on television in 2011, and I might be behind on the ones I do watch, so I will most certainly snub deserving moments. Also, I chose not to go Googling to remember these events; if they didn’t come immediately to mind, they must not be momentous enough to merit a place on this list. WARNING: MASSIVE SPOILERS AHEAD! You may just want to look at the show names in the parentheses before looking at the...