What Did I Watch Today: Quick Thoughts on the Difference Between Averageness and Mediocrity

This is not a formal review, but quick thoughts immediately upon watching.

The Office s08e01 ("The List") – okay-good


Hulu! Wuhu!

The episode started out with me thinking it would be quite a disappointment — the "planking" tag (The Office has never been so good at being au courant (remember all the viral video dances?) (and except for a few 4Chan people, no one actually does this!)); but then proceeded to become, even without Michael Scott, the sort of epitome of an Office episode: the office becomes divided (this time literally) over some non-issue (once again: literally a conflict about nothing, just semantics as to who is in an arbitrary column, later revealed to be the useless designations "winners" and "losers"), and then harmony is regained after some sort of speech in the conference room; this was a nice, comfortable first episode after all the tumultuous changes at the end of last season; felt very The Office, when the show hasn't felt like itself in a while.
-I do like Stanley's "new thing" (though Alan Sepinwall's right that it's out of character)
-"I can always unframe."
-Myles McNutt's review of this episode is as analytically brilliant as ever


Whitney pilot – ugh


She's so tall!! These characters are so bland that I actually got ginger and black-hair confused, and then was unsure as to why in the next scene Whitney was wearing a wig.

How did this get picked up?? I don't even know what the premise is... "like all those shows about middle-aged married couples who hate each other... except this time they're a young, unmarried couple who hates each other!"; these are just the worst people, whose dialogue consists of bad jokes ("If the cave men had been monogamous, there'd be like six people.") and telling each other what other is doing ("You date that photographer girl who's really loud." "You can't wear pants to a wedding."); this episode is the most overused, trite plot (they haven't had sex in a while and so start to be afraid they'll get divorced... except they can't get divorced cos they aren't married!! so hip!!) that I can see this show being on for seasons and seasons, because everyone just assumes it already has been on forever; terrible fake-looking, restrictive sets; the lowest possible form of boring mediocrity, with a few jokes that would have been "edgy" maybe ten years ago, but still told in the corniest possible way ("What're you closing with, blackface?"); I would say I wish I could unsee this, but it's so mediocre that it's pretty much already been forgotten.
-weird that the laughtrack started after the opening montage
-what twenty-something couple has a landline?
-only someone very drunk would think of and think it's amusing to have a "hammer in the underwear drawer" gag
-I didn't post a video so as not to encourage anyone to self-harm by watching

What Did I Watch Today: Quick Thoughts on Baby Makin'

This is not a formal review, but quick thoughts immediately upon watching.

Up All Night pilot – good


It's on hulu right now... go for it.

I have never had a baby and do not remember much from my own infancy, so thus all of my experience with this kind of parenting comes from film and television — in this regard, Up All Night's premise is not exactly "fresh" (first time parents who yearn for their former craziness but also love their baby and would feel way too guilty if they still acted that way; also a working mom and a stay-at-home dad (which is not new either, and which I've seen a lot of lately on Parenthood)), but it's funny – there were times when I felt throwaway lines could have been a lot quippier (I didn't have to do any rewinding a la 30 Rock's joke-a-second pace (and Lorne Michaels exec produces UAN as well)), but there were enough really funny sequences to keep me watching (like Will Arnett's character not being able to find the cheese at the grocery store (why is there not more grocery store humor??), or the little snippet of deep conversation we hear him having with his new online gaming pal before Christina Applegate comes home, or the "brought to you by Nordic track"); Maya Rudolph's crazy diva boss character Ava, sort of the Jenna/Tracy of 30 Rock, I could see either being a consistently funny presence, or bringing scenes down, as my favourite bits were definitely little jokes with a more realistic bent ("I ate a personal pizza... from the freezer... I ate an entire twelve-inch pizza."; "At least you don't have to work." "Yeah, cos raising a human's not work at all."); a lot of Up All Night was funnier than it could have been due the actors having such a comedic presence (the drunken karaoke, particularly, could have been interminable, but was actually very amusing), and the pilot's conclusion masterfully avoided sappiness (by having Christina Applegate fill their "family" time with a prediction of her daughter's life after her father will inevitably die), but I don't really see much possibly story beyond episode-to-episode sitcom plots (about raising baby Amy, and taking care of diva Ava) — this could be really funny, once again, like 30 Rock, but if it doesn't work (or relies too much just on having funny actors and not such funny material — like the old lady in the grocery store, that really shouldn't have worked, except for Will Arnett, or the television talking to Christina Applegate,) or becomes too cartoonish and loses that realistic grounding, there's nothing except the actors to put it above a lot of shows on television right now

MTV's Awkward pilot: I don't buy it, but I'll watch it

The premise for MTV's Awkward is thus: basically, Jenna Hamilton (Ashley Rickards)—self-professed "invisible girl"—has one bad day. She takes some Aspirin for a headache, and while choking on a pill, Rube Goldberg's the bathroom into an accidental suicide scene. As she had just received an anonymous poison-pen letter, and herself written an angst-riddled blog post, no one believes that the event was unintentional. Oh yeah, she also just lost her Big V at summer camp, to a guy who totally blew her off.

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Awkward., MTV Shows

MTV wants you to watch the Awkward pilot.

This is high-concept, but the accidental suicide is believably done (and funny), and the remainder of the pilot is surprisingly low key, chronicling Jenna's first day of sophomore year and her sudden push into the high school spotlight. Jenna was previously "unpopular" in the vein of Emma Stone in Easy A, also a self-labeled "invisible" girl who accidentally starts a scandalous lie about herself. Both of these roles are played by gorgeous actresses, so that self-evaluation is a bit beyond belief, and the characters are given romantic interests and close friends, so as to appeal to a wider demographic than a genuine high school outcast would. However, though Jenna is perhaps not a protagonist truly deserving the show's title, the Awkward pilot has some nice, realistic high school details—Jenna's very unglamorous Target outfit (though disappointingly giant bedroom and rich house); oddly real-looking extras (and a "full-figured" cheerleader character); a crush who has gross teenage boy habits (but that Jenna justifies to herself as part of his charm); even Jenna's all-American name choice. Stylistically, Awkward is closely reminiscent of Mean Girls, with cutaways to student talking heads and Jenna supplying voiceover narration. The show provides itself with a potential overarching story in the malicious letter Jenna receives—cleverly, its entire contents are not revealed to the viewer, and by this episode's end, Jenna is able to cross off one of the "faults" with which it maligns her. However, one of the other framing devices likely to be used in future episodes—Jenna's blog—is a bit too sappy and Doogie Howser-esque, and will hopefully be phased out, as its structural duties are already fulfilled by the straight narration.

Though Jenna is not the completely "awkward" protagonist she could be, if an MTV high school show is going to rip off any films about so-called loser girls, Mean Girls and Easy A are pretty respectable choices. And at least it's preferable for a teenager to choose to watch something decently-funny and -constructed like Awkward than most of the television aimed at that demographic.