Tagged with kates television musings …

Nov 09 2012
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Entertainment

Kate’s Television Musings: When bad casting happens to good shows

By Kate Emswiler

Sometimes bad things happen to good people.  And sometimes bad casting happens to good shows.  For this sophomore season of “Revenge”, Jennifer Jason Leigh was introduced as Emily’s mother.  When I first learned of this, I was stoked.  Good idea! I thought.  A good actress that I could imagine being related to Emily Van Camp.  This will be awesome!

Silly, silly me.  The idea might’ve been great, but the reality is so profoundly disappointing, it’s liable to dampen my love for this dark and twisty thriller series.  In the past, I’ve loved JJL’s performances; she dominated as the sad-eyed, mumble-mouthed girl suspended in adolescence, unsure how to progress into womanhood.  The problem is, now she’s a mature woman and she still hasn’t climbed out of her teenage years.  Yes, her character as Emily’s mother is supposed to be unhinged and somewhat immature, but we can’t trust a character who seems to have no moments of real lucidity.  It’s boring for one thing, and weirdly embarrassing for another – like watching an older woman dress like a 15-year-old.  Perhaps it’s just not the right vehicle for her, but her performance on “Revenge” is one-note.  And that note is: Lame.

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Oct 26 2012
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Entertainment

Kate’s Television Musings: “American Horror Story” Is More Horror Than Story

By Kate Emswiler

Halloween is upon us, spooky readers, and with it the season of scary programming. Something about this time of year turns our thoughts to the macabre and we naturally seek out movies and TV shows that will satiate the desire to be scared silly.  Not being a huge fan of the horror genre myself, I like to see these things in small doses and mainly during this one season.  During the rest of the year, I just don’t feel the need to be routinely horrified by TV shows — “Jersey Shore” notwithstanding.

That’s why I find “American Horror Story” peculiar.  Surely there are some people who love horror so much that they want to see scary, awful things on a weekly basis.  But it seems exhausting to have an entire TV series that’s basically one long horror movie.  And unless I’m watching it during the month of October, it just feels like a tiresome series of sickening episodes.

“American Horror Story” comes to us from Ryan Murphy, the creator of “Nip/Tuck” and “Glee”, and it has gruesome elements of “Nip/Tuck” along with “Glee”’s signature “hot mess” quality of schizophrenic storylines leading viewers down paths to nowhere.  But “American Horror Story” also has a laziness to it that seems to be a direct result of being a TV show in the horror genre.  This is to say, if some plot development seems to be too odd or not working well, they can just chalk it up to the fact that the character is hallucinating, or seeing ghosts, or is in an insane asylum so nobody can tell what’s real and what’s imaginary/drug induced.  No need to explain anything, ever.

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Oct 19 2012
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Entertainment

Kate’s Television Musings: Do you watch web series?

By Kate Emswiler

In this social media-saturated era, election years are more exciting than ever.  Watching the debates, following blogs, firing off opinionated tweets and Facebook statuses — it’s all part of what has become a media frenzy surrounding the country’s political goings-on.  It’s often highly entertaining, though sometimes it resembles a circus.

For me, the upcoming election has also sparked a greater interest in politically themed TV series.  This includes soapy, unrealistic series such as ABC’s “Scandal”.  I love getting a salacious behind-the-scenes peek into the underpinnings of our political epicenter (outrageously exaggerated as they may be).  Thus, I’m finally checking out the original Hulu series “Battleground”, all about a group of campaign workers in the battleground state of Wisconsin.

I’d wanted to watch “Battleground” for a long time, but frankly I’d been dragging my feet because it’s a web series, only streaming on Hulu.  It’s silly, I know, especially since the series boasts a great cast (Jay Hayden, Ray Wise) and producer Marc Webb is the director of “(500) Days of Summer”, among other things.  So what was my big hang-up?  For one thing, I feel like there are always other series that I’ve been meaning to watch in their entirety (like “Breaking Bad”) or other series that I need to catch up on (like “Weeds”).   Web series that I know very little about are so far down on the priority list, and in very tiny font.

But in this day and age, web series can be just as well done, compelling and star-studded as some TV shows.

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Sep 28 2012
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Entertainment

Kate’s Television Musings: “The Mindy Project” not just another “Neurotic Single Gal” show

By Kate Emswiler

Mindy Kaling is everywhere right now, discussing her new sitcom, “The Mindy Project” which she created, wrote, stars in and co-executive produces.  Back when we’d only heard about the show in dribs and drabs and then finally got a preview video, I thought the show looked funny and well-crafted, with some notes of cutesy silliness that appeal to my personal comedic sensibilities.  But I was curious to see what the initial response would be from others.  I scanned Twitter and Facebook, and found the reaction to be generally positive, though one comment on a friend’s Facebook post gave me pause:  “Looks alright but do we really need yet another show about a neurotic single gal and her wacky adventures?”

The thought hadn’t occurred to me, but ever since I read that comment, I have been wondering how “Mindy” might fit into the TV landscape.  It’s true that if a show has a female protagonist (and a sole protagonist — not sharing the lead spots with other characters on the show), it’s most likely that the character is single, neurotic and constantly struggles to “have it all” with a supercool career but a kooky, messed up love life.  Have the Liz Lemons, Ally McBeals and Carrie Bradshaws of the TV world wrung out all the modern single gal stories?

No way, I say.

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Sep 21 2012
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Entertainment

Kate’s Television Musings: What Makes a Good Pilot Episode?

By Kate Emswiler

Earlier this week, I read an article in which Washington Post TV critic Hank Stuever examines what goes into a successful pilot episode — and why so many fail.  Mostly, he believes, it comes down to confidence … and not revealing all the fears and insecurities behind a show’s first wobbly steps.  So, I decided to take a look at one of this season’s newbies, “The Mob Doctor” (which has so far elicited a watery response) and juxtapose it with the pilot episode of “Grey’s Anatomy”, which I re-watched right after “Mob Doctor”.  The differences are stark, though obviously the shows are also not entirely similar. “Mob Doctor” is a crime drama, but it’s much higher on drama than it is on crime. ”Grey’s” is allowed to thread more humor throughout.  Most significantly: “Mob Doctor” follows one main protagonist, with the supporting roles silhouetted on the periphery, while “Grey’s” features a strong and varied ensemble cast.  “Grey’s” benefits from a kick-ass soundtrack, too, something that started in the pilot and has continued throughout the series.

I didn’t dislike “Mob Doctor” entirely, though it’s thinly drawn and it’s tough to care much about our protagonist, played by Jordana Spiro—she of the Chicago-based shows and Pantene-commercial hair.  Spiro plays Dr. Grace Devlin, a surgeon who got mixed up with the wrong folks and now owes a great debt to some shady Chicago mobsters.  Grace spends the whole first episode rushing around, wearing a worried expression while her gently bouncing hair adds a softness to the otherwise “gritty” situation.  She has a lot on her plate in this first episode and it ends up being exhausting, exasperating and yields little reward.

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Sep 07 2012
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Entertainment

Kate’s Television Musings: Happy (TV) New Year!

By Kate Emswiler

Happy new (TV) year!  Finally, the fall TV season is upon us and I cannot wait to roll around in this pile of new shows and briskly clear out my DVR in preparation for the harvest of new series.  Early fall always feels like a time for new beginnings, fresh starts, clean slates, etc.  So, like so many people do at the beginning of January, I’ve decided to make my own list of “new year” resolutions – TV-related, of course. 

Some of the most frequently declared New Year’s resolutions include:

  • Lose weight.
  • Manage stress.
  • Get a better education.
  • Be healthier/drink less alcohol.

And as it is in life, so it shall be with that box in the living room.  Thus, for the start of this 2012-2013 TV “year,” I am committing myself to the following resolutions:

Lose weight.  Every year I start new relationships with shows and inevitably, some of those relationships just don’t work out (it’s usually them, rarely me).  And yet, for some reason, I often can’t sever ties by deleting the recordings, holding on to some vestige of the hopefulness I felt at the beginning of the series – that we might work out, that we might spend many happy hours in the dark together right up to a bittersweet series finale someday.  But I should face reality:  If left unwatched, episodes just pile up on the DVR, weighing it down with unnecessary baggage and reminders of what didn’t work out.  Lose the weight!

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Aug 31 2012
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Entertainment

Kate’s Television Musings: On “Ben and Kate” and why TV’s newest Kate is not very Kate-like

By Kate Emswiler

This fall, Fox has a few interesting new offerings, like Mindy Kaling’s series “The Mindy Project”.  The half-hour comedy “Ben and Kate”, however, is not one of these interesting offerings.  Which is a shame for folks on Kate-book, of course, because one of the two titular characters is a Kate.

Having watched the “Ben and Kate” pilot, I am sad to report that this “Kate” couldn’t be further from a real Kate.  More often than not (and yes, I pay close attention to this), Kate characters represent Kates well.  They are clever, charming, elegant and classy. They’re usually no-nonsense Type A personalities with cutting sarcastic streaks.  Almost always, they’re dark-haired, though this certainly isn’t a requirement, just a pattern.  My theory is that Shakespeare set this all up with “Taming of the Shrew”, in which Kate is (for most of the play) smart, no-nonsense, sarcastic and tough (a “ball-buster”, if you will).

The so-called Kate of “Ben and Kate” is a far cry from Shakespeare’s witty Katherine. For a TV character, she actually has precious few defining characteristics. She’s a bland blonde with little identifiable spark or passion.

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Aug 24 2012
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Entertainment

Kate’s Television Musings: The Complexities of Relationships . . . with TV Shows

Kate's Television Musings: The Office

By Kate Emswiler

The end of a beloved TV series can be deeply disappointing or sometimes bittersweet, and I responded accordingly to the news that some of my favorite shows like “30 Rock” would be ending after this upcoming season.  However, I had a strangely relieved reaction to the news this week that Dunder-Mifflin will finally be shuttered after this upcoming ninth season of “The Office”.  After all, it’s easy to understand why the show is ending.  I no longer consider “The Office” to be a great show, or even a very good show, as over recent years it seems the characters have devolved into caricatures, storylines have weakened and the actual office itself just feels sad and boring.

Some of the seasons have been better than others, and season eight over 2011-2012 was especially uneven and bizarre.  The show went on a plummeting nosedive with occasional bouts of outrageous, triumphant hilarity from some of the weird newcomers like James Spader and, of course, fellow “Kate” Catherine Tate.  And yet, every single week, I put myself through the grinding task of watching “The Office” — even making a point of watching it before I watched drastically higher quality shows like “Community” and “Parks and Recreation”.

Indeed, there are plenty of other shows that I like and, frankly, respect more than “The Office”, but I don’t watch those shows nearly so regularly.  Why?  I don’t know.  I can’t explain it besides that there’s something comforting and familiar about “The Office” and checking in with it each week (or watching a whole slew of episodes in a row on a lazy day off) feels like visiting my old neighborhood or checking in on a relative whom I might not like very much, but whose company feels homey.

Or in other words, I love “The Office”, but I don’t really like “The Office”.

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Aug 17 2012
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Entertainment

Kate’s Television Musings: ABC Family’s family values give me hope for the future

By Kate Emswiler

As it is used today, the phrase “traditional family values” is baffling, and grows ever stranger the more it is trumpeted as part of a political agenda. Imagine saying this phrase to someone who knows the English language but not much about America — he/she might presume that “traditional family values” would be things like love and acceptance, inclusion and respect. But bizarrely enough, this phrase is now associated with anti-gay sentiment and fried poultry. It’s bewildering to say the least, and a disgrace to be more accurate.

And yet, at least within the TV world, there’s one network that manages to have “family programming” that also happens to feature positive, well-rounded gay characters. Turns out, ABC Family is one of the most gay-friendly networks around, a fact that has not gone unnoticed by GLAAD, apparently, as the network has repeatedly been honored for its inclusion and depiction of gay characters on shows like “Greek” and “Pretty Little Liars”.

“Greek”, a startlingly clever show for being about a bunch of kids in sororities and fraternities (the one quote on my Facebook page for a long time was from “Greek” — Rusty: “It’s like we’re a boy band and I’m the fat one.” Casey: “It’s pronounced ‘Fatone.’”), featured one of my favorite gay characters ever: Calvin Owens, a black, gay member of the Omega Chi Delta fraternity. He was good-natured, comfortable in his own skin, a fan of sports and other typical guy stuff. He didn’t have an angst-ridden past or heart-wrenching coming-out story; his parents were understanding and accepting of their homosexual son. Calvin’s bigger issue with his parents had to do with the fact that he was a “legacy” in the frat and strove to live up to his father’s aspirations for him at Omega Chi.

In other words, Calvin was a typical college kid . . . who happened to be gay.

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Aug 03 2012
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Entertainment

Kate’s Television Musings: My Ideas for Reality Shows Starring Olympians

By Kate Emswiler

Watching the Olympics makes me tense all over.  I hold my breath and fear that the gymnasts doing aerials on the balance beam will fall on their heads, I wring my hands as divers slice downward through the air at incredible speeds, I suddenly care tremendously about badminton.  Badminton, I tell you!  But everyone knows that while the actual events are breathtaking and emotional, there’s even more intense drama behind the scenes.  Pressure from coaches and parents, cruel remarks from teammates, photos of bong usage – it can be hard out there for an Olympic athlete.  It’s obviously stressful for them – which only means it would make for juicy, terrible, voyeuristic reality TV for us.

So who should get their own reality shows?  These competitors would be my top picks:

Michael Phelps.  Well, duh, I know.  And I also know that he has said he won’t compete in the Olympics again, but there’s so much real-life hullaballoo swirling around Phelps (and some of the other American swimmers, too) that I think it would still make for compelling TV.  Prior to these Olympics, when I thought of Phelps, I thought of the bong photo and I recalled a bunch of articles from a while ago that chronicled the massive amounts of food he eats every day.  (He needs so many calories because of the swimming, you see.  Also, munchies.)  But this year has brought more excitement, what with Phelps being dissed by his teammate Tyler Clary and then going on to make Olympics history with his nineteenth medal.  He’s talked about retiring from the sport, but I still think it would be intriguing to watch him maybe mentor an Olympic hopeful, someone young and impressionable.  What would that experience be like for a young, spunky upstart?  I wish TLC would make it happen.

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Jul 27 2012
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Entertainment

Kate’s Television Musings: Two comedic Kates who should get more love

By Kate Emswiler

The Emmy nominations came out last week, and although I’m glad to see certain folks nominated in the comedy category (Amy Poehler, Lena Dunham, Julia Louis-Dreyfus), I couldn’t help but notice that there’s a significant lack of Kates on that list.  Specifically, there are two “Kates” (though neither one is technically named Kate) who definitely deserve more recognition for their comedic talents:  Kathryn Hahn (above left) and Kaitlin Olson (above right).

1. Kathryn Hahn

I am always weary of the qualification “female comedian”. Because Hahn is easily more comedically gifted than many male comedians — or, as they’re usually called, just “comedians”. (Slate’s culture blog BrowBeat already brow beat me to the punch on this one, and eloquently so.) After Hahn was the only thing I remembered about the otherwise lackluster comedies “How Do You Know” and “Our Idiot Brother”, I started to take notice of Hahn in all of her many supporting roles — on both the big and small screens.  On “Parks and Recreation”, a show that is positively lousy with funny people, Hahn managed to steal the spotlight as Jennifer — the shrewd, smarmy political strategist to Amy Poehler’s rival in the race for city council.

She’s also had a recurring role on “Girls” — as a character named Katherine, no less! — and most recently as a one-time paramour for Jeff Daniels’ character on Aaron Sorkin’s “Newsroom”.

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Jul 20 2012
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Entertainment, Gossip

Kate’s Television Musings: If only Marge Simpson had talked to Joey Potter in 1998

By Kate Emswiler

“These movies aren’t real. It’s ‘take 22′, the girl’s bored and the guy’s gay.  It’s celluloid propaganda.”

—Joey Potter (aka Katie Holmes) of “Dawson’s Creek” episode 3, season 1 (original air date: February 3, 1998)

Marge:   “I can’t go along with this, Homer.”
Homer:   “Marge, when I join an underground cult, I expect a little support from my family.”

—”The Simpsons” episode 13, season 9 (original air date:  February 8, 1998)

I recently saw that Netflix was streaming “Dawson’s Creek”, and for a tender and ridiculous trip down nostalgia boulevard, I highly recommend re-watching the first season in all its awkward, poorly lit, boom-mike-in-the-shot glory.  Though as a warning, it’s so terrifically ’90s, your face might get stuck twisted in perma-cringe.

I’d remembered Katie Holmes‘s character, Joey, being glib and glum, but I’d forgotten how sassy and snappish she was.  In the third episode of the first season, “Kiss”, she berates Dawson for believing in “movie magic,” insisting that real romance is not the way Hollywood depicts it.  Dawson calls her bitter and cynical and insists that when she actually falls in love with someone, she’ll believe in the “magic” too.

Smart-mouthed Joey just rolls her eyes and says, “You used to be bitter and cynical, too.  You were far more interesting.”

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