Television - Worst, Most Disappointing, and Guilty Pleasure Shows of 2011

I've never done this before, but I thought I'd make a personal list of the triumphs and tragedies I witnessed during my journey through television in 2011.  This is by no means comprehensive, and there are many great shows that I just didn't get to.  So take this with a grain of salt.  

This is part one of my two part series on what I thought of the 2011 television programs.  Tomorrow I'll discuss the shows I loved, but today ... I give you the other end of the spectrum.

Worst Television of 2011:

3.  Whitney - NBC

 

Whitney was one of two shows created by comedian Whitney Cummings that made it to network this fall, the other one will be discussed right below this.  It was pushed hard by NBC like a desperate pedophile pushing candy onto children.  Everywhere I looked there were commercials and ads.  They absolutely saturated the market, but like an easily influenced kid, I watched. 

It was bad.  But I saw a nugget of potential in it so I gave it five episodes to find its footing.  It never did.  The biggest problem is how antagonistic Whitney (playing her namesake) and her boyfriend Alex (Chris D'Elia) are towards each other.  Their cast of friends are no better, and somehow end up being more irritating than Whitney and Alex.  If this is how NBC is trying to reclaim the comedy glory it once had they're doing a terrible job.

2.  Two Broke Girls - CBS

 

Another show co-created by Whitney Cummings, that stars Kat Dennings as Max, a poor working class girl with a chip on her shoulder barely making ends meet, and Beth Behrs as Caroline, the daughter of a Madoff style ponzi schemer who loses everything when daddy is arrested and must work for the first time in her life. 

Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome to clicheville.  It's like a female version of The Odd Couple, but with vagina jokes, blatant racism, and horse shit humor.  You think I'm kidding but I'm not.  Caroline rescues her horse, which lives in their back yard and shits a lot.  That's one of the big jokes of the show.  Their dream is to open a cupcake shop together and pull themselves up by the boot straps.  After three episodes, I didn't care to find out what happened next.

The characters hate each other, they hate themselves, and the writers clearly hate the audience.

1.  The Paul Reiser Show - NBC

 

This was hands down the worst show I've seen in a really long time.  It only lasted two episodes before NBC yanked it off the air, and I may be one of the only people that actually watched them both.  It was created as a low rent Curb Your Enthusiasm for network television, but borrowed so bad from Curb, that it actually guest starred Larry David musing that he just played an asshole but Reiser was an asshole in real life.

The show is about Reiser being bored at home looking for the next thing to do with his life.  Reiser is no Larry David, and the show was a sad shitty copycat of Curb.  Having Larry on the show was a desperate reach for comedic cred that ended up looking pathetic.  Cringe worthy from beginning to end, here's hoping that Reiser (who wrote both episodes) stays retired and doesn't pollute the airways with his shitty vision anymore.  As a bonus it would be nice if whoever greenlit this show was fired.

Biggest Disappointments:

4.  Bored to Death - HBO

Jonathan Ames created an amazing show with Bored to Death when it first aired.  I loved everything about the first two seasons and had big hopes for season 3.  But something was off.  The show veered away from what had made it so fun and quirky.  The individual cases that were so entertaining and fun in the first two seasons were replaced by a season long arc dealing with Jonathan's (Jason Schwartzman) search for his real father.

It went over as well as a fart in a sauna, and was promptly cancelled by HBO.  It's too bad, because with better focus it was a fantastic show.  It just fell apart.

3.  The Killing - AMC

Here's a show that started off with so much potential but ended up being crushed under its own weight.  I was enthused by how great this show was when it started.  It was based on a Danish series, and its mood and atmosphere were intoxicating.  It focused on the death of a young girl, Rosie Palmer, and the mystery of who murdered her.  Every character was possibly the killer, but it was the detectives that made the show so good.

It became clear narratively around the middle of the season that the writers were making it up as they went along.  They took pages from the original show, lifted a lot from Twin Peaks, but never were never able to be original and creative with the great material they started out with.  The Showrunner, Veena Sud, said they had no idea how they were going to end the show when the pilot aired.  It showed.  After awhile no one cared who killed Rosie Palmer, and the shitty twist of the finale was a groaner.

It did get renewed for a second season, but they have a lot of work ahead of them to woo back viewers.

2.  True Blood - HBO

Oh True Blood, what the hell happened?  You'd always been mildly campy, but that was what made you fun.  The fourth season was so bad I stopped watching halfway through.  They introduced a coven of witches, a necromancer, Faeries, Eric's Amnesia, Sookie and Eric's relationship, and my complete and total not giving a shit.

This series has run its course and should be given a stake to the heart.  Sadly the ratings are too high, so they'll continue beating this dead horse for a long while.

1.  Dexter - Showtime

 

Here's another show that should be put to rest.  It was good for the first couple of seasons, but then it got way too repetitive.  Season six brought the Doomsday killer and a big twist everyone could see coming from a mile away.  It was obvious to the point of being stupid.  The other ridiculous thing it introduced, was Dexter's step sister falling in love with him.  There wasn't a single hint of it leading up to the moment her psychiatrist asked her if she had feelings for him then presto, like magic she figured out she loved him in an Appalachian kind of way.

I wasted 12 hours of my life on this show when I could have just watched the last two minutes and gotten as much out of the season.  Now that Deb witnesses Dexter kill someone where are they going to go next?  Kill Deb?  They'd have to, but they've ordered two more seasons, so who knows what boring and sloppy story telling they'll resort to.

Guilty Pleasure:

Finding Bigfoot - Animal Planet

 

This show is so bad it's good.   The characters are so unbelievably ridiculous, that I don't care if they find a Bigfoot or not.  They've introduced the word "squatchy" into my vocabulary, and watching them give Bigfoot calls in the middle of the night will delight anyone.

There's Matt Moneymaker, the leader of the group who thinks nearly everything they see or hear is a Bigfoot; Bobo ( I shit you not), a 6 foot 5' inch behemoth that they use to reenact every Bigfoot sighting; Cliff Barakman, an investigator and school teacher; and Ranae Holland, the skeptic.  Together they travel North America investigating Bigfoot sightings without finding much of anything but the strange fringe people who make up this nation we all live in.

Smash - NBC

Smash is a new series on NBC created by Theresa Rebeck (from an idea by executive producer Steven Spielberg) that revolves around an ensemble of people trying to put on a musical based on the life of Marilyn Monroe.  Of course it isn't so simple for everyone as just putting on the show (which isn't easy anyway), there are personal issues that may or may not derail the whole thing.  I watched the pilot episode of the new series last night with my wife. It premieres on NBC on February 6th.

(Spoiler Alert! Synopsis of show dynamics below.)

The show has an impressive cast.  Julia (Debra Messing, Will and Grace) is one half of a successful musical writing duo, who's promised her husband she'd take the year off while they try and adopt a baby.  Her partner  Tom (Christian Borle, Tony award nominated actor) is the other half of the duo that writes the music.  When Tom's assistant questions why no one has done a Marilyn Monroe musical, it sparks something in the two of them that can't be stopped.  They absolutely have to write it, which puts a strain on Julia's relationship.

Eileen (Anjelica Huston, take your pick of films) is the producer of the musical who's going through a messy divorce from her husband Jerry (Michael Cristofer, who was amazing in Rubicon) that threatens to derail the show.  Derek (Jack Davenport, Flashforward) is the brilliant but sleazy director that has a bad history with Tom, who fights for his pick of who should play Marilyn, while Tom fights for a different lead.

Karen (Kathrine McPhee, American Idol runner-up) is the girl next door, who's just trying to catch a break in the big city.  She has talent, but lacks experience.  She tries out for the Marilyn musical and gets a call back.  She's Derek's choice, while Ivy (Megan Hilty, the musical Wicked) has been hand picked by Tom.

I liked the pilot.  I think the show could have a lot of potential.  They wrote their own songs, which were composed by Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman, and are treating it like an actual musical, which is a really unique twist for television.  I'm not sure how the show will play out.  If the musical ends up being staged at the end of the season, where do you go from there?  I guess we'll just have to see.

One thing that's pretty clear, is the show will trump up the rivalry between Karen and Ivy, but I wonder how they can sustain the tension of it for a whole season.  I know Uma Thurman has a five episode arc in the show, and rumor has it she plays a big time actress who wants to be in the show.  If that's the case, I guess they can throw the rivalry between Karen and Ivy on its ear, and make them join forces to oppose the new girl.

The characters were well fleshed out and likable, even Ivy, who I believe was the shallowest of the bunch (just nosing out Julia's husband), but I think it was intentional so later they can reveal how layered she truly is.  There was nothing I found irritating about it at all, so I would recommend the show (based on the pilot) and will likely tune in for episode 2.

My First Etsy Sale

Last night my wife pointed out to me that I'd sold my first item on Etsy.  I'm still surprised.  My shop had been open a little over a month, and though it's had a steady amount of visitors and people hearting my items, it felt like that first sale would never come.

I have to take a moment and thank Heather (see her etsy shop here) for taking a chance on a seller that hadn't a single sale yet.  She bought one of the records I had up on my site (Kubrick's 2001 soundtrack), and it should be going in the mail today before I head off to work.

 

Since there is no way for me to frame and hang up that first dollar my business earned, I figured I would do it digitally.

Thanks to Heather, I now have the warm feeling of having a legitimate business started.

Check out my Etsy store here: This Charming Man Cave

Memorial

Memorial #1 - IDW publishing

I picked this up on a whim during a visit to my local comic book shop while looking for another title.  After I brought it home and gave it a read, I was glad I had taken a chance on it.

Memorial is a new series from IDW that's written by Chris Roberson, with art by Rich Ellis.  It's a nice companion to IDW's other amazing series Locke and Key, and supposedly will follow the same format of a series of mini-series all strung together one after the next.

I don't want to spoil the entire issue for anyone, so I'll give a brief description of how the story begins:

We're introduced to the main character, a girl we come to know as Em, in an emergency room.  For some reason, she's lost all memory of who she is and what's happened to her.  The name Em is given to her by the people at the hospital, since the only thing on her, is a necklace and a charm with an engraved M on it. A year later she still has no memory of her former life.  She's gotten a job, a life, and one day when walking through the city, passes an alley with a store at the end that she was sure wasn't there before.  Once she enters the shop, her life is never the same again.

Creator Chris Roberson describes Memorial as Doctor Who meets Sandman by way of Miyazaki.  The world he's created in just the first issue, is so rich and interesting, that I'm definitely be along for the long haul.  Memorial now joins my short list of must read comics.

Check out the Memorial website here http://www.idwpublishing.com/memorial/

Artist Rich Ellis also has a website here http://www.elliscomics.com/wordpress/

Thrift Store Pickings

It's been a busy holiday season and I haven't finished any reviews.

Since my last post about my new etsy store This Charming Man Cave, I've been making the rounds of the local thrift shops looking for things to put in my store.  Here's a picture of some of my most recent finds:

The first thing I found was a Budweiser vest jacket from the 80's and the two Vogue Picture Records that were released sometime between May of 1946 and April of 1947.  I had no idea what the records were worth, but they were 49 cents a piece, which turned out to be a hell of a deal.  They look amazing, and both play fantastically well.

My favorite of the two records is labeled Vogue Picture Record R731 and features Marion Mann singing Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea on one side and You Took Advantage of Me on the other.  Here's a closer look at the fantastic artwork:

The other prize of the day, was a Minnesota Northstars Starter jacket.  I haven't seen one in this style before, but I found the same jacket selling on ebay for over $200!

Not a bad outing.  I even got myself a little gift that left my wife's eyes rolling - The Lord of the Rings Trivial Pursuit edition.  Only $3.99.

Now I just need to get some of these items listed.

This Charming Man Cave

I've been inspired by my wife and her success on etsy to start my own store.  Partly from a gentle nudge by her, partly because I thought it would make a good companion to my half.com site.  I'd talked about starting an etsy site, and with her encouragement I did.  I've already gone to garage sales and thrift stores with her, and have an eye for things that are a little different than what she sells at her store.  When we were talking last week, she came up with the catchy name of my store, This Charming Man Cave.

The motto of my store is, Strong enough for a woman, but made for a man.  I'll be focusing on vintage things guys would like, but that doesn't mean women wouldn't like them either.  Right now I just have a couple of things listed for sale, but soon I will be adding a bunch of records, shoes, clothes, and several curios.

Here is the first thing I listed.  A 1940's Rita Hayworth film studio head shot:

Come on over and check out my site This Charming Man Cave

While you're at it check out Regan's site Regan's Brain

NaNoWriMo Winner!

 I finally did it, and with an hour to spare.  The third time was definitely the charm, and things were looking a little iffy for awhile.  I was about 5,800 words down going into the final day, but somehow rallied late and finished faster than I thought I would.

Now what?  To be honest, though I finished NaNoWriMo, my novel is only 2/3rd's of the way to its own goal line.  I figure if I crank out about 1,000 words a day, I should be able to hang up the first draft of this novel before Christmas.  What a gift that would be to myself.  I know that a first draft is a lumpy and awkward pile of shit that needs to be dug through to find the gold hidden inside.  It will take numerous rewrites, extra drafts, and a lot of cutting and stitching to get this thing to a place where it would be readable to other eyes than my own.

Regardless of all that is in front of me in this novel, I was pretty damn excited to have gotten across that finish line.  Some celebration was in order.  I rewarded myself with a bottle of Crispin Stagger Lee rye whiskey cask aged cider, a slice of lemon poppy seed cake, and hunkering down on the couch with my wife and watching my new favorite show, American Horror Story.

I will let you know how things go, but in the meantime, I found a great blog post by Chuck Wendig that enlightened me as to where I go after a first draft here.