Mad Men - "Waterloo"

Oh, Bert Cooper. What a man.

Due to AMC's amazingly irritating scheduling choices, I've sort of forgotten that this is the final season of Mad Men. Sure, there's been some sense of finality, but it didn't come into full force into this weeks' mid-season finale, which made it clear that we're finally coming to the end of our journey through the lives of the workers of Sterling Cooper (Draper/Pryce/& Partners). Mad Men is a show that has always done such a great job of acknowledging and interacting with its past, so it's not surprise that so much of "Waterloo" (and, really, this season as a whole) has felt like both a celebration of what came before it and a declaration that things are about to change. "I thought things were finally getting back to normal", Peggy says about halfway through this episode. And, really, they were. Don's back at the office, seemingly working his way back to some sort of respect. His relationship with Peggy has mended, and his relationship with Megan was...still there. and business seems to be returning to its usual course of action. And then, Bert Cooper dies and then comes back to life in a full musical number. That's Mad Men for you.

Let's back up a little, of course. Bert Cooper's death is perhaps the biggest indicator that the story of these characters is about to reach its endgame. Long the bedrock of the origins of the company and the old game of advertising, Cooper represented someone each of the agency members could aspire to be. He was basically a statue at this point, sure - never technically contributing much to the company but always there to be either a model or a warning sign for the future, depending on how you look at it. Cooper and Don's relationship is one of particular interest - he was extremely high on Don in the early seasons, even choosing to overlook the sketchy details of his past back in Season 1's "Nixon vs. Kennedy". But as the years went on, Cooper seemed to grow increasingly frustrated with him, irritated at the way he did everything in his power to subvert and overthrow the rules of the game. So what does it mean that, following his death, Don hallucinates Cooper putting on an elaborate song and dance to "The Best Things in Life Are Free?". Perhaps part of it is Matt Weiner's middle finger to the entire concept of  a "mid-season finale", but more than anything, it seems to be a warning sign. Cooper was a symbol of what Don aspired to be - a successful man at the top of an advertising agency, leaving behind a legacy of fortune and goodwill. And yet, here he is, after death, serenading Don about how the best things in life are free and not to sign your life away - right after Don signed a five-year contract with an agency that a few days earlier was trying to get him fired. Don has been heading down a path of loneliness. But maybe it's not too late to turn that path around. Maybe it's not too late for any of these people to turn that path down. Sure, this merger is going to give them a lot of money. Sure, Peggy's brilliant pitch to BurgerChef (which, by the way, I don't think I've ever been as proud of a character as I was for Peggy in that moment) will likely earn her a lot of credibility and respect that she's been vying for since the day she started at Sterling Cooper. But at their core, so many of these people are still undeniably disappointed. Joan is understandably thrilled at the prospect of giving her son a great life despite the lack of a father figure in his life - and yet, she can't help but feel disappointed at the way she's failing to live up to the expectations she set for herself. Peggy can't help but see the ghost of what could've been in her neighbor Julio, a boy who looks up to her as the mother she could've been nine years ago. (Thank God she didn't, though, because then we wouldn't have gotten that BurgerChef moment). Don may still have his charm and his skills, but he's now failed at two marriages and his relationship with his kids is certainly not what he'd like it to be (even as Sally seems to be increasingly looking up to him again, rejecting the hot jocks' cynicism and going for his idealistic brother with a telescope). These people are a long way from happiness, despite all of the money and good fortune that might be coming their way. But they can still achieve happiness. They just have to listen to Bert Cooper. The moon belongs to everyone, and the best things in life are free.

Pilot Lookback: "30 Rock"

Something I like to do every so often is look back on the pilot of a show I love to see just how it all began. Today, I am doing it with 30 Rock, because I'm rewatching the first season for the first time in a while and had some new thoughts on the pilot. So, yes, I created a whole new category for it that I might never use again. Deal with it!

30 Rock pilot

Originally aired: October 11, 2006

The 30 Rock pilot is not one of the shows' more beloved moments - in fact, Tina Fey herself commonly trashes it, referring to it in her book as "sweaty" and saying that her writers have asked her to stop talking about how terrible it is. And yet, the 30 Rock pilot was pretty well-received when it aired - the show became a critical darling fairly quickly, even if audiences were slow to catch on (and never even fully caught on). I remember always having a pretty "meh" reaction to the pilot, but I started watching the show a few episodes into the first season after hearing how good it was, so I didn't get the experience of having it be my first introduction to 30 Rock. This time, I tried to imagine what I would think of the episode if I had never seen the show before, rather than unfairly holding it up to what would come after it. And the truth is, the pilot is a pretty strong introduction to a television comedy series, even if that television comedy series isn't the one that 30 Rock would later become.

The biggest different in the pilot episode from what came after it, other than the fact that it's pretty grounded and seems to take place in a reality similar to the one we live in, is how important it makes the fictional Girlie Show out to be. Indeed, that show takes center stage in this episode, and the entire tension of the episode is mounted in Liz trying to retain at the creative helm even as Jack is about to turn it into a corporate entity. The pilot suggests that 30 Rock is going to be a show about striking a balance between creativity and cold-hearted business, and while the show did more or less stick with that point of view, it did so in a way that became less about TGS and more about the characters' personal lives. It's almost comical to see Liz and Jenna caring so deeply about the show here and it's hard to imagine that happening not only in later seasons, but even halfway through the first season. I don't think this was inherently intentional - simply, I think the TGS portion of the show just wasn't as fruitful for stories as the writers expected it to be and they found the characters' lives outside of the show to be far more interesting to dissect - but it almost dawned on me that maybe this is because Liz, ultimately, failed in her desire to keep TGS something she could put her stamp on. 30 Rock's worldview has always been something along the lines of "people like Jack Donaghy are ruining the world because people like Liz Lemon are too much of a mess to step up and take it from them". This thought process was particularly poignant when the show premiered smack-dab in the middle of the second Bush administration, and although the show would eventually sympathize with the Jack Donaghy point of view (particularly once Obama took office and the political discourse shifted to the other direction) it always retained that sort of world-beat vibe, the vibe of someone who was tired of sticking it to the man and just wanted to sit and be bitter for a while.

And yet, the 30 Rock pilot still had a pretty firm grasp on its characters - particularly Liz, Jack, and Tracy. Liz's introduction (as well as the introduction to the show itself) is completely perfect in the way it both highlights her character as well as the sort of exhausted crusader vibe of the show itself. And there are few character introductions more perfect than Jack Donaghy kicking down a door and saying "Lou's dead. I'm Jack Donaghy". Tracy still feels a bit less crazy than the show eventually made him, and the Jenna here is obviously a relic of what Rachel Dratch's Jenna would've been, but this is a show that seems to know what it wants to be, even if it wound bend that slightly and become something even better.

Mad Men - "The Strategy"

One of the things that is surprising me about this final season of Mad Men is how optimistic it's turning out to be. Sure, there's still plenty of deep, existential sadness lurking at the core, but after the endless string of misery that was Season 6 and the pitch black final season of Breaking Bad - not to mention the foreboding "Time Zones" that kicked off this season - I had assumed we would be in for a season that followed all of the characters into their darkest hours. Instead, we've gotten a season that is certainly pretty dark on the whole but has powerful moments of hope scattered through-out the rubble. In "A Days' Work", we saw Don reconciling with Sally, something that seemed unheard of at the end of last season. And now we have something that seemed less likely - Don and Peggy mending their long troubled relationship.

Don and Peggy are interesting because, while they're probably the most important and arguably the most beloved relationship on the entire show, the amount of times we actually get Don and Peggy material is kind of slim. The two have a relationship that's as competitive as it is loving, filled with equal parts respect and bitterness. Sometimes, it's hard to imagine either Don or Peggy being what they are without the other, but then other times, it becomes frustrating just how much they hold each other back. (In particular, the way Don has continiously boxed Peggy into places to better fit his needs has gotten maddening). And yet, underneath all of the shit they do to each other, there's something so honest about them at their core that's unmatched by pretty much every other relationship on the show. It's impossible to mention Don and Peggy without talking about Season 4's "The Suitcase" (easily my favorite Mad Men episode and one of my favorite television episodes of all-time). That episode saw three seasons worth of walls between the characters crash down instantly, which is significant for a show whose characters are constantly shielding themselves from the outside world. They forgot all of the bullshit and just let it all out, getting down to the core of not only who they are, but who they're capable of being, if only they were allowed to. That episode looked like it a game changer, and in some ways it was, but increasingly it began to look like an example of who these people could be rather than who they were. Both Don and Peggy receded back into their protective walls after that episode, but the idea of it has lingered over both of them ever since. And now, three seasons later, Don and Peggy finally seem to be learning their lessons. Once again, we have the two characters beginning a day at odds with each other and ending it in a place where they're more open then they've been with anyone in quite some time. "My Way" blares over the two's (completely fucking platonic, thank you) slow dance, and the meaning is both literal - Don's letting Peggy do the presentation her way - and a bit more abstract. In that moment, both Don and Peggy let go of their guards, let go of what people expect of them, let go of what people think they should be and they just are. That results in both the likely winning idea for BurgerBoss and a seemingly deeper connection between Don and Peggy.

I keep coming back to the use of "My Way", because this episode is full of characters who have yet to follow the lyrics of that song, instead choosing to follow what others think their way is supposed to be. We have Bob Benson, who appears for the first time this season with a motherload of information. SC&P is losing Chevy, but he's going to Buick's advertising brand, meaning that he's expected to become what a "real man" was expected to be in 1969 - something it's quite clear he's not. He proposes to Joan completely out of nowhere, insinuating that both of them are in a place where society won't allow them to be what they want to be. If this was 10 years earlier, it's not hard to see someone like Joan accepting an offer like this. Sure, Bob and Joan would be living lies, but by doing so they would be conforming to a standard that's expected of them, which would undoubtedly lead them down a much easier path. But this isn't the '50s anymore. It's 1969, and suddenly not everyone wants the same thing anymore, especially if it means compromising who they really are. That's as outdated as the concept of the domestic family being brought up in the BurgerBoss ads. The answer is no, because Joan ultimately would rather live the truth and suffer than carry out a lie. That's very different from the answer Joan gave to a similar proposal by Greg eight years earlier.

And then there's Pete Campbell. All season, we've seen a Pete very different from the Pete we've grown to love. Yeah, he had the occasional bitch fit, but this was a Pete that was happy, assured and confident about where he was going. And yet, as soon as he lands in New York, it's like he entered a vortex and moprhed back down into a moaning, tantrum-prone man-child. It's more complicated than that, though - Pete has been living his own kind of lie in California, where he can pretend that he's not a person who completely screwed up the perfectly good life he had going for him. That all changes when he visits Tammy and finds she doesn't even know who he is, and his (not yet) ex wife gives so little of a shit about him that she's not even there for his return. Pete has been poised as the second coming of Don Draper over the past few seasons, right down to his Betty clone in California. He was a guy who was turning over a new identity, who rejected the suburban family life he was being forced into. But Pete Campbell isn't Don Draper. He returns home, finds he's been replaced, and isn't sure what to do with himself. Suddenly, the lie he's been living becomes apparent for the lie that it is. Increasingly, this final season of Mad Men seems to be posing the final question of whether these characters are willing to face the reality of who they really are. And though we won't see that final result for another year (thanks, AMC!), I'm getting more and more interested to see the answer.

2014 Upfronts: The CW

This post is going up almost a day later than The CW announced its schedule, which I could say is a sign of just how "eh" the entire CW portion of the Upfronts often seems. This is sort of unfair, because there's some really good shows on The CW. But it seems kind of strange that what is basically a cable network disguising itself as a broadcast network has a big, overblown, network-level "Upfronts" presentation. Although, actually, The CW had a pretty good year, finally regaining an identity after spending years seeming a little lost. The CW started off in pretty messy fashion, as a mish-mosh as the equally struggling but stylistically very different WB and UPN networks. Then, when The CW finally found an audience (young girls watching teen soap operas!), ABC Family came and snatched it from them, leaving them lost yet again. But after Arrow, The Vampire Diaries, and Supernatural became the networks' 3 biggest hits, the network made an effort to go for genre programming, which has resulted in the show becoming both a more interesting network and a more successful one, with a seemingly sustainable identity. They're still far below the level of the "main" networks, but well...they always will be. Still, they've managed to carve out a pretty solid niche for themselves. So good for them! Now let's talk about Jane the Virgin.

Jane the Virgin

This is, like, the #1 reason why I wanted to do a CW post. THIS IS A SHOW ABOUT SOMEONE GETTING ACCIDENTALLY ARTIFICIALLY INSEMINATED, GUYS. And a (GASP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) virgin!!!! This is a REAL SHOW that is happening. It's not a fake show on 30 Rock or Community. It's fucking real!!!!!! I'm sorry, I'm just....I need a minute.


The Flash

Okay, phew. Just as I was starting to doubt both television and life itself, The Flash reminds me that TV can actually be a positive thing capable of providing shit that doesn't make me want to crawl into an Arby's and die. Actually, this looks really good, and I'm not much of a superhero guy. But I might actually have to give this a shot. I've heard great things, and this trailer was pretty fucking awesome.

Um...apparently that's it. I guess The CW felt we needed time to recover from fucking JANE THE VIRGIN.

Anyway, that does it for Upfronts! Now we just have to wait and see which one of these shows is worth watching, and when it'll be inevitably cancelled! (Just kidding. I bet a few of them will be good and some might even make it to a second season! Honest!)

2014 Upfronts: CBS

For many years, CBS was what represented all that was wrong about America. (At least, it did if in the minds of the internet). It was the boring network that your parents love and you roll your eyes at because you're just SO MUCH BETTER THAN THAT, MOM, you're so edgy and creative and you hate stupid procedural and sitcoms with LAUGH TRACKS because what is this, the '90s?! And the boring part of the '90s! Not the cool, Buzzfeed-beloved part, MOM. Of course, this was made CBS the most popular and consistent network, because it knew exactly what its audiences liked and how to give it to them. They wanted lazy sitcoms and mindless procedurals, and CBS knew exactly how to make them. The truth is, there are actually a handful of good shows on CBS (The Good Wife, Person of Interest) even if they are rooted in *gasp* PROCEDURAL FORMULA, and hell, How I Met Your Mother was a CBS sitcom, after all. (More on that shows' currently doomed spin-off later!). But still, it's not hard to see why CBS gets some contempt. It's pretty boring, most of their shows are paint-by-numbers, and it's rare to see the network doing anything interesting.

And yet, CBS had kind of a rough year this past season. They're still the #1 network in total viewers, but the problem of their old-skewing audience seems to be catching up to them, as they slipped behind NBC (!!!) in the demo and spent many nights hanging out in fourth place in that category, a place CBS is not at all used to being in. Other than The Big Bang Theory, their sitcom stock is collapsing, with 2 Broke Girls not shaping up be the surefire hit it looked like it'd be in Season 1, Two and a Half Men slowly marching towards death, and their lack of new sitcoms to replace the departing How I Met Your Mother. In fact, CBS is having a major problem with new shows. They haven't launched a hit drama since Elementary debuted two years ago, and even that shows' ratings are far from the solid tentpole status CBS is used to. Their only freshman comedy to get a second season in the past two years is Mom, which is an okay player but didn't quite live up to the lofty expectations CBS had for it. CBS still has the NCIS franchise (there's three of them now) and Big Bang Theory and Criminal Minds to hide their problems, but they're far more exposed than they were even at this time last year. And how has CBS responded? They did a very un-CBS thing - they sort of blew up their schedule in many ways. The CBS Monday comedy block, a staple of the network for nearly thirty years, is gone and replaced with a freshman drama. CSI, long CBS's proud veteran, is off to Sundays, and staple reality hit The Amazing Race is banished to Fridays, another new drama in its place. CBS is going pretty heavy this year, hoping that it'll cover up their weaknesses.

But their new shows still look pretty damn boring. Here they are!

Madam Secretary

Continuing the "moms can have JOBS?!" theme that's apparently a thing this year, this is a show about a MOM who is also SECRETARY OF STATE. She used to be a professor but then the secretary of state died! So now it's her! Crazy, right?! Actually, this show looks like it could pretty good. I just have to snark on everything. I have a serious problem. Help me?

NCIS: New Orleans

The trailer for this one is only a minute long, because the real trailer is just the other two NCIS shows. A lot of people watch NCIS, guys. Like, do you realize that? So many people watch NCIS. 

Scorpion 

It's so cute to see CBS shows acknowledging technology. I hope CBS doesn't start making annoyingly long and irrelevant comments on my Facebook statuses.

Stalker

Similar to how NBC really wants to make Debra Messing a thing, CBS has similar ambitions for Dylan McDermott. He plays by his own rules, guys! Isn't that awesome?!

The McCarthys

People live in Boston! And they're just like us, except their silly accents! They have kids and watch The Good Wife! Did you know that? It's crazy, right?!

Louie - "So Did the Fat Lady/Elevator"

Out of all of the extraordinary things that Louie does, what I may love best about it is how it uses its flexible formula and small but dedicated viewing audience to cover topics and viewpoints that simply can't exist in any other forum. Louis CK himself has always done this with his comedy act, unveiling parts of the human consciousness that simply have to be left shaded in any other light other than the light of gritty stand-up comedy. But on Louie, this gets taken to a new level. Never before has that been more apparent than in the first of the pair of episodes that aired last night, "So Did the Fat Lady". The episode allows the voice of a subset of people that is not only rarely given a voice in media, but rarely has anyone care that they don't have a voice - overweight women.

The idea that fat people are "discriminated" against is an idea that completely pisses a lot of people off. It's true that the plight of the fat woman is not on par with the plight of other subjugated minorities. But it's also true that the idea of a "healthy body weight" is so ingrained into our society that people who fall out of that ideal - particularly women who fall out of that ideal - are simply treated like shit. All of the time. Think about it. Think of all of the times you've heard someone negatively comment on someones' weight. Think of all of the times you've heard someone make a really shitty fat joke and no one even batted an eye. In many ways, overweight people are the last people we're allowed to discriminate against without being called racist or homophobic or what have you. For whatever reason, it's okay to treat them like lesser beings. Of course Louie wouldn't find someone like Vanessa sexually attractive! Why would he? Sure, she's a nice, funny, seemingly smart and charming woman that seems to mesh quite well with him, but she's...fat. It's harsh. But it's an unfortunate reality, and Louie is a show that is always sure to make you realize just how unfortunate our reality can be. And that's what's so amazing about "So Did the Fat Lady". It takes all of the preconceptions we have about body weight and its (mis)conceptions and just tells them to FUCKING STOP. It gives Vanessa a platform to just stop and say everything she's feeling but isn't allowed to say. It takes all of the shameful thoughts that both parties in the situation are thinking and lays them right out there. Actually, it doesn't lay them right out there, it smashes your face into them. This show has a way of just making you sit with the most uncomfortable human emotions a television show could possibly make you experience and then turning that into some kind of strange, empowering knowledge about the human experience. There is so, so little like it. And when it takes a little appreciated stance like this and uses that talent to just tell everyone to get the fuck over themselves and stop baselessly judging people based on superficial observations - all while including himself in the group of people he's trying to knock sense into - it's powerful in a way hardly any TV show, or any art in general, can manage to be.

Um...oh, and then there was "Elevator". This was a really interesting and engaging episodes of Louie, as well, but it showcases the problem of FX's double-pumping method. It just couldn't compare to what came before it, even if it was still some really solid Louie.

But yeah, "So Did the Fat Lady", guys. Damn it.

2014 Upfronts: ABC

ABC is a bit of a boondoggle of a network. They're home to some of the biggest hits on television (Scandal, Modern Family, Grey's Anatomy) and yet, year after year, they consistently come in last place among the big four. They're not equivalent to NBC at its lowest point, because they have some seriously huge hits. And yet, they seem to have no idea how to capitalize on those hits, consistently making baffling scheduling choices and picking up ridiculous, awful shows (remember Work It? I know, I know, you were trying to forget) that anyone with a clear head can see will fail. Often times, when they find something that works, they manage to completely fuck it up, like a few years ago when they had a seriously strong comedy line-up with The Middle, Suburgatory, Modern Family and Happy Endings followed by the promising new drama Revenge. There were weeks all of these shows crossed the magical 3.0 demo line. And yet, their solution? They broke up the block and moved in a bunch of marginal shows. Now Happy Endings and Suburgatory are gone completely, and Revenge is a shell of its former self. This is just an example of how ABC will occasionally just throw a bunch of shit around for no real reason, even when they have something that's working.

And yet, ABC's schedule for next year manages to do the opposite of what ABC normally does - it keeps what's working, expands on it, and smartly tweaks what's not. There are some strange decisions here and there (it's hard to imagine a female-skewing comedy block taking off Tuesdays at 8 up against The Voice, and Forever following SHIELD is certainly...interesting), but for the most part, it looks like ABC actually sat down and looked at its schedule and realized what they were good at and tried to expand it. The Shonda Rhimes power hour of Grey's Anatomy and Scandal was doing well? Let's make Thursdays all Shonda all the time by slotting her new How to Get Away With Murder in there! The Wednesday comedy block has flow issues? Let's put The Goldbergs after The Middle because they're pretty similar in tone, and let's put a family comedy after Modern Family instead of an inexplicably incompatible show about single people in their 20s! It's not a super ambitious schedule, but it's one where ABC seems to at least be aware of itself, something it so rarely is. I will always hate them for their long list of promising comedies they've slaughted with their incompetence (and we can now add Suburgatory and Trophy Wife to join the ranks of Happy Endings, Don't Trust the B in Apartment 23,and Better off Ted) but hey, at least they seem to be trying to get their shit together this year. 

So let's dig into these fucking shows.

How to Get Away with Murder

This is the most Shonda Rhimes show in the universe. Meaning it's probably going to do super well and also be super fucking insane. Let's guess some of the insane plot twists that will show up this year! My guess is the skeevy male professor will turn out to be a spy that time traveled here from Ancient Greece but not for any mischievous reasons, just because he wanted to see if people still believed all of that crazy shit about Hades. Also, I bet Main Students' mom killed Viola Davis's cat.

Forever

Do you like shows about mortality but also there has to be a love interest and also some sci-fi elements and maybe some comedy and also is a crime procedural too? Congratulations! The first and last television show you will ever like is airing on Tuesdays on ABC this fall!

The Whispers

Being on a cop on TV must be such a sweet job. They get to deal with, like, alien invasions and supernatural forces and shit. What a life! The cops in my town spend most of their time directing parades and taking peoples' weed. I bet they would love it if an alien invasion just happened in some little girls' tree house. Poor cops in my town. TV has given them such unrealistic expectations.

American Crime

If you were feeling okay about life in America, American Life is here to remind you that everyone here hates each other, no one is safe, we're so many years behind in racial equality, there's so much violence and so much of it is between young people, your child is probably on drugs and in a gang, and we're all living in our personal versions of hell. Get your jammies and cuddle in with American Life, midseason at ABC.

Secrets and Lies

Oh, you thought you were done hearing about how awful life is after you finished the American Crime trailer? Think again! Children die! People KILL them! Also, look! More cops! Cops and killers! America! The American Broadcasting Network! Are you crying yet? You're not? MAYBE YOU KILLED THE CHILD. If Ryan Phippe is a suspect, you can be too, you fucking asshole!

Selfie

The internet has been thrown into a wave of disgust over this trailer. I get it. It's called Selfie and there's hashtags over characters' faces. But I mean, Karen Gillan! John Cho! Emily Kapnak! These are all people who have done very good things for this world! This is a show that will be either incredible or awful, depending on how much self awareness it has on its ridiculous premise (and whether or not it drops those damn hashtags). But, look. Amy Pond is in it. Although where the fuck is her Scottish accent?! People with Scottish accents can be vapid too, you know. Anyway, this could totally suck but it could be good. Also, it has a terrible title, and all ABC shows with terrible titles are great until they get cancelled and we all die a little more inside.

Black-ish

So this is the first network sitcom with a predominantly black cast since...what, Everybody Hates Chris? And it looks like it could be pretty funny! ABC has given this the post-Modern Family slot, and it actually looks like a show that could do well with that audience. The network claims they are attempting to "accurately reflect the people of America" this season. I guess in past seasons they were really going for inaccuracy. But not anymore! Yay, accuracy! Really, though, it's nice to see network TV actually responding to some of the diversity criticisms of recent years. Typically they wait like 10 years to listen to what people actually want. They're just now realizing that we're all pretty okay with Friends being over.

Manhattan Love Story

It's at this point I must take the time to discuss ABC's comedy promo voiceover guy. Or maybe they're all different guys, but they all sound like a dude in the '60s who was THE CRAZY ONE in his friends group and also really liked LSD. He should get his own sitcom. Anyway, nothing new to see here. TV still thinks romantic comedy is a good suit for it, especially when they rely on the most basic of gender stereotypes. Even silly '60s LSD lover knows this shit is antiquated. (That's why he totally bails on this trailer halfway through).

Cristela

The preview for this show is just a Mexican-American woman drinking beer. Remember, accuracy!

Fresh Off the Boat

I like that there is an Asian-American sitcom on network TV. That's a first, right? Also, it's from Natchnatchka Khan, creator of Don't Trust the B---- in Apartment 23! That said, maybe consider a new title, guys. Still, this looks like it could be very funny and have lots of things going for it. Let's hope ABC actually doesn't fuck it up, for once.

Galavant

What the FUCK is this? I think I love it. I might hate it? I don't even fucking know, but this...this is certainly a show, and I credit it for just fucking...doing it, man. Seriously. It's like Cop Rock in silly costumes! Do you not realize how revolutionary that is?! 

2014 Upfronts: FOX

If NBC spent this season surprisingly rising from the ashes, then FOX spent it crashing down to NBC's previous levels. After dominating most of the 2000s mostly thanks to American Idol being an unstoppable juggernaut, the network has found itself in question ever since Idol, well, stopped. Granted, not all of FOX's success was tied to Idol  - one of their best seasons was 2011-12, the year Idol really began to fall off - but shows like Glee and New Girl also found themselves crumbling this season, and even old stalwarts like the Animation Domination block showed some cracks. So it's not surprising that FOX's schedule this year is a pretty huge gamble, full of new programming and strategies that could either pay off in a huge way (like ABC back in 2004-05, the year it totally revived itself with LOST and Desperate Housewives) or it could fail in a big way like...any NBC season between 2005 and 2012. But hey, isn't that exciting?

The network's biggest move its lowering its dependence on singing competition, which was suggested by the cancellation of The X Factor a few months ago and confirmed with the announcement that Idol would be shrinking to one hour a week following the audition rounds. This is a really smart move, both from a numbers standpoint (because less Idol could soften the decline, which has been accelerating at an alarming pace the past few seasons) and from a creative standpoint (because more original scripted content and less bloated singing competitions is always a good thing, in my mind). One of the most interested changes is the splitting up of the Animation Domination block. After pawning American Dad off to TBS, FOX will move live-action sitcoms Brooklyn Nine-Nine and the new Mulaney into the Sunday night slots, shifting Bob's Burgers to the dreaded 7:30 slot. While I really hope this doesn't mean FOX is severing its ties with Bob's (and, unlike large portions of the internet, I don't think it does), I'm hoping this allows the hilarious Brooklyn Nine-Nine and the promising Mulaney to get the audience they need. Among the rest of the line-up, there are lots of other ambitious projects, such as the kind of awful sounding Utopia (which apparently will just up and move a bunch of people to a deserted island and wish them luck), the adaptation of the hit British series Broadchurch (now starring Anna Gunn and titled Gracepoint), and the new Batman-based series Gotham (which FOX is hedging many of its bets on). All of these could be good (except for fucking Utopia, probably), or all of them could suck, but they're certainly ambitious. FOX is really the only broadcast network that seems to be even be acknowledging the decline of the broadcast model, from cancelling its pilot season to moving to a year-round structure (though NBC seems to be sort of be adapting that) in an attempt to more clearly. What they do might not work at all, but unlike pretty much all of the other networks, it should be really fun to watch.

Now! Shows!

Gotham

It's Batman! BATMAN, EVERYONE. BATMAN!!! Everyone likes Batman! Remember Batman? Batman! Also, The OC! Remember The OC? It's The OC and Batman! We've got everything covered here! Seriously, my guess is this will probably be pretty big, unless it's a total disaster. FOX is surely hoping it will be pretty big. If Sleepy Hollow can keep up its momentum and this can rise to expectations, Mondays should be a rock solid night for Fox.

Gracepoint

Very similar to when the original 13 colonies seceded from Great Britain, David Tennant and Broadchurch have broken free from the controls of England, adapted a new title and an American accent, and moved in with Skylar White, who has dealt with the fallout of her late husbands' run as meth king by becoming a detective. I have my doubts that this will be the big hit FOX wants it to be, and I have no idea if it will even be any good. I haven't even seen the original! Still, I like these people and I like to see them together. I like to pretend that Skylar ran off with the 10th Doctor to get over the the events of Breaking Bad. I do wonder where this will go if it's a hit. It's a "limited event" series, sure, but this is America, and if something here works, we make sure we give you more and more and more and more of it until you hate it and want to die. Anyway! Yeah! I don't know if this will be any good but even if it's not, David Tennant and Anna Gunn solving crimes is pretty damn badass.

Empire

This is another big, concept-y swing, one that looks like it will either be a very good show or a really embarrassing piece of shit. FOX seems pretty high on it, and they are supposedly giving it a post-Idol slot (which admittedly doesn't mean much anymore). My opinion is that everyone in it looks like they are very serious! Which is good! Yay, serious! LIFE IS SERIOUS, YOU KNOW?

Hieroglyph

Everyone loves Ancient Egypt. Everyone loves vampires. Why would you NOT combine them? This seems like something a person would come up with in a high school creative writing class. The teacher would say it is "really unique" and they wound get an A-. Good job, Fox. Your parents can hang this on your fridge!

Mulaney

Look, the reason I mostly just make fun of these trailers rather than actually analyzing them critically is because you cannot determine how good a TV show is from a 3 minute clip of its sweaty pilot. So I know parts of the internet were aghast that they weren't on the floor laughing by the end of the Mulaney trailer, but the truth is that I think the trailer shows a lot of promise. It doesn't have that warmed over, try too hard feeling of most present-day multi-camera sitcoms, and it has a really aces cast - from the fucking brilliant John Mulaney himself, to Nasim Pedrad, to Martin Short...all of that is enough to make this one of the most anticipated sitcoms of the fall for me. Then again, I anticipated The Michael J. Fox Show, and that show sucked lots of shit. But seriously! I think this could be really good!

Utopia

Something about this show makes me profoundly sad. Lots of things have been making me sad lately, so maybe that's more on me than this show. But still. Anyway, this is airing twice a week, and I feel like eventually we're going to just be watching the contestants wondering what they think is happening on Game of Thrones this season and maybe commenting on the state of each others' unibrows. I don't know, this just seems too ridiculous to work to me, but I bet someone said that about squeezing cow tits to make a beverage and look how that worked out.

Backstrom

I can't find the video. But anyway, it's Rainn Wilson being a cop. You like Rainn Wilson, and you like cops. Well, okay, you like watching cops, so you'll like this. Right? Right.

Wayward Pines 

Uh oh. Close ups of eyes mean something bad is about to happen! Anyway, Fox apparently thinks you really like it when people solve crimes because like all of its damn shows are about that this year. But this one is creepy and there's mystery and stuff and no one even knows what's going on! Just like you, all of the time. Anyway, in all seriousness, this is a really kind of weird trailer that piqued my interest a bit. It's yet another show that seems like a big gamble, but hey, gambles are fun! 

2014 Upfronts: NBC

In some ways, the television industry has changed in great ways since its conception. We have more than three channels, after all. Hell, we have hundreds of channels and now we have premium streaming services producing original content. We no longer have to rely on abiding by networks' schedules to watch our favorite shows, using DVRs and on demand streaming and the like to watch TV at our leisure. Plus, you know, women are allowed to write things now! Obviously, TV is nothing like it was in the '50s, but you wouldn't know it from the annual network Upfronts, when the broadcast networks get together and tell advertisers about all of their awesome new shows and their cool new schedules, before cancelling half of those shows and revising the schedules in a panic when they inevitably fail. Indeed, from the ancient "throw a bunch of shit at the wall and see what sticks" process to the painful stereotypes and archetypes marched out in the dozens of terrible new shows premiered every year, the Upfronts process really looks the same now as it did in 1957.

Still, we all love television, and loving television means dealing with the silly shit they throw at us during thins like Upfronts week. So for the next few days, I'll be taking a look at just what these kooky old broadcasters are trying to get us sexy, sexy 18 to 49 year olds to make profitable for them this year. Let's start with NBC!

NBC

(Note: I won't be posting schedules because that's redundant. There's a million places to find them. Go find them if you're that interested!)

After spending years as a joke of a network that we loved to make fun of but secretly just loved because their failure kept low-rated gems like 30 Rock, Parks and Recreation, and Community around, NBC is expected to finish the 2013 - 2014 season as the #1 network in the demo. Yes, the #1 network in the demo. For real. And it's not a technicality! Even if you took away the Olympics and Sunday Night Football, NBC would still be the #1 network in the demo. "But what about The Voice?!", you say. "Surely, that must be helping their numbers!". And yes, it is. A lot! Sure, without The Voice, NBC might be in trouble, being it not only gives them one of the highest-rated shows on TV but has also helped prop up well-rated shows like The Blacklist, Chicago Fire, and About a Boy. But the reality is that a broadcast network in the year 2014 really only needs one big hit and a few other solid players to be considered a successful network. That's exactly what NBC set out for this year, and it's what got them to #1. Riding off of the coattails of The Voice, NBC doubled down on general procedural fare like Chicago Fire and Chicago PD and supposedly "broad" comedies like The Michael J. Fox Show and About a Boy. The comedy angle didn't really work, with Michael J. Fox and its companion Sean Saves the World falling flat on their faces and About a Boy likely only succeeding because of its plum timeslot. But enough of its new "all bland, all the time" line-up did manage to work, and NBC has capitalized on the "generic and safe" platform with a new schedule that's as boring as it is competent. This is a schedule that's probably going to work, but damn, it was so much more fun when they were failing.

This makes NBC's cancellation of Community and their dropping of Parks & Rec after next year (which gets the always fun "short order, timeslot TBD" treatment this season) make a lot of sense. We're past the point where NBC can give those kinds of shows the care they need because they don't really have anything to tend to. They're the #1 network now, and they're in the business of actually, you know, winning and making money and stuff. We'll all miss when NBC could just throw us our favorite comedies on Thursday nights to make us happy, but it's time to accept that is a thing of the past. NBC replacing the long-cherished Thursday comedy block with The Blacklist is a sure sign that it's a new era for the network. A new, boring era, but an era that will make more money for them than the last one. Congrats to Bob Greenblatt, I guess?

Let's take out the pain by making fun of NBC's new shows.

Constantine

Comic-based trends seem to be the new network TV trend. Fox has the buzzy Gotham premiering, ABC has Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D and Agent Carter, and now NBC has Constantine. Constantine is the low-key one of the block - it'll premiere in a quiet Friday night timeslot, which might seem like a death slot but has actually been fairly kind to genre dramas over the years, seeing the solid success of Grimm and allowing Fringe to exist for several seasons longer than it was expected to. This looks like a perfectly competent adaptation, one that has the potential to please fans of the comic, at the very least. Translation: I CAN'T MAKE FUN OF IT SO NEXT.

Marry Me

Oh, I can't make fun of this one either, because it's created by Happy Endings scribe David Caspe and stars Casey Wilson and Ken Marino. That means I want it to be good, and I think it will be good, although this is not a super great trailer. The premise looks dumb, and it hits hard on gender stereotypes (like all trailers do, though, let's be honest). But look: Happy Endings had a really dumb premise and actually a really bad pilot! Remember? It just needed a few episodes to overcome the premise that was required for it to get picked up. Once Marry Me does the same, it should be able to make ample use of its talent. Right? What? Up All Night? Well, yeah, but....I mean, um...look, I....WHATEVER LET'S MOVE ON.

A to Z

A to Z wants to be How I Met Your Mother so badly that it's little sad. It even uses THE MOTHER! Look: I like Cristin Miloti and I like Ben Feldman, but very little about this looks appealing to me. Rom-com is never a genre that TV has gotten especially right (shut up I don't like The Mindy Project and you can't make me), and this just looks cutesy and schamltzy in all of the wrong ways. Also, is that Katey Segal doing the voiceover? What? Why? With a cast like this, I want A to Z to be great, but it just looks like the kind of generic miss that's all to common on network TV. Also, what if the show makes it past 26 episodes? Do we get into the Greek alphabet? Will everyone in the cast be replaced with rough Greek equivalents? If that's the case, then screw it. I'm in!

Bad Judge

LOL ISN'T IT CRAZY THAT JUDGES DO THINGS LIKE DRINK AND HAVE SEX TOO I THOUGHT THEY JUST LIKE LIVED UNDER THEIR DESKS UNTIL IT WAS TIME TO COME OUT ALSO THERE ARE JUDGES OTHER THAN JUDGE JUDY??? ANYWAY LOL awwww but look she has a kid she likes or something because, as NBC itself has taught us, children are little magical sorcerers who can turn even the most disgusting pregnancy taking woman into a beautiful butterfly hahaha yay 

State of Affairs

One frigid winter morning, an NBC executive woke up from their boozy afternoon nap and noticed that, hey, that Scandal show is doing pretty well. Then he logged onto his Facebook account and noticed that his friend was posting a lot of statuses about Homeland. Lots of people were commenting on it, too! Boy, lots of people really like Homeland. What does that mean? Oh, he knows! NBC should make its OWN version of Scandal and Homeland, just like a network is supposed to do when things get popular! (Even though that almost never works out and they really should learn by now that you can't just copy the success of a SHHHHHHHHHHHHH). The NBC executive called up some of his friends and they were like, okay, we'll make our own Scandal and Homeland but we haven't seen either of those shows so we'll have to watch them all tonight. Then the NBC executive's friends got drunk and didn't watch any of the shows. They were like "oh, shit! But we have to write the pilot by tomorrow!". So they wrote the pilot - still a little drunk, and maybe on a few uppers - in how they imagine Scandal and Homeland to be (and they did have a dream about Homeland once so they know it pretty well, right?). And that is how State of Affairs happened.

The Mysteries of Laura

NBC really wants you to like Debra Messing. You didn't like Katharine McPhee, apparently, and you definitely didn't like Sean Hayes, so you know what? YOU WILL LIKE DEBRA MESSING. You know, Debra Messing is actually a pretty good comic actress, so why doesn't she just get a nice little sitcom where her moderately impressive comic chops can actually be utilized? NO. SHE WILL BE THE BIGGEST STAR OF THE NETWORK AND YOU WILL LOVE HER AND NBC WILL ACCEPT NO OTHER OUTCOMES. So anyway, here she is in a show that's apparently about how silly it is that some moms use guns at their jobs because moms aren't even supposed to use guns. Except Nerf guns! Haha! NBC's new comedies are so silly. Wait, this is drama. What the fuck? Welcome to NBC 2014, everybody.

Mad Men - "The Runaways"

What. The. Fuck.

One of the things I like the most about Mad Men is the way it occasionally breaks out of its swanky shell and just goes totally fucking nuts. This was most evident in last seasons' The Crash, a completely out of character episode that put its characters on a speed trip and watched the insanity unfold. There were also sprinkles of it throughout the show previously, such as in Don's many Dick Whitman flashbacks and Roger's life-changing LSD trip in Far Away Places. The Runaways, as a whole, was a bit more typical than those moments, but it featured several moments that completely threw me. Yes, you know which ones I'm talking about it. You know which one I am specifically talking about. So, sigh. Let's get to it first.

Ginsburg cuts off his nipple.

Seriously. I'm still processing that this actually happened. Because, I'm sorry, but what the fuck? I get that the show has been hinting that Ginsburg is mentally ill all along, from his strange Martians speech to his suggestively anti-social behavior to his blow-up at Cutler last season. And yet, while I recognized all of these pieces happening, I wondered if the show was ever going to link them together. Given how Ginsburg has been mostly background fodder this season, I sort of forgot about it, focusing instead on Don and Peggy and Megan and Roger and all of the more prominent characters of the season. And then, they just have Ginsburg show up and hand his nipple to Peggy. It's strange. It's surprising. Mad Men knows how we were going to respond to it. It seems like Ginsburg is most likely schizophrenic, a crippling mental disease that can be treated today but likely would've more or less spelled a persons' end back in 1969. Given how Ginsburg was built up as sort of a Draper replacement back when he was introduced in Season 5, it's fascinating and heartbreaking to see his story turning out this way. I don't suspect we've seen the last of him (I certainly hope not), but it's hard to imagine things looking up for him from here on out. It's hard not to be reminded of poor old Sal. Homosexuality and mental illness both had the capability to completely isolate people back in the '60s, and just as Sal's struggle with his sexual identity completely ended his life as he knew it, Ginsburg's mental struggles seem certain to put a pin into his once promising career. The shot of Peggy watching the man she hired, the man she once saw so much potential in, being wheeled out of the agency tied to a gurney was absolutely mortifying.

Nothing else in the episode matched the horror of Ginsburg's story, but there was also some notably odd behavior coming from Megan's side of the fence. We saw Anna Draper's niece Stephanie for the first time since her appearance in the Season 4 finale, seven months pregnant and in need of a home, or food, or anything. Don pawns her off to Megan, who is surprisingly cordial with him after their fallout a few episodes back. As Megan welcomes Stephanie into her hippie dream home, we find out why - Megan clearly still has strong feelings for Don despite the ruins their marriage is currently in, and she realizes that Stephanie is the only person left in this world who knows Dick Whitman and not Don Draper. That's precisely why Megan pawns her off with a $1000 check back to Oakland - I don't think Megan suspects that Stephanie and Don will ever actually do anything together, but Stephanie knows Don in a way Megan never can. And even though Megan's completely fed up with dealing with Don's knee-deep shit, there's still a a large part of her that wants this to work out somehow. Getting rid of Stephanie means that she can have a weekend with Don to herself, a weekend where she can show him that she has her own life outside of him and that she doesn't need him but that she still wants him. This is a contender for Jessica Pare's best episode yet, and the way she plays Megan's confused desperation is so brilliant that it makes the strange threeway scene between Don, Megan and her friend seem like a natural move, one that Megan has to do because she just doesn't even know what else to do. She doesn't know what Don wants. Don doesn't know what she wants. At this point, she will literally try anything, including allowing Don to be intimate with other women (while simultaneously being intimate with her). She thinks this will make her understand Don more, but then Stephanie calls the next morning and she realizes that as much as she knows Don, she'll never know Dick Whitman.

What threw me about this episode was that I wasn't sure how it all came together. The Runaways is a little shaggy in that regard - Ginsburg's descent into madness is traumatizing, but how does it relate to anything else that's happened this season? Megan's attempts to grasp Don back one last time are fascinating, but what purpose do they serve in the shows' larger narrative? Perhaps the answer can be found in the Betty storyline. Tonight's Betty storyline is one of the stronger ones she's had in a while, and I think this season is shaping up to be Betty's best season as Betty Francis yet. It's hard to feel for Betty much these days, but I truly did when Henry flipped out on her for daring to speak her opinion in front of their neighbors. Only Mad Men could make a character supporting the Vietnam War into the most sympathetic character of a storyline, but watching Betty still be marginalized by her husband even after she put some serious work into trying to better herself was really pretty rough. She may be a horrible mother who gives Bobby stomachaches all of the time, but doesn't she still deserve a voice? And maybe that's what this episode is shaping up to be - this season, even. We have so many characters who barely have a voice in anything that goes on in their lives, and we're getting to a point where they're finally ready to speak up even if their husband is telling them to shut up. Betty's going to run for office! (Except probably not. Hopefully not. That would terrible). Don is going to show he's still powerful by jumping over Lou and Cutler! And yet, sometimes that voice leads us to the wrong place - like poor Ginsburg's mental breakdown. But either way, we're reaching a point where that voice can't be quieted for much longer. And the results of that should prove to be interesting.

Long live Community (or, why it's okay to be angry about Community)

Technically, we should not be angry about Community. It got five seasons, a run no one would've thought it could dream of having back in its earlier seasons. Five seasons is a good run. It's a great run. It's five years! 97 episodes! Plenty of beloved and respected shows, from Newsradio to the fucking Brady Bunch, ran for five years and continue to be beloved and cherished to this day. Considering what a marginal cult hit it was, considering how far from the normal it was, considering how low-rated it was, the fact that this show stuck around for five years is damn respectable. Besides, while Season 5 of Community was good, it was the kind of season where you know there isn't all that much left in the tank. Community's best days were behind it, and even #SixSeasonsAndAMovie wouldn't change that. We don't have to cry for Community. It lived a wonderful life, it gave us some amazing memories, and its impact will certainly be felt on television for years to come.

But despite all of that...I am fucking livid about Community's cancellation. 

Really, it's hard not to look at this cancellation as anything but a sign of how cold and unforgiving television could be. Being a television fan is a strange thing sometimes. Because of the way television is told, it's so easy to get attached to a television series - moreso, in my opinion, than any of the other arts. We fall in love with these characters like we know them personally, because we go through life together. We watch them grow and they grow alongside us. Don't ever let anyone make fun of you for getting too invested in a fictional television character, because that's what they're designed for. It's a natural reaction, to feel a connection with characters you spend so much time with. And yet, because of its continuing nature, television is also a business that breaks hearts far more easily than any of the other entertainment sectors. A movie can fail at the box office, but they're not going to rip you out of the theater halfway through it. An album can totally flop, but you still get to listen to the whole thing. A book gives you a very clear start and end point. It's not quite like that with a television series. We fall in love with these shows knowing they can be ripped away from us before their time is up - hell, knowing that even if they're the most popular show on television, one day they are going to go away. I talked a bit in my New Girl review about how a relationship with a television show really does mirror a real relationship in so many ways, and that includes the loss of one. It's a part of your life, and then it's not. It's something we have to accept. And yet, it's so much easier to accept if that show gets to tell a complete and whole story. Unlike with a film or an album or a book, a television show doesn't always get to tell the story it wants. Its fate is so closely tied to the business side of the art. Recently, though, TV has been allowed to distance itself from that reality just a little bit, with things like Netflix and HBO and even basic cable. Sure, there's a business to all of these models, and HBO and cable have broken many hearts (miss you, Enlightened), but those businesses are a little more friendly with the art of television. Community being unceremonously thrown into the trash as if it was never worth a damn at all is a painful reminder that this art we all love is not an art, it's a business. And that business just doesn't care about legions of fans if they're not translating into dollars. We like to believe that passion matters in this business, that it makes a different. Sometimes, we get reason to believe that it does. Without it, Community likely wouldn't have gotten even five seasons. Hannibal wouldn't have just gotten a third season. Parks & Rec and 30 Rock wouldn't have made it to seven years each. But at the end of the day, this is still a business. A cold business that doesn't care about love or originality or dedication. It just cares about numbers.

But we still love television, even knowing this, and if you need a reason why, all you need to look at is Community itself. Yes, television can be cold and cynical, but the passion and love it inspires is anything but. As I've watched plenty of great shows slaughtered this week, despite quality and potential and devotion, I've wondered if this is really a business I want to get involved with. But then I think about all of the things I've gotten from television. I think about episodes like "Mixology Certification", or "Remedial Chaos Theory"...or, "Tracy Does Conan" or "Flu Season" or "The Suitcase" or "Lisa's Substitute" or "Daddy's Girlfriend" or "Fly" or any given episode that inspires passion in anyone. I think about the study group, or the Parks department, or the TGS staff, or the workers at Sterling Cooper, and I realize that even through all of the bullshit, television introduced me to these characters that I loved, that shaped who I am, that get me through even my worst days. And ultimately, it doesn't matter how these shows ended or where they wound up. It doesn't matter how cold-hearted the suits who greenlit them are. What matters is what these shows and characters have done for me. That's something a cancellation can't take away. And that's why I love television. And it's also why it's okay to be angry when it disappoints you. It's okay to be angry about Community - because it's also okay to love Community. The love and the anger validate the fact that these shows are something meant to care about. Without them, television would be a soulless cash grab of an industry. With them, that's just what's in the background. The more important aspect is the shows themselves and the love and frustrating and passion they inspire. So yeah, I'm pissed about Community, but the fact that I'm pissed is what makes all of this worth it in the end.