Category television

Everything’s Cool.

Turner L. Watson 8 Comments

I was going to call this post “Everything’s Cool, and That Ain’t Cool” or steal from Pearl Jam and say “Everything Has Changed; Absolutely Nothing’s Changed.”  But there’s really not a whole lot of negative to my thoughts on this subject, so I figured I’d leave it with the simple, hopeful, calming “Everything’s Cool.”  Because it is.  Literally.

There was an article earlier this year in Vanity Fair that basically said that stylistically we’re exactly the same as we were in 1992…twenty years ago.  The article points out that the styles of 1952 were vastly different from those of 1962, and those were different from 1972, and all of ’em were nothing like the fashions of 1982, and so on.  Basically, every ten years there’s a new way of doing things, and from car designs to clothing to music. There’s a big change with each passing decade.

Except, you know, Steve Jobs.

Not anymore.  According to the article, we’re stuck in a stylistic wormhole, reliving the same things for twenty years.  My initial reaction to this reality is:  Um…so?

In this very blog I’ve mentioned how cool it is that I can, in this 21st century, elect to wear a wide-brimmed Fedora and listen to Operation Ivy on my way home from seeing “The Avengers” in IMAX to play Black Ops II on my HD television before switching over to TCM and watching “Invasion of the Saucer Men” or settling in for a night of Star Trek (the original series) on Netflix or reading The Dark Tower.  I mean, I can literally do whatever I want from whichever time I choose.  Music, books, movies, television, fashion…all mediums and all genres and all styles and so on have been archived so well over the ages that we now have the sum of EVERYTHING THAT HAS EVER HAPPENED at our fingertips.  That’s very powerful.  I can pick up a Nook or an iPad or whatever and read Chaucer or George R.R. Martin.  I can look at sketches and read translations from Copernicus or “A Brief History of Time” by Hawking.  That is so incredible.

Or hell, combine the two! Save time!

As for fashion, I’ve kind of developed the following philosophy regarding trends in fashion:  FUCK FASHION.  Have I been caught up in one trend or another over the years?  Sure.  And anyone who says otherwise is lying.  I rocked a blazer with a t-shirt during the early-2000’s.  But you know what I realized?  I also rocked that look in the early-90’s.  I was too young to really rock a blazer in the 80’s, when that seemed like the thing to do (thanks, Miami Vice!) but I’m sure I would’ve.  Also, that style combo wasn’t born in the 80’s anyway.  You know who started the shirt-sans-tie/blazer combo?  Jed fucking CLAMPETT, that’s who.

Well, I reckon it ain’t lupus! Can’t rightly figure what in tarnation it is, though.

I love this outlook in current trendy fashion.  Quick:  what’s the popular male hairstyle called these days?  Is it the high-top fade? The buzz-cut? The side part? The pomp? The shag? I’ve seen every one of those at the mall in the last few months.  What the hell is that mullet-shaven-skater cut that Skrillex is rocking?  Who knows?  More importantly, WHO CARES?!? Hell, I’ll make the question easier:  what’s the trendy female hair style?  Or hair color?  The bob?  The pixie?  The Rachel? (remember that?  Everyone wanted hair like the characters on Friends!)  In a world where Miley Cyrus goes with a near-buzz cut and one out of every four chicks sports either that bright fuchsia color (sometimes just highlights) or wears shiny blue extensions, I suppose anything goes here, too.  Katy Perry wears blue or pink wigs. Rockabilly chicks sport sleeve tattoos and Bettie Page ‘dos. The Katniss braid shows up here and there.  Short, sexy, sassy haircuts mingle with luxurious manes of auburn curls.  It’s literally all good, and it seems that for once (I am an outsider here, so forgive my naiveté) women are genuinely excited to see/meet someone with a strikingly different hair style than their own.  “Oh my GOD!!  I love you hair!!  Who does it?!?”  seems to have replaced “Uh, the 80’s called and they want their bangs back.” That’s so nice.

Just…so much…HAIR…

Sometimes I wear a suit.  Like, a real suit and a tie.  Sometimes I wear shorts and a hockey jersey (sidebar:  nobody cares about you anymore, NHL.  Not many people did before, but now?  Forget it.  You’ve effectively fucked yourself after an amazing playoffs including a first-ever Stanley Cup awarded to a team in the SECOND-LARGEST TELEVISION MARKET IN THE UNITED STATES!  Good job, assholes.  You all suck.  Owners, players, etc.)  Sometimes I wear a “Portal” t-shirt and some jeans.  Now and then, a baby-blue guayabera shirt and some linen pants.  And any time I wear one of these wardrobes in public, it’s like I don’t even get a second glance.  I love second glances, because I crave attention. It’s becoming harder and harder for me to glean that oh-so-wonderful attention simply based on my clothing alone.  Now I must stand in the middle of the Glenbrook Mall food court wearing nothing but an old Chick-Fil-A napkin that I’ve poked a hole in with my pecker (see, the napkin is impaled on my business) and a beaver-skin hat that I’ve set on fire before anyone even nods knowingly at me, like they’re in on some sort of joke.  I must essentially be a one-man flash mob these days.  It’s too much work.  And the reason for that is that anything goes.  Really.  Literally. Anything. Wife-beater-wearing women, utilikilt sporting fellas, old-school Mod Cloth dresses and slinky tube skirts.  Flat-brimmed caps with the sticker on ’em and tweed newsboy caps.  High-top Chuck Taylors, black Doc Martens, leather flip-flops, two-tone wingtips, alligator skin stiletto heels. Faded blue denim jackets, Hurley hoodies, Dickies work jackets, stoner-riffic bajas. Flannel shirts, athletic-fit moisture-wicking polos, pearl-snap western shirts.  All of it.  It’s all good.  Some of it has changed very little in the last twenty years.  Some of it hasn’t changed at all in fifty years.  Ain’t nothin’ wrong with that.

Sigh. It’s not a chihuahua skirt, goddammit!!

Except, of course, for one tiny little issue.  The idea that maybe, just maybe…the reason that anything goes right now is that, well…there just aren’t any more ideas.  Nothing new.  We’ve reached the end, and so now we just recycle everything that’s already come to pass.
This theory is supported, of course, by looking at our popular entertainment choices.  Hollywood is staggeringly bad, simply re-hashing or re-booting old films instead of offering original, entertaining fare.  Another option, of course, is taking old television shows and making them into movies.  Then again, looking at the television itself and seeing recycled shows like “Hawaii 5-0” and “Dallas” and you realize that we are indeed pretty much done giving a shit.  Musically, things are as bad as they were in the woeful 1985-1991 time period, when the likes of Foreigner and Boston walked the Earth side-by-side with atrocious crap like Every Hair Metal Band.  At least then we felt like something was coming.  Something new and slightly dangerous was bubbling up and threatening to upset the entire music industry.  I just wish I believed that something like the Grunge Revolution was going to happen again.  ‘Cause I’ll tell y’all right now, the answer ain’t dubstep.

This image speaks for itself.

In the meantime, I suppose I’ll just have to make do. I’ll avoid the Red Dawn remake like the plague, but revel in the fact that my black leather Brando-style motorcycle jacket will always be cool.  Unlike Crocs and Affliction shirts.  Seriously, that crap is stupid.  Stop it.

TEE-VEEEE!!!!

Turner L. Watson 8 Comments

I have been neglecting this blog.  No, really.  Life is crazy and sometimes demands my attention.  But I must confess, I have been recently distracted by something that I usually don’t give a whole lot of time:  television.  I know.  I am so, so sorry.  But I figure you may as well get to know what exactly has been dragging me away from the internets, so here we go…

The Presidential Debates

I must admit, I didn’t even watch the first Presidential Debate.  From what I’ve gathered, Romney won that one cleanly.  Not that it ultimately matters to me, because I seriously doubt either candidate is going to sway my vote at this point, but now and then how they answer or DON’T answer a particular question informs much about their character.  Sometimes you gauge their reaction and say to yourself “hmmm…that’s not the answer I expected.” I did catch some of the VP debate, and was underwhelmed.  Plus, the VP contest is always a chance for the Number Twos to act out and play dirty so that the Number Ones can distance themselves from hateful rhetoric. Meh.  I like Biden.  Don’t know if he’s Presidential Material, but he’s funny.   I was curious to see what sort of tone the second Presidential debate would take, and HO-LEE SHIT.  God DAMN that was entertaining!  Man!  It was literally like watching a heavyweight prize fight.  Several times during this matchup both men were literally on their feet and circling each other like they wanted to throw a punch.  Their eyes measured one another, looking for an opening, waiting patiently for the killing strike.  Ice lasers flew from Obama’s eyes, while in the background Romney’s brood clenched their jaws and threw pure hatred onto the stage. It. Was. AWESOME.  Obama seemed to carry the day, thereby forcing a Game Seven and guaranteeing that I’d tune in for the final act.  Good stuff.

This was seriously about 80% of the debate.

American Horror Story 2: The Creepy Old Rusty Place

I didn’t watch any of the first season, and everyone tells me that I totally missed out.  The show was described by various friends as “Creepy” and “unsettling” to “downright terrifying.”  I need some more terror in my life, so the wife and I settled in to catch the premier this past week.  After watching, I have another word to describe the series, and it is “yawn.”  Sure, it’s the first episode and I know that it takes time to build characters and story.  But it just seems like the producers are counting on the setting (an old 1960’s insane asylum) to do all the heavy lifting.  That, and showing buttocks.  Lots and lots of buttocks on this show.  Here’s the plot: a serial killer is on the lose in the 60’s and this one kid is a suspect so they throw him in an insane asylum where there’s also this reporter lady being held for “ASKING QUESTIONS!” and also Cloe Sevigny loves sex. Oh, and James Cromwell experiments on inmates and Jessica Lange is a hot GILF nun.  The end.  And pro tip/spoiler alert:  if you’re in an old, abandoned, supposedly haunted asylum and you go sticking your arm through an opening in an old cast-iron cell door, expect bad shit to happen.  I wonder if this was somehow supposed to be “Silent Hill: The Series” and they just decided “fuck it” or what, but so far everything is very, very predictable and clichéd. I hope it gets better.  Speaking of getting better…

BTW, this is the SAFEST picture I found after Googling “sexy nun.”

Revolution

Boy, did I want this show to be excellent.  J.J. Abrams and Jon Favreau teaming up for a post-apocalyptic survival story?  Hells yes.  But then I saw the first episode…and the second…and the third…and…and I just about quit.  I like making analogies (see above re: Silent Hill) and Revolution started reminding me a lot of a television adaptation of Kevin Costner’s “The Postman.”  I mean, down to the friggin’ horses and militias.  I was depressed.  But then it started getting a tiny bit better.  The backstories help a lot, and I know they’re trying to draw this story out into something epic, but here’s the problem:  new shows get MAYBE six episodes to establish an audience.  You’d better make me care about these motherfuckers stumbling through Northern Indiana right away.  It’s finally happening, and I like that at least one character that you think is there for the long haul has been killed off.  Good. That adds concern for everyone except the fat neckbeard guy (how the hell are you still fat?!?!  You’re growing you own food now and working your fingers to the bone to survive!!  I call this the Hurley from Lost syndrome) and the annoying Katniss wannabe lead character.  She’s really bad.  Then again, Carl from the Walking Dead was terrible for the first couple of seasons but has finally started to grow into a decent member of the cast (I call this the Wesley Crusher syndrome.) Giancarlo Esposito is wonderful as always, and the C. Thomas Howell-meets-Seth MacFarlane friendly badass uncle is okay.  I’ll give it a couple of more episodes.  And so might the network.

Goddam Apple maps…

The Motherfuckin’ Walking DEAD!!!

THIS is how you do it.  I have enjoyed every season thus far, even as I admit that there have been a few low points.  Basically, every episode set at Herschel’s farm was  drag because, you know…it’s a fucking farm.  I love farms.  I love the smell of corn and soybeans.  Tractors. I fucking LOVE tractors.  However, um…see…there’s this farmhouse and out there across the field are zombies and (spoiler!) Ol’ Farmer Herschel loves keepin’ a crop o’ walkers up yonder in the barn. The characters SIT there. To make another Star Trek reference (because that’s what I DO) this part of the series reminded me of Deep Space Nine.  See, DS9 was great and had loads of wonderful characters, but the whole thing about Star Trek is that that they boldly GO.  On DS9 they boldly SAT THERE. That’s why Walking Dead had to end the last season in such grand style.  It wasn’t just a big ol’ zombie attack, and it wasn’t just a chance to move the story and characters literally and figuratively forward:  it was a metaphor.  Two main characters died, and the good ol’ (somewhat) reliable RV was abandoned to the walker horde. The characters are once again in the wilderness, relying on their skills and one another to survive.  When they finally do settle down again, it’s in a goddam prison.  THAT’S a location with built-in drama.  You know how I mentioned that American Horror Story relied on the setting to create drama?  Shit, son: you ever see “Oz?”  Or “Shawshank Redemption?”  Plus, the metaphor of being safe while also being imprisoned is rich.  It takes on greater significance when you find out that The Governor has basically turned a sleepy small town into a prison.  Oh, TOPSY-TURVY!!  DOWN IS UP!! RIGHT IS WRONG!!  LEFT IS RIGHT!!  NOTHING MAKES SENSE ANYMORE!!  The first episode was great, and I can’t wait to see how the new characters, settings, and developments pan out on-screen.

Carl will never not be in there again.

Okay, there’s my explanation (excuse) for the absence of new blog posts of late.  I’ll try to be better, more attentive to your needs in the future. And I’ll leave you with this fun little prank;  my lovely wife, Heidi, actually did find American Horror Story a bit scary. After the first episode’s conclusion, I went downstairs before her to take a dump.  As a little surprise, I took this creepy baby doll thing that my kids play with and propped it up against the wall at the bottom of the stairs to greet my love with unblinking, lifeless eyes in the semi-dark gloom of our house at nighttime.

Play with me, mommy…

Let’s just say she freaking LOVED it.  My bruises can attest to this.

ZOMBIES!! MARTIANS!! SAME THING!!

Turner L. Watson 8 Comments

Boy, I love zombies.  So much so that I can’t wait for the new season of The Walking Dead, starting this Sunday.  I’m really excited to see if they can continue the momentum that the show built at the end of last season, especially since A) they’re moving into what I call the “good part” of the story from the amazing comic series. Sure, there have been some discrepancies in the television version, but the basic plot lines are fairly intact, and B) the first half of last season was fairly lackluster.  Enough with the fucking farm already.

You know who’s NOT in the house? Fucking Carl, that’s who.

But I digress.

Zombies have taken over the public subconscious so much that it’s almost a running joke.  When you’re at the hardware store with a buddy to pick up a new Estwing roofing hammer, you will invariably pass some sort of garden implement or power tool that will cause one of you to remark “Heh…this would be pretty handy in the zombie apocalypse, eh?”  It’s like we all know it’s coming, so we just try and stay as prepared as possible, except that, you know, IT’S NEVER GOING TO HAPPEN.  And if it did happen, Cracked actually outlined how quickly it would fail in this article.   Of course, they double-down and tell you exactly how it could happen here.

Why all the zombie stuff? And to be clear, I’m including the non-traditional style 28 Days Later-style outbreaks in this discussion.  Why now?  Why zombies and not killing machines, like the Terminator?  (Heads-up: all this will change once Spielberg’s adaptation of the incredible “Robopocalypse” novel hits theaters in 2014.  Then, lookout, zombies: there’s a new boogeyman in town.)

One word: Martians.

Pictured: the face of national paranoia as experienced during the House Un-American Activities Committee campaign.

“Wait,” you say to me, holding your hand out in the classic ‘stop’ position. “Martians ain’t zombies.  Unless it’s some B-movie hybrid from the mind of Ed Wood, Jr. or on SyFy.”  True, but you see, the modern zombie infestation is exactly the same as the martian threat of yesteryear.  Why?  Because they are both the analog, the manifestation if you will, of our modern-day fears.
Back in the post-WWII days in the early 50’s, there was something weighing heavily on the minds of every American citizen: hot atomic death at the hands of the damned Communists. This spawned a bunch of “atomic monster” movies, like “THEM!” which were actually really fucking good. (Also, the only country ever nuked…twice…churned out a shload of these films, beginning with the classic “Gojira.”  Not that we should feel guilty about all that unpleasantness.)

Japan has managed to even the score, however, with a metric shit-ton of unsettling weird shit.

Hiding, sneaking behind the obvious “Oh, god!!  Nuclear bombs!” threat was the more sinister, lurking threat of invasion.  Not the obvious “Red Dawn” style invasion, but the subversive “get your kids to like Socialism” sort of invasion.  McCarthyism had everyone checking on their neighbors, and paranoia was rampant.  Movies like “Invasion of the Body Snatchers” and “Invaders From Mars” played on that subconscious fear:  My God, what if the new guy at work is one of THEM!?!  They look like us and act like us, but something is just…off.  It was a trend that eventually evolved and sometimes even questioned the logic of this nationwide witch-hunt for Commies.  Films like “It Came From Outer Space” made us look in the mirror a little bit.  See, in that film the “alien menace” was just an alien whose ship had crashed and the alien dude was just trying to fix it up so he could go home.  Eventually this sort of theme carried over into more modern films like “E.T.” and “Super 8” where they actually go so far as to make the Big Military/Government Machine look like the bad guys.

Not cool, internet. NOT. COOL.

Which brings us to now.  “28 Days Later” premiered in 2002, almost a year after the terrorist attacks of September 11th, 2001.  If you haven’t seen the movie, a guy wakes out of a coma to find the world he knew to be a desolate place filled with formerly-normal humans filled with hate and rage, intent on killing. Every time you get rid of one of ’em, there seems to be a thousand of them right behind, willing to do whatever it takes to end the lives of peaceful humans.

Huh.

Lighthearted fare like “Zombieland” would come later, along with the big-budget remake of “Dawn of the Dead” and the comic/graphic novels like “The Walking Dead” plus a billion other shoddy zombie flicks.  Ladies and gentlemen, I present the theory (I’m surely not the first) that the recent zombie-hype has been driven largely by the national panic and paranoia that has existed in some form since 9/11.  Sure, once a couple of films made money, Hollywood decided to churn out as much similar product as possible.  That’s normal.  But beyond that, there is a whole sub-culture of zombie jokes, zombie costumes, zombie video games, zombie ammunition (it should really be billed as ANTI-zombie ammunition, but whatever) and so on.  Think about the last week that went by that you didn’t see/hear/read some sort of zombie reference.  Impossible since 9/11. This wave of shambling undead has even infected hyped-up news stories like the infamous “Bath Salts Zombies” this past summer. How often did zombies get mentioned before that fateful day in Septmber eleven years ago?  Um..maybe when you played Resident Evil?

Admit it, you shit your pants the first time this happened.

Let’s go back to that video game idea.  The Resident Evil franchise was huge, beginning with the original Playstation One game and seemingly a dozen sequels. But that was pretty much it.  Now you have Left 4 Dead, Dead Island, Dead Rising, and the “zombie mode” add-ons and DLC for every single first-person shooter on the market today.  Wow.  We got kinda carried away, didn’t we, folks?  Several video game reviewers have mentioned that zombies are perfect video game fodder.  Before zombies took over, the only “safe” bad guy in games and movies was Nazi Germany. But even then, either someone had to be the Nazis in multiplayer (which still feels weird to me) or you had to gloss over the fact that these soldiers might not be rank-and-file Aryans, but maybe conscripts from Poland who just want to live to see their families again.  (I tend to over-think the character-development of video game figures.)  Zombies?  Hell, they’re already dead!  Blow their fuckin’ heads off!

Full disclosure: I just couldn’t go an entire blog without some sort of Star Trek reference.

As we move further and further away from the events of 9/11, I’m sure the zombie trend will lose its luster.  Even now, kids don’t have any idea how or why 9/11 happened.  They just know that it’s fun to watch zombies’ arms fall off.  They don’t understand the feeling of vulnerability, like every time you get on that public transportation there might be death waiting for you at the end of your ride.  The all-encompassing fear of the unknown, that your life could end at any moment, at the hands of an enemy you never saw until it was too late.  They don’t get why we sometimes feel like zombies ourselves, so much cattle shuffling through the line at the TSA gate. It’s lost on them.  Perhaps it’s the same way most of you feel when you watch “Independence Day.”  You’ve never lived under the long, cold shadow of impending doom at the hands of the USSR and their millions of megatons of thermonuclear holocaust aimed right at the heart of the good ol’ U-S-of-A.  You just want to see the good guys beat the crap out of the bad guys and maybe see some really cool explosions.  Fair enough.  I’m happy for you.  You get to enjoy those themes without a context.  A new generation of kids has lived safely and securely in the days since September 11th and has no reason to flinch at the specter of a jet airplane on approach that seems to be a little too close to the ground.  They don’t turn a wary eye to the somewhat ethnic guy reading a newspaper at the airport with one earbud in, listening to…something. They live in a world without fear, except those damn zombies on the eighth wave on COD.  Those suckers are brutal!!

Seriously, guys? Did you just re-skin an old Terminator game? Because that’s totally what it looks like.

And you know what?  Good for them.  Because one day their world will be shaken, and some new multi-media meme or theme will crop up and they’ll get to explain to their kids why it’s so poignant and scary. The robot uprising.  It’s coming, man.  It’s coming.

(Seriously, though. Read this book.)

Upon Further Review: Big Bang Theory One Year Later

Turner L. Watson 11 Comments

The week of September 23rd-29th marks the one-year anniversary of this blog post of mine.  People have viewed this particular entry almost 8,000 times over the past year.  By the end of this anniversary week it will exceed the 8,000 mark and by the end of the year have over 10,000 visits by curious fans and detractors of the popular show.  Yay, good for me, right?

Pictured: My biggest fan.

So, the wife and I were sat on our couch watching the Primetime Emmys this past Sunday.  TBBT was nominated for several Emmys, including “Outstanding Comedy Series.”  It did not win any Emmys this year.  (The series has won a couple of trophies over the years, both of which went to Jim Parsons for his portrayal of Dr. Sheldon Cooper.)  I decided to go back and revisit my original anti-Big Bang Theory rant and discovered that while I stick by my original assessments and conclusions, I was sort of dickish about it. No, really. Also, while I realize that I have very far to go before I could ever consider doing this as a full-time job, it seems that my writing has gradually increased in quality over the past year.  Good for me. Also, good for anyone who reads this stuff. (Thank you, by the way.)

I tend to be a positive person, so just blasting a show and the parties involved with the production of said show is not only shitty, but counter-productive. See, I really WANT to like this show.  There are so very few good geek-related television programs on prime-time and most of those are on cable.  I therefore  decided to dig in and see if this whole mess can be fixed.  I think it can.  I really do. Here are some suggestions for improvement, in no particular order:

Fixed! Now, on to the economy…

Turn the Whole Thing Over to Joss Whedon

I know it’s a stretch, esp. with a new SHIELD series in development and Avengers 2 and so on, but Mr. Whedon has such a great knack for managing and balancing an ensemble cast that I think this would be a perfect marriage.  Plus, considering how much of the interaction of the BBT characters, esp. Sheldon, revolves around sci-fi and fantasy, um…that’s all Whedon friggin DOES, people!  Sure he’s capable of more, but this is his strong suit. The banter would be intense, smart, and hilarious.  Of course, the current dialogue would be helped tremendously if they’d do this one simple thing…

ZOMG!!! Joss’s Shadow!! That means he’s totally putting THE VISION IN AVENGERS 2!!!

Lose the Goddam LAUGH TRACK

“But you’re WRONG!” the fanboys scream. “There IS NO LAUGH TRACK!! It’s a live studio audience!”  Okay, I’ll give you the “studio audience” and raise you “Sweetening.”  This is the process of adding canned laughter on top of a studio audience, especially when the jokes are falling flat.  See, they go through the trouble of setting, lighting, and performing the episode.  Everything goes smoothly, all the marks are hit, there are no line flubs…perfect execution. Except on any particular night the audience just isn’t feeling it.  Rather than scrap the whole thing, they just throw in some pre-recorded laffs and bingo!  Or should I say “BAZINGA!!”  This has been going on since the dawn of television (and, honestly, radio), when shows weren’t recorded in front of a live audience to be aired at a later date; rather, they did that shit LIVE without a net.  If Perry Como or Sid Caesar had a listless audience, they’d “sweeten” things with pre-recorded sound effects.  The home viewing audience was none the wiser. Read more about it here.  And I understand the need for this bit of subterfuge, except when I don’t.  Scooby Doo added a laugh track.  Because reasons.  The Big Bang Theory does it, too, and most of the time it’s WAAAAAYYYYYY too much.  Check out the following clip.  It’s a scene from the show with the laugh track removed.  Because of this, it’s also faster-paced.  Watch it, and I’ll tell you what it reminds me of after.  Okay, GO!!

Okay, you know what?  That scene isn’t terrible.  And you know what else it reminds me of?  Kevin Fucking Smith.  Seriously, that could easily be an outtake from Mallrats or Chasing Amy.  Perfect? No.  Far from it. But so much better. Which brings up another suggestion…

Back when Stan the Man made cameos in non-Marvel projects.

Turn the Whole Thing Over to Kevin Smith

Hey, if Joss isn’t available, let Kevin try his hand at a mainstream network comedy.  Sure, he’s kind of hit-or-miss…but his knowledge (and experience) with the world of comics and sci-fi is pretty damn good.  And his dialogue concerning such subjects is rapid-fire brilliant at the best of times and smarmy other times.  In other words, a perfect fit.

Pictured: NOT a perfect fit.

Add a Full-time Female Foil

Penny is on the show as the everyman analog. She’s the majority of the viewers: a basic grasp of science and nerdity, but not immersed in it. She also fills the position that Spock and Data filled on Star Trek.  She’s an outsider, commenting on the human condition.  Okay, maybe that’s a stretch.  But the sexual tension-eye candy aspect of her character is wearing a bit thin.  How about you cast Felicia Day as a new neighbor?  Maybe she’s a librarian or something, adding some more literature-based nerdity to the show?  Felicia would have another purpose:  a tongue-in-cheek nod to all the REAL geeks out there.  Or how about Adrianne Curry as a professional cosplay girl?  One that dresses up as video game and comic book characters without a full-on grasp of the source material?  Whatever.  The point is, make Penny WORK to be the object of affection.  Maybe she’d realize how much she really does have in common with the guys?  It couldn’t hurt to add a new character or two.

Back when Stan the Man was…he, uh…what were we talking about?

Now, all these are long-term fixes, but I had a few one-off suggestions…

The Mirror Universe

Star Trek has done this several times, never better than the episode Mirror, Mirror form the original series.  In that episode, Kirk, Scotty, McCoy, and Uhura travel to a dimension exactly like ours, only in THAT universe the Federation has been replaced by the warlike Terran Federation and everyone is cruel and mean.  Spock even has a goatee, so you just KNOW he’s a badass.  Why not have some fun and have the Big Bang fellas find their way to Bizzaro World or somesuch.  Sheldon could be the captain of the lacrosse team at the local Community College.  Penny could be the lesbian astrophysicist astronaut and so on.  It would also open the door for full-on sexual relations and stuff.  Despite my disdain for the show itself, I have always thought very highly of the cast, and would love to see them really chew the scenery in some new situations that wouldn’t otherwise work.

See? The fanboys are already on this shit!

Time Travel

Another tried-and-true science fiction gimmick that would make sense due to the quantum-physics nature of the discussions and jokes on the show.  (Same would hold true for the Mirror Universe storyline.)  The fellows either go forward to see how their lives turn out or backwards to see themselves in the 80’s.   Again, you could explore the characters themselves and even add some humanity!  Romance!  Action!  Quantum entanglement and string theory!  WIN!

Or you could do it THIS way, I suppose…

Guest Directors/Writers

I mentioned turning the whole thing over to Joss Whedon and/or Kevin Smith earlier.  But realistically, this ain’t gonna happen.  But what if guys like that did guest spots?  What if J.J. Abrams wrote and directed an episode?  Quentin Tarantino directed an episode of E.R. once and it was awesome.  Why not?  There are guest stars on television programs all the time.  Throw in some writing and directing superstars and pump some life into this baby.

Sometimes the interwebs align themselves perfectly for the purposes of this blog.

So there you go, Hollywood.  Make some of this happen, or even just make a concerted effort to drag what could be a great show up out of the easy-joke, laugh-tracked abyss, and I’ll give it another chance.  I’m counting on you. You’re our only hope for this sitcom to live long and prosper. (See what I did there?)

Quick and Dirty.

Turner L. Watson 9 Comments

In reference to the title of this entry: THAT’S WHAT SHE SAID!  So, there’s that.

Anyway, I noticed a couple of things the other day.  One:  I start wayyyy too many paragraphs with “Anyway…” so I’ll try to get more creative with my transitions.  Two, thanks to you reading this blog (and all the other entries herein) I’m approaching 10,000 views since the beginning of August.  Dayum…I never figured people would actually want to read this!  So in all sincerity, thanks.  And keep spreading the word!  Would it be out of the realm of possibility to see 20,000 by the end of the year?  Or to put it bluntly: can a nigga get a table dance?

Anyway…

So they had me in a “Brainstorming” meeting today to help a client find ways to market a series of sex-type classes for couples.  I shit you not.  They actually WANTED me in there.  Most of my ideas were rejected.  I suggested that the client have a series of classes called “Your Wife’s Asshole Is Like a 9-Volt Battery: You Know You Shouldn’t Put Your Tongue On It, But You Will Anyway!”  I also mentioned that many of us would sign up for a class called “Bitch, It Ain’t Gonna Suck Itself” and also “What The FUCK Was That Noise, And Where Did It Come From?”  I was asked to leave the meeting early.  Their loss!  But while I was bored, some thoughts crept into my had.  Here are some of them…

1. You know what would be terrifying?  Not zombies.  Fuck zombies, man.  They’re slow. (REAL zombies are slow.  28 Days Later was Rage Virus, you imbecile.)  Ah, but what if some mad genius outfitted an army of zombies with Segway scooters?  A horde of undead douchebags with Bluetooth headsets coming after me? I’m OUTTA here, Jack! Get me to some stairs, stat!

While writing this piece, I had NO IDEA that this was already a thing! Seriously, Google "zombie on a seqway." I'll wait.

2. People know I don’t like the show Big Bang Theory (ahem…) but did you know that the guy that plays Sheldon on that show was recently a guest star on iCarly?  True story.  He played a patient in a mental ward, and he was actually very entertaining.  See, sometimes you have to hate the game, not the player.

3. I’m starting a rumor, right here and now, that a big-budget remake of “Smokey and the Bandit” is underway with Michael Bay writing/directing.  Ryan Reynolds has been cast as Bandit, and Emmy Award-winner Peter Dinklage is signed to play Smokey.  In fact, in this remake the name of the character Buford T. Justice has been changed to simply “Smokey” because they want this thing to be as stupid as humanly possible.  I love the Dink, and though I hate to see him belittle himself (see what I did there?) with this kind of role, but dude…strike while the iron’s hot!  (Seriously, though…his Tyrion Lannister is spot-fucking-on.)

TOTALLY not 'shopped.

4. Speaking of “Game of Thrones,” does anyone else think that George R. R. Martin only added the extra “R” initial so that people would call him “The American J.R.R. Tolkien?”  If so, that shit worked, because that’s EXACTLY what everybody calls him.  Maybe he’s just a big railroad fan.  Maybe somebody took his first choice, George H. W. Martin.  I ain’t care, long as he gets to writin’ some more books, y’all!

5. Finally, I learned recently that it was after the Battle of Bannockburn during the Scottish war of independence (the big one) that the esteemed GaGa’s received their peerage, land, and title.  Brave Lord GaGa so confounded the troops on both sides of the battle that Robert the Bruce was able to cement his claim to the Scottish throne by getting wasted and puking all over the Stone of Scone, which became customary at the coronation of every British monarch since.  In fact, the name of the sacred stone comes from the simple fact that scones were all the Bruce had eaten that day.  The English, upon seeing this horrifying display, wrote their digits on a bar napkin and left the field.  The Bruce never even called them back.  Actually, he totally ran into the English army a few weeks later and claimed he’d meant to call but couldn’t find their number.  Oh, and he dropped his phone in the toilet, so yeah.  But he suggested that maybe they could totally hang out one day.

"...the FUCK is he doing?!?"

The End.

Geek Rant: Big Bang Theory Isn’t Funny.

Turner L. Watson 68 Comments

Okay, goddammit…I can’t take it anymore.   It’s come to this.  Listen to me carefully, people.  Listen with your ears, and hear me with your soul.  The television show “Big Bang Theory” is bad.  Really bad.  Like, terrible.  And every time I bring that up to someone, they look as if I’ve sodomized their grandma’s cat whilst wearing my Obama t-shirt.  I hear responses like “Un-fucking-MURICAN! Fuckin’-A, IT’S FUGGIN HILARIOUS!!  EAT SHIT AND DIE, FAG!” And so on.

A little back story.  If you’re not familiar with this particular network television offering, the premise of Big Bang Theory centers around a bunch of physicists and their crew of stereotypically smart-yet-socially-awkward genius friends and the hot whore that lives across the hall.  Imagine “Seinfeld” if Jerry happened to work at the JPL and Kramer was a hot blonde actress.  Oh, and in order for this comparison to work you’d have to lose all of the funny stuff that made “Seinfeld” watchable and add a big, stupid, obvious LAUGH TRACK OVER EVERY GODDAM JOKE, ASIDE, LEER, SIGH, OR AWKWARD PAUSE.  But I digress.

MAKE HIM STOP! I'M PEEING MY PANTS! AGAIN!!

It’s funny to me that most of the people who find it odd that I don’t DVR every episode of “Theory” are not what I’d call “geeks.”  In fact, most of them are softball-playing frat boys or golf-addicted pseudo-jocks.  It’s like they know I’m a geek and expect me to love this piece of network crap simply because “well…them guys are all nerds like you!”  Brilliant. And therein lies the problem.  See, this show was created by Chuck Lorre.  Remember that guy?  He’s the creator of a show you may have heard of called “Two And A Half Men.”  Yes, the show with John Cryer and, oh…what was his name…the other guy? Gosh, can’t seem to remember.  He kind of disappeared after gracefully exiting the show.  Huh.  Anyway, “Men” is a huge success, and is based on the same formula that’s been used for television comedies for, well… EVER.  The Odd Couple, Three’s Company, Gilligan’s Island, House…the list goes on and on.  When it works, it’s comedy gold.  When it doesn’t…it’s “Big Bang Theory.”  God, even the name of the show pisses me off.  See. it’s a physics-related phrase that also has the word “BANG” in it, like “boy, we half-dicked science nerds sure would like to BANG a real female vagina…wait!  There’s a hot chick across the hall that would never even look our direction in real life, but now she’s woven into our lives to create sexual tension and give everyone something to masturbate to!”  BAZINGA!!

Bazinga.  Don’t even…no.  Not going there.

Yes. We know.

Comedy.  That’s what this show needs.  You know what this show has instead?  “Jokes” like these.  Seriously, here are some honest-to-god quotes from the show.  Try not to bust a gut…

“Scissors cuts paper, paper covers rock, rock crushes lizard, lizard poisons Spock, Spock smashes scissors, scissors decapitates lizard, lizard eats paper, paper disproves Spock, Spock vaporizes rock, and as it always has, rock crushes scissors.”  BWAAAAAHAHAHAHAHA!!! GET IT?  STAR TREK!!

 “A fear of heights is illogical. A fear of falling, on the other hand, is prudent and evolutionary.” WOOOO-HOOOO!  HE SAID “EVILOUSHUN!”  GEEKS ARE SOOOO FUNNY!!

“I don’t know how, but she is cheating! Nobody can be that attractive and this skilled at a video game.” I KNOW, RITE?  CHICKS CAN’T PWN NEWBS ON “NUKETOWN!”

“A neutron walks into a bar and asks how much for a drink. The bartender replies, ‘For you, no charge.’” Okay, so that one’s actually pretty funny.  Damn it.

The point is, these jokes are written, I’m guessing, by non-geeks who lurk on Reddit or have friends who’ve bought t-shirts from J!NX, and then try and write to an audience they don’t really “get.”  It’s like Michael Richards writing to the Spike Lee crowd, only with much less hatred.  But now the show has become wildly popular with the non-geek crowd, in part, I think, as a response to the fact that geeks are taking over the world.  Zuckerberg, Jobs, Gates, the Google guys…they are our new overlords.  The Large Hadron Collider makes CNN now and then when the CERN guys make a breakthrough.  Movie stars are seen wearing “Portal” shirts.  For a non-geek, the paradigm has shifted and maybe they’re just trying to catch up.  In which case, maybe I’m over-reacting.  Maybe I should welcome the frat boys who have traded in their Hollister shirts for a “Halo” or “Gears of War” t-shirt.  It’s a start.  (When I see them sporting “Team Fortress 2” or “Deus Ex” shirts, I’ll be impressed.)

SOME of you have got to get this...

In the meantime, me and the rest of the nerd, dorks, geeks, and wonks will be watching OUR shows.  Galactica, Dr. Who, Firefly, Mythbusters, and Arrested Development.  Some of those shows are obviously no longer on the air.  Maybe when the “Affliction” crowd catches up, those shows will be given another chance.

With a laugh track, of course.