TV Shows That I Look Down On But Remain Guilty Pleasures
Submitted by yvgeny on Sat, 10/08/2005 - 01:44
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- Law and Order (and its spinoffs) - Maybe they used to make an effort to make it realistic and actually good but the effort of churning out fifteen scripts a day probably has taken its toll on quality. Especially on SVU, the cops and prosecutors come off as brusque and self-righteous as they dismiss proper procedure for what they think is "justice." That's okay with me but the show doesn't seem aware of that or at least thinks it's the right thing to do. I find that puts police and prosecutors in a much poorer light than the Shield ever does. But I watch it because it is like comfort food.
- Super Nanny - It is just funny to watch people who cannot control their children. They are so inept. The thing is some of these people churn out three or four kids before they realize they suck and ask for help. Then this woman comes in and gives them basic skills that any sane person should know. Hilarious.
- Any one of a thousand cable home improvement shows - It's like Ikea stuff: it looks good from a distance at first but the quality is bleh and after a while it probably starts to deteriorate badly. C'mon, complete renovations in three days? Ridiculous.
- Extreme Makeover: Home Edition - I remember that when they first started, they used to actually just renovate an existing house. Then they said, "Let's just always raze the previous one and start from scratch." I guess this is easier if the place is a complete dump. But is fun to watch a home improvement show where money is no object.
- Animal Cops - The human variety of cops is tired and old now but this show rescues little animals and usually reveals another group of crazy people, the animal hoarders.
- Stargate SG-1 - My roommate has pointed out that it is really good and funny because it is very self-referential and the characters make snide comments about the shortcomings of the show itself, therefore not taking itself too seriously. Well, that doesn't make it a double negative that cancels itself out. I mean just because something sucks and then happens to know it and knowingly points it out doesn't automatically make it good. It makes it smart but lazy actually because they don't want to fix what they know is crap. And so I have to sit through all the crap just to listen to the few good lines which are about how the rest of the show is crap? But it's sci-fi, so I'll watch it.
- Frasier - The jokes are tired, the stories are typical sit-com recycles and the character permise of "oh he's so cultured and so uptight" rings false sometimes and very cliched at others. But the actors are good and the show is well done so it is no effort to just plop down and devote a half-hour to it.
- Yes, Dear - Another ho hum family comedy but maybe I watch it because the little rebellious teen from Uncle Buck has little ones of her own to deal with now. I guess John Candy did a good job of teaching her a life lesson.
- Becker - I like Ted Danson. This show reminds me a lot of the John Laroquette Show.
Also ever noticed that super nanny uses the same idea every week but just puts a spin on it like "bad Step" or "bad Circle" it's the same thing!! :) but still a funny show to watch if you get a chance.
Precisely!
I try to watch as much television as possible. I'm also wracked with guilt most of the time. Coincidence? You decide.
Re: Laws & Order
You put it so well when you say "it is like comfort food." Which is why I wouldn't say that they're "churning out fifteen scripts a day" for Dick Wolf. I think they've got three scripts and they re-enact them every week. L&O:TOS has a decade and a half of back catalogue and only the cast(s) have changed. Not the roles, they never change. Old cop, young cop, Lieutenant, DA, ADA and assistant-ADA. This is often frustrating because you can be twenty minutes into a show before it hits, "Hey! I've seen this before." If you've seen one you've seen them all and you can watch them over and over and over (look out, Gunsmoke) and over.
L&O:TOS is about the epic battle of well-intentioned bureaucrats within a flawed system. The devil is in the details and then it's trade-off, trade-off, dubious comeuppance. Repeat as necessary. L&O:CI is about the increasing desperation that drives criminals (Hey! That's "intent.") Their web is impeccably untangled by Det. Goren, played by VincentbestactorontelevisionD'Onofrio. His partner is there to emotionally validate him (and our reactions) while his boss and the ADA are there to skeptically grade his homework... casework... work. I'm guessing the detective dynamic will be inverted in this season's split cast episodes (which means another spinoff, a complete cast turnover or cancellation.) L&O:TBJ was about female intuition and the building of consensus to arrive at the best possible emotional and practical outcome. Television doesn't deal well with women and so, in spite of great work by Bebe Neuwirth, it has become L&O:RIP.
Finally, L&O:SVU is all about the struggle to intellectually deal with sexual violence. It isn't about the conflict between cops and criminals. It is about the conflict between an emotional, sympathetic reaction and a repressed, angry response. Det. Benson, played by MariskabesttelevisionactressHargitay, supplies the feminine empathy while her partner provides the masculine violence. The characters may "come off as brusque and self-righteous" because there is quite a bit of ground to cover. It takes a lot of exposition to manoeuvre everything into place so that either of the lead roles can provide one kind of caharsis or the other...
...at least that's what I think.
As for Frasier...
Farce is surprisingly hard to do. Fawlty Towers did it just a dozen times. Frasier did it for almost a dozen years. Say what you will about the relative quality of specific shows and various seasons, that is an amazing accomplishment. (It's interesting to think how well Kelsey Grammer's slow burn and rising desperation as Frasier Crane compare to John Cleese's Basil Fawlty. I wonder what Cleese, armed with a co-star the quality of David Hyde Pierce, would have done over the course of a decade... my mind boggles.) It's not that Frasier is "so cultured and so uptight" it's that he's so desperate to be thought of as cultured and not uptight.
I must say that I'm envious of your satellite package if you think Frasier's plots are typical and recycled. My television seems to get nothing but shows about overweight blue collar men with a couple cute kids and thin blonde wives who want to discuss their "relationship."
I agree with you about L&O having the same script over and over again. What I meant was having to churn out numerous different episodes means that the writers are forced to recycle.
One of the things I do like about the original L&O is that they explore a lot of moral dilemmas, legal technicalities and judicial rigamarole that face the law enforcement personnel and the episodes don't always end with an easy answer.
Plus, a lot of the episodes reflect recent high profile cases which makes it interesting. Which leads me into why I particularly don't find SVU to be as good.
With SVU, specifically, I don't have a problem with the rough and angry way they act. What's problematic is more of a story writing issue when they hit up parolees and it is deliberately a red herring. Afterwards, the funny thing is, they pretty much ruin the sex offender's chance at any sort of rehabilitation, resorting to intimidation of the sex offender's family and acquaintances. In one episode, they practically pushed the pervert to return to his old ways solely due to their insistence that "once a sex offender always a sex offender" setting up an elaborate entrapment scenario. While the show did mention briefly that this might be using unethical tactics, it was only to dismiss it very quickly as necessary with not much justification. This kind of thing has become quite regular and I could see it being very interesting as moral quandary of whether criminals as disgusting as these have any sort of "rights" but it is annoying to see it easily dismissed every time. While emotionally satisfying to see the main characters exorcise their demons and sex offenders get their commupance, it's a departure from the realistic police procedures that are supposed to be the basis of L&O.
With Frasier, the plots are tired and recycled within the show itself not in comparison other shows. There is a repetition that becomes annoying when there isn't enough variation on a plot for it to be distinguishable from another. There is a difference between a running joke and lazy writing.
dear god...it's like you crawled into my [denying the truth] mind and put it all in black and white. good call on L&O and supernanny...can't get enough of that naughty mat, or the way jo says "unasseptable"