I said, "Meh" to most of the Emmy wins this year, but...

Congratulations to Glenn Close for her Emmy win for her portrayal of Patty Hewes of FX’s Damages!! An amazing show, an amazing character, an amazing actress!

OMFG!

If you’ll remember, in this post about Entourage, I ridicule the thought that Gossip Girl can make it past the graduation from high school of most of its main characters.

September 14’s “Reversals of Fortune” may as well have begun with credits reading: “We probably should have made them freshmen in season one, but, shucks, the success of this show surprised us as much as it surprised everyone else.”

The show then proceeded to launch into a frenzied effort to build ridiculous sub-plots that have only one purpose: to distract viewers from the fact that all of these kids are supposed to be starting at prestigious Ivy League schools next week, thereby ending the drama their day-to-day contact creates.

Serena (Blake Lively)’s big plan is to taunt her estranged father with paparazzi photos of her in innumerable compromising positions so that he’ll take her calls. Now, I’m with the rest of the world in thinking that Blake Lively may be an escapee from some lab whose purpose is to create the perfect woman, but, you know what, I just don’t see much plot potential here. And that’s too bad, because Serena was in need of some serious growth—-her character hasn’t been interesting in a very long time. But no, the writers have instead decided to rest in the easy stereotype of “daddy issues.”

Add to that a gratuitous sex plot featuring Chuck (Ed Westwick) and Blair (Leighton Meester) that reinforces a stereotypical need of women to belittle their “competition” and folks, we’ve got ourselves a R-E-A-L winner of a season.

Everyone take a deep breath...

Near the end of the second season of The OC, Sports Guy Bill Simmons of ESPN Page 2 fame wrote a fantastic column comparing 90210 to The OC. He gives the ultimate edge to 90210 (which turned out to be the correct assessment—90210 ran for ten years while The OC barely made it four), and one of his reasons is plot development: “At the rate they're going, by Season 4, we'll see Ryan kidnapped by a UFO or something.” Actually season four saw Ryan falling into an alternate universe where, in a parody of It’s a Wonderful Life, he got to see what Newport Beach would be like without him, but still, a pretty good prediction.

I’m worried about Glee already.

Last night’s season premiere, “Showmance,” included the following: the glee club appearing to at least temporarily win over the student body and principal (Igbal Theba), Rachel (Lea Michele) being driven to desperation by her attraction to Finn (Cory Monteith), Emma (Jayma Mays) making desperate plays for Will (Matthew Morrison), Rachel almost making out with Finn, the revelation that Terri (Jessalyn Gilsig) is experiencing a hysterical pregnancy, Terri lying to Will about said pregnancy, Sue (Jane Lynch) planting some of her Cheerios on the glee club in an effort to destroy it, Will falling for Sue’s ploy and giving Rachel’s solo to cheerleader Quinn (Dianna Argon—could they cram anymore ex-Heroes into this show?), Emma reaching closure on attraction to Will and agreeing to date Ken (Patrick Gallagher), and Will quitting his second job so far for this series—a nighttime janitorial gig at the school that was meant to finance a new house that he and Terri both decide to buy and abandon the idea of buying in the same episode.

At this rate, Glee might be kidnapped by a UFO this season.

This manic flurry of activity isn’t a good trait in a sitcom, and not just because of the “viewers already feel like they need to watch each episode twice to keep up” factor. The message of instant gratification that the show promotes in its female characters (because its male characters all seem to drift through the action obliviously) is potentially a destructive one: if insta-resolution can’t be reached, the problem is with you!

The show has a lot of built-in, quirky edginess that needs to be allowed to develop, not thrust upon viewers by the mountain-full. It’s okay, Glee, you’ve got more than enough hype and viewership to guarantee that even the Fox guillotine will stick with you for at least one season.

There was a reason that they went away the first time, you know...

E! Online is reporting that the CW’s remake of Melrose Place only pulled a disappointing 2.3 million viewers.

What?! No takers for filling the vacancies left by the likes of Heather Locklear, Courtney Thorne-Smith, and Marcia Cross with tweens with no major acting credits? Really?! It couldn’t possibly be because the people that were originally captivated by this show are now WAY out of your normal demographic, could it, CW?

In fairness, I haven’t seen it, and I’m not likely to. The lack of internet buzz tells me all I need to know.

It was kind of cute when they brought back 90210. But season one’s debut out-performed season two’s debut by a two-to-one margin. Message: people only watched the show to see how Jennie Garth and Shannen Doherty aged, and now they’re over it. And in the interim, the CW continues to give teenage girls everywhere adult models that are past the awkwardness of adolescence as prototypes of what it takes to be among the non-tortured elite of your local high school. Way to go, guys, I’m sure you haven’t inspired any eating disorders or desperation to grow up too fast AT ALL.

Start Your Engines...

It’s the day after Labor Day, which can only mean one thing: Fox and the CW try to conquer the 18-49 crowd’s quota of new TV shows before anyone else can.

I’m prepared to be disappointed, but here are the new shows that I’m excited about:

1) The Good Wife (CBS). I don’t know why, but CBS shows seldom do it for me. But Chris Noth returning to a variation of his role as Mr. Big? You have my full attention. I’m a little worried that the show is going to over-rely on star power, with Mr. Sex and the City and Juliana Margulies of ER fame as the two leads, but I do love a good female reinvention drama.
2) The Modern Family (ABC). I’m hoping that this show will be what In The Motherhood should have been. But given ABC’s track record with the subject (In the Motherhood, Surviving Surburbia…) it’s more a hope-springs-eternal mindset that pushes this show to the number two slot.
3) Glee (Fox). Attention: Fox has finally learned that targeted marketing works! IMDB reports that the show, which is basically a remake of the ill-fated Freaks and Geeks set to music, is currently up 793% in popularity. The gleek in me was already prepared to love this show, and the fact that it gives a home to the genius of Jane Lynch (late of The L Word) and Lea Michele (of the Broadway genius Spring Awakening) convinced me. But Fox? You know how sometimes you get over-excited about the rare potential Nielson success of one of your launches and proceed to pimp the show until everyone is sick of it? The tweet-peats have gotta go.
4) Cougar Town (ABC). It seems to be the year for re-launching the careers of former network stars that enjoyed cult-followings. If that’s going to be the theme, I’m glad that Courtney Cox made the cut, even if it is with playing the reincarnation of Edie Brit from Desperate Housewives. Tons of talent involved in this series—Cox plus Bill Lawrence (Scrubs)’s skills as producer—I’m hoping that the script will reflect it in a fast-paced snark-fest. Hopefully the time slot (9:30 on Wednesday), doesn’t mean that it’s just a placeholder for the return of LOST in January.
5) Eastwick (ABC). I cannot imagine the fabled town of Eastwick without Jack Nicholson, Michelle Pfeiffer, Susan Sarandon, and Cher, but for the sake of the tremendous combined talents of Lindsay Price, Rebecca Romijn, and Jamie Ray Newman, I’m going to try. And it would be nice to see ABC be able to expand their woman-friendly line-up into the realm of fantasy.

Sorry, CW. The early premiere didn't work here. You're further down on the DVR prioritizer.

But these, I will miss.

Yesterday, I talked about what shows I was overjoyed to see banished from the idiot box.

Today, I’m mourning fallen shows that, to varying degrees, were interesting for women. Unfortunately, this list is a lot longer:

The L Word (Showtime). I’m actually impressed that The L Word made it as long as it did. The show was a wonderful exploration of the mania of living in a community bound by a life of otherness. And it did so without being preachy. The final two seasons moved away from this exploration in favor of scandalous hook-ups, which proved to be the show’s ultimate undoing. The series’ finale, “Last Word,” was more a manic surrender than anything else.

Lipstick Jungle (NBC): I’ve said it here before: it’s tough to make a show that needs to capitalize on the Sex and the City void to be successful when you have to censor the gratuitous sex and swearing to squeak it through network approval. After just two seasons, Lipstick Jungle finally lost the fight. It turns out that women’s problems that aren’t solved by Jimmy Choo’s aren’t as commercially viable, which is a sad social comment.

Privileged (CW). Privileged might have made it on a different network, but it’s not right for the CW’s demographic, who tune into Gossip Girl, America’s Next Top Model, and 90210. The quarter-life crisis of a Yale graduate just didn’t fit in the line-up. It’s a pity, Megan (Joanna Garcia) was one of the most relatable characters on television for the twenty-something crowd that, like this author, hasn’t quite realized their ambitions for what they want to be when they grow up.

The Starter Wife (USA). This cancellation might be one of the saddest, if only for the realization that, when the boys make fun of the more ridiculous qualities of Hollywood on Entourage, it’s a blockbuster, but when the girls do it on The Starter Wife, it gets cancelled. Plus, I’m a sucker for Debra Messing, and think it’s sad that she’ll probably never find a post-Will and Grace home.

The Unusuals (ABC). This show not finding a following is one of those things that make me think I’m hopelessly out of touch with popular reality. The show was packed with talent like Amber Tamblyn (Gilmore Girls and Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants), Harrold Perrineau (LOST), and Adam Goldberg (Entourage and How to Lose a Guy in Ten Days). The script had a Seinfeld-esque quirkishness that made you laugh, shake your head, and see bits of yourself and your friends in everyone on the screen.

So long, friends! It is with a heavy heart that I delete you from the DVR prioritizer.

I needed to make sure that they were really dead…

The cancellations of the following shows are victories for all of womankind:

In the Motherhood (ABC). I view this show's inability to gain a viewership as a mark that there is, in fact, still a world worthy of typical collegiate aspirations of saving it. ABC marketed the show as being about the “challenges of juggling motherhood with work and love lives in a complicated modern world.” It was really about an obsessive-compulsive competitive parenter raising children she’s already made into basket-cases, a washed up rockstar that didn’t appear to parent at all, and a working mom that didn’t appear to work or mom. There was no juggling or challenge—just an uninspired reveling in defeat.

Kath and Kim (NBC). Every few years, Molly Shannon tries to make some non-SNL TV comeback. Every one of them gets yanked in a few episodes, probably because her slapstick, flat characters just don’t work in anything but sketches. And it’s generally a bad sign when one of your leads, Selma Blair, tells the media that she’s embarrassed to be seen in her costumes. Here’s to not celebrating mediocrity!

Feel Good Feminism

Every summer, re-runs and reality television eventually send me running to places like Lifetime, the network specialists in easily consumed moral dramadies. And, honestly, I don’t usually mind. Sometimes I need to be reminded that while totalizing and lasting change is the ultimate goal of feminism, its prerequisite is an individual change in consciousness. Lifetime lets me watch that happen to varying degrees of cheesiness.

And this summer’s Drop Dead Diva was one tasty hunk of cheese. Jane (Brooke Elliot), a plus-sized attorney, is shot and killed (at her office, by the husband of a woman the managing partner is banging—talk about a hazardous work environment). At the same time Deb (Brooke D’Orsay), an aspiring model heading to an audition for The Price is Right, is hit by a fruit truck. Deb arrives in heaven, and is informed that she’s too shallow to warrant heaven or hell. While gatekeeper Fred (Ben Feldman) puzzles over this anomaly (I guess it’s good it doesn’t happen often… right?), Deb hits the “return” button on his computer’s keyboard. She’s returned, but into the newly vacant body of Jane. You see where we’re headed: the gag of making the pretty girl switch places with the fat girl is as old as TV itself, but somehow, set against a backdrop of economic depression, the return to “lookism” takes on a fresher quality than we had any right to expect.

Jane conquers all sorts of social issues: waitresses fired for weight gain (July 19’s “The ‘F’ Word”), wrongful imprisonment (August 16’s “Second Chances”), and starvation plans fraudulently marketed as diets (August 23’s “The Magic Bullet”). And the whole time, Deb is learning what the world is like when you’re not granted immunity from social rules because you’re gorgeous. It’s the kind of show that makes you wish that there really was a way to let people experience discrimination first-hand.

Candace Bushnell, in her newest attempt to prove that vapid materialism is somehow empowerment, 4 Blondes, has a guy that gets laid because he’s rich remark to a prominent editor, “You used to be pretty yourself. Before you got smart.” Drop Dead Diva’s one failure is that it doesn’t touch this either/or dilemma: in fact, it banks on it. Stacy (April Bowlby), Deb’s friend (and the only one who knows that she’s Jane) is routinely stumped by the simplest day-to-day tasks of her career as an unemployed model. Kim (Kate Levering), presented in the show as Jane’s “attractive” counterpart, routinely bests the clearly more capable Jane with her greater feminine wiles. I’m not saying that they have to go Legally Blonde, but some attention to this aspect of “lookism” would be nice, since Lifetime has announced that the show will be back for a second season.