More Shows, Less Quality
“Black. White.”
Here’s the premise: a black family gets made up to look white, and a white family gets made up to look black. They go out in the world and experience life as the other race, and they also live in the same house during this time. Pretty interesting, isn’t it? The first question I had was whether the make-up would be realistic, and to be honest it’s pretty good. It looks like they go through quite a session at the beginning of every day in order to look like they do. My second question was how staged and conveniently edited this whole thing would be. The answer? Very.
It would be intriguing to me to see the participants experience everyday life as another race. Instead, the “white” husband goes to an expensive pro shop and is amazed when he receives great service. The “black” daughter goes to a slam poetry class and can’t find a way to blend in (in a scene which was actually pretty hilarious). The “white” son goes to an etiquette school and feels uncomfortable. I can tell you without hesitation that I would also feel uncomfortable in an etiquette school.
There are some genuine moments among all the silliness, however. For example, Bruno (white husband dressed in his black makeup) and Brian (black husband with no makeup) walk down a sidewalk together, and they watch the reactions of the people they come in contact with. Afterwards they talk about how they saw the same reactions, but understood different meanings to them. Brian thought that people were intimidated when they moved to the side, but Bruno just saw people taking up the sidewalk who were getting out of the way.
So there are some scenarios that are designed to make the families uncomfortable and be amusing, but the better part of the show happens when they experience regular everyday situations (the focus groups about racism, where each family participated as a member of the opposite race, were painful to watch). If nothing else, this series is worth checking out for an episode, just to see some of these interesting parts. The big problem that I have (and my wife tells me the families were on Oprah and discussed this) is that some scenes are edited to make racism seem more prevalent in situations where it doesn’t really exist. This show shouldn’t need that kind of thing to make it intriguing, and it makes me feel kind of cheated that I don’t know what’s real and what’s not all the time. Still though, it’s worth a look.
Final score: 3 cents.
By the way, if you just want to see the makeup, you can just check the website.
“The Loop”
I was looking forward to watching “The Loop”, what with the positive blurbs I’d seen from critics. I thought perhaps Fox was taking a step toward atoning for canceling the best comedy on TV (because they surely wouldn’t do it with one show). Unfortunately, that just wasn’t the case.
“The Loop” is a comedy in the same vein as “The Office”, except it’s at an airline instead of a paper sales office, and also it’s not as funny. The show focuses on Sam (Bret Harrison), an employee at an unnamed airline. I didn’t catch the significance of his position, but he seems to be in favor with the boss (Phillip Baker Hall, who deserves better). There’s also Sam’s brother, who is a slacker and spends his time at home, partying, or playing tricks on Sam; pretty much your basic slacker activities. Rounding out the characters is the girl that Sam likes, who predictably has a boyfriend and is clueless that Sam likes her. As far as she’s concerned, they’re good friends.
So that’s about it as far as plot goes. There were some developments in the pilot episode, but mostly it’s just a bunch of over-the-top, almost slapstick comedy with a lot of name-calling. Seriously, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a show where so many people are called so many names. The boss calls his employees “assclowns”, a little girl calls Sam “Gaylord” when he needs to borrow her bike for an emergency, and there’s much more creative names as well. Among the name-calling are some obscure jokes. For example, the slacker shaved Sam’s head in one spot while Sam was passed out from being drunk. He didn’t notice it until the next day at work, which obviously caused some embarrassment. So to get his brother back, Sam planted mousetraps in a place where his brother was sure to venture (I can’t remember where it was). This ended up with the slacker having mousetraps all over himself and saying something to the effect of, “Good job, Montezuma.” Was that…like…because he got revenge? I guess.
Comedy aside, the storyline was obvious and predictable, which is forgivable if the comedy is good enough (it wasn’t). The appeal of “The Office” is that it’s realistic. This seems like it’s trying to go in that same direction, but also trying to make things a bit more WACKY! It seems to me that the show thinks it’s cleverer than it actually is, and as difficult as it may be, I almost felt like it was condescending with the references and jokes that you would only get if you were following some unknown person’s train of thought. There were some funny parts, but not nearly enough for all the trying they did. This is by no means appalling, but also not something you should bother with.
Final Score: 2 cents.
“The New Adventures of Old Christine”
This is one of those shows where you’ll never really know if it’s any good, because it won’t be as good as “Seinfeld”. It’s one thing for a star on a popular sitcom to get into drama, or into movies, but to venture back into sitcoms is almost always a recipe for disaster. This one isn’t quite a disaster, but it’s also nothing to shout about.
Basically, Julia Louis-Dreyfus is old Christine, and her ex-husband’s girlfriend is new Christine. Hence the title. The other details aren’t that important, to be quite honest. There’s a laugh track (boo), and occasionally there are some funny parts. But for the most part, this is more of the same. I get the impression that the cast is actually pretty good, but unfortunately they don’t have much to work with, which is a shame.
Final Score: 2 cents.
I didn’t review a few shows this week. “Miracle Workers” was on my TiVo for long enough that I decided I’d never be in the mood to watch it, so I canned that one. “Sons and Daughters” is on at the same time as “House”, “Scrubs”, and “The Unit”. So I wasn’t about to get into another show in that timeslot. I wasn’t interested at all in “American Inventor”, and “Modern Men” looked like another bad comedy from the WB. I couldn’t stomach another bad comedy this week.
Here’s the premise: a black family gets made up to look white, and a white family gets made up to look black. They go out in the world and experience life as the other race, and they also live in the same house during this time. Pretty interesting, isn’t it? The first question I had was whether the make-up would be realistic, and to be honest it’s pretty good. It looks like they go through quite a session at the beginning of every day in order to look like they do. My second question was how staged and conveniently edited this whole thing would be. The answer? Very.
It would be intriguing to me to see the participants experience everyday life as another race. Instead, the “white” husband goes to an expensive pro shop and is amazed when he receives great service. The “black” daughter goes to a slam poetry class and can’t find a way to blend in (in a scene which was actually pretty hilarious). The “white” son goes to an etiquette school and feels uncomfortable. I can tell you without hesitation that I would also feel uncomfortable in an etiquette school.
There are some genuine moments among all the silliness, however. For example, Bruno (white husband dressed in his black makeup) and Brian (black husband with no makeup) walk down a sidewalk together, and they watch the reactions of the people they come in contact with. Afterwards they talk about how they saw the same reactions, but understood different meanings to them. Brian thought that people were intimidated when they moved to the side, but Bruno just saw people taking up the sidewalk who were getting out of the way.
So there are some scenarios that are designed to make the families uncomfortable and be amusing, but the better part of the show happens when they experience regular everyday situations (the focus groups about racism, where each family participated as a member of the opposite race, were painful to watch). If nothing else, this series is worth checking out for an episode, just to see some of these interesting parts. The big problem that I have (and my wife tells me the families were on Oprah and discussed this) is that some scenes are edited to make racism seem more prevalent in situations where it doesn’t really exist. This show shouldn’t need that kind of thing to make it intriguing, and it makes me feel kind of cheated that I don’t know what’s real and what’s not all the time. Still though, it’s worth a look.
Final score: 3 cents.
By the way, if you just want to see the makeup, you can just check the website.
“The Loop”
I was looking forward to watching “The Loop”, what with the positive blurbs I’d seen from critics. I thought perhaps Fox was taking a step toward atoning for canceling the best comedy on TV (because they surely wouldn’t do it with one show). Unfortunately, that just wasn’t the case.
“The Loop” is a comedy in the same vein as “The Office”, except it’s at an airline instead of a paper sales office, and also it’s not as funny. The show focuses on Sam (Bret Harrison), an employee at an unnamed airline. I didn’t catch the significance of his position, but he seems to be in favor with the boss (Phillip Baker Hall, who deserves better). There’s also Sam’s brother, who is a slacker and spends his time at home, partying, or playing tricks on Sam; pretty much your basic slacker activities. Rounding out the characters is the girl that Sam likes, who predictably has a boyfriend and is clueless that Sam likes her. As far as she’s concerned, they’re good friends.
So that’s about it as far as plot goes. There were some developments in the pilot episode, but mostly it’s just a bunch of over-the-top, almost slapstick comedy with a lot of name-calling. Seriously, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a show where so many people are called so many names. The boss calls his employees “assclowns”, a little girl calls Sam “Gaylord” when he needs to borrow her bike for an emergency, and there’s much more creative names as well. Among the name-calling are some obscure jokes. For example, the slacker shaved Sam’s head in one spot while Sam was passed out from being drunk. He didn’t notice it until the next day at work, which obviously caused some embarrassment. So to get his brother back, Sam planted mousetraps in a place where his brother was sure to venture (I can’t remember where it was). This ended up with the slacker having mousetraps all over himself and saying something to the effect of, “Good job, Montezuma.” Was that…like…because he got revenge? I guess.
Comedy aside, the storyline was obvious and predictable, which is forgivable if the comedy is good enough (it wasn’t). The appeal of “The Office” is that it’s realistic. This seems like it’s trying to go in that same direction, but also trying to make things a bit more WACKY! It seems to me that the show thinks it’s cleverer than it actually is, and as difficult as it may be, I almost felt like it was condescending with the references and jokes that you would only get if you were following some unknown person’s train of thought. There were some funny parts, but not nearly enough for all the trying they did. This is by no means appalling, but also not something you should bother with.
Final Score: 2 cents.
“The New Adventures of Old Christine”
This is one of those shows where you’ll never really know if it’s any good, because it won’t be as good as “Seinfeld”. It’s one thing for a star on a popular sitcom to get into drama, or into movies, but to venture back into sitcoms is almost always a recipe for disaster. This one isn’t quite a disaster, but it’s also nothing to shout about.
Basically, Julia Louis-Dreyfus is old Christine, and her ex-husband’s girlfriend is new Christine. Hence the title. The other details aren’t that important, to be quite honest. There’s a laugh track (boo), and occasionally there are some funny parts. But for the most part, this is more of the same. I get the impression that the cast is actually pretty good, but unfortunately they don’t have much to work with, which is a shame.
Final Score: 2 cents.
I didn’t review a few shows this week. “Miracle Workers” was on my TiVo for long enough that I decided I’d never be in the mood to watch it, so I canned that one. “Sons and Daughters” is on at the same time as “House”, “Scrubs”, and “The Unit”. So I wasn’t about to get into another show in that timeslot. I wasn’t interested at all in “American Inventor”, and “Modern Men” looked like another bad comedy from the WB. I couldn’t stomach another bad comedy this week.
Tha Docta's two cents. | 12:23 PM
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