"We'll Put on a Performance Like They'll Never Forget!"

In case you can't tell from the title of this blog, I'm still hate-watching Smash. I've had it with the over the top drama that begs the question, does the content serve the form or the form serve the content? I mean, this IS a show about the drama of Broadway. Is the ridiculous drama meant to immerse us into that culture? Or could the show possibly be approached from a slightly different form that would allow us to appreciate the drama of the actual musical within the show. As it stands now, the scenes that are musical numbers seem LESS strained than the interactions between characters and bipolar plot twists. Talk about some high highs and some low lows...

How can these people afford to sit around and wait for Jennifer Hudson to save their show?

Glee has desensitized us from being turned off by characters bursting into song. Nashville has worked music into the drama of their show seamlessly. But Smash...well...it plays like...a musical. Which to some people is bad enough. Remember when you took your friend to see Evita and they were like..."What! There was no talking!" It happens. The thing is, I'm a person who loves musicals. But I like GOOD musicals. Smash is not too different from the off-off---OFF Broadway shows that it's referring to in the film. The only thing is that...those musicals don't get NEAR the attention or talent that is given to this one. It would never have such a "high-powered" financial backer like Anjelica Huston's character. Nor those writers with so much success under their belts.

You're gonna love me.

Now when I say talent, I am being very hesitant and even selective. I mean...Ivy. She is the only enjoyable part of this show. Watching Debra Messing with a perma-frown is no fun after her years as Grace...and where is her hair? Jennifer Hudson's appearance was simply to boost the show back onto our radar. And don't EVEN get me started on Katherine McPhee. Is there like a "Fembot American Idol Club" that she and Carrie Underwood are members of? You can be pretty all day long, but can you carry on a conversation? Can you raise your eyebrows in time with your emotions? Come on! I worry that someone like Idina Menzel is going to get pegged for this show...but I seriously hope she will remember her RENT days and jump over the moon, laughing at "the man" (the man being Smash) all the way. Of course, her level of talent might be what it takes to save this show. Do we want it saved?

Frenemies. More of this please.

Aside from the talent, the writers of this show should be ashamed of themselves. No one gets away with rhetorical dialogue without a laugh track or a Shonda Rhimes backing. Stop writing the obvious and throw us for a loop. Let Ivy lean into her badness. Let Katherine lose her ridiculous faux innocence that no one even buys because we all know in real life she's a bitch, and let's get on with this thing. Enough with the affair scandals. We want to see you focus on 2 things: The Musical and The Competition. And by the way, this season better end with the musical being on GO, so that next season (oh geez, I just said that...) can be about the drama of actually making a musical. And here's the thing...if the show will get it's act together...then I guarantee we could be seeing an ACTUAL SMASH MUSICAL on Broadway in a few years. Stranger things have happened. Right?

Look, I gave up on Revenge. I gave up on Once Upon a Time. Smash...you're next if you don't watch out. Now..get out there and give me a performance that I'll never forget!

Are you (still) watching Smash? What do you think?

21 Reasons The World Could/Should End Tomorrow

I think internal combustion is better than the way it went down in Melancholia.

I cannot bear to watch Anne Hathaway win an Oscar.

I’ve lost some weight this year in China and the Southern cooking I will enjoy in 2 weeks would probably set me back.

I can die happily now that I’ve heard, enjoyed, and been adequately obsessed with Pictures of You by The Cure.

Who wants to live in a world without Twinkies?

I can’t stand the thought of watching Daryl Dixon die on The Walking Dead.

We have a black president, which according to my Chinese students “is exactly how it happened in the movie 2012. And there was Hurricane Sandy too.”

No more time wasted hate-watching Smash.

Lindsay Lohan cannot/should not sink any lower. This would guarantee she does not.

Something’s gotta stop Grey’s Anatomy.

I’m on the fence about Moulin Rouge 2: The Great Gatsby.

All those Americans waiting on Downton Abbey Season 3....

Who wants to live in a world where 6 year olds get shot in their classrooms?

Dick Clark died this year, and no one wants to see Ryan Seacrest ring in the New Year.

You haven’t bought your Christmas gifts yet, and you deserve a break.

I marked off a major “bucket list” item-Climbing the Great Wall. 

Auburn fans really don’t want to endure another Alabama National Championship.

Women can die happy after having seen Magic Mike.

No one really wants to see The Hangover 3. 

Glee is out of agendas.

I’ve already pinned ALL THE THINGS on Pinterest.

Now that we know who Gossip Girl is, we can die...happy.

Which reasons did I miss? Which do you want to add?

What I am ACTUALLY Watching

I've decided to tell you what I am actually watching, since we all go back and forth about TV so much on this blog. These are not in order of importance or favorite at all. They are kind of in order by genre if anything. If you are watching a show you want covered on the blog, then feel free to write up a post and send it to me at catidwell222@gmail.com I'd love more writers and more input. As you can see, I have my hands full. Some spoilers below on various shows...

The Walking Dead-So much misguided anger this season! And I want them to take baths. I've been around West Georgia and there are TONS of creeks and lakes. No reason to be filthy. Also, I might be late to the game, but as I watched the first episode of Season 3, I couldn't help but think...."OH...so THE Main Characters are the walking dead..."
666 Park Avenue-If LOST, American Horror and Gossip Girl had a baby it would be this show.
American Horror Story-Since so many shows have come back this season causing "meh" reactions, I gotta say I'm glad AHS is attempting a different storyline altogether. And wow, they are off to a great start!
Dexter-I always thought the show should END with Deb finding out about Dexter, so now that we've crossed that bridge I'm a little indifferent about things at the moment. Where is this gonna go?

New York.

SVU-Mariska Hargitay. Enough said.
Scandal-I am so conflicted over this show in so many ways. But I will stick around cause I love old Shonda.
Homeland-This is what Scandal wishes it were.
Revenge-I have never LOVED a Season 1 so much only to hate Season 2 so much. Get it together!
Grey's Anatomy-Have I mentioned that this needs to be the last season? Cause it needs to be. I hear Neve Campbell is coming on...NO NO NO, no more new people...wind it down please.
Parenthood-Best. Show. On. TV.
Nashville-Connie Britton was fabulous, and even though the 10 months I spent in Nashville weren't great, this makes me want to go back a give it another try. Plus...I mean, it's about music!
SmashI was hate-watching this show last season, and I will do the same this time around.
Glee-When Glee gets emotional, so do I. The Break-Up episode was Glee at its finest. More character building, less cheesy plot please.
Once Upon A Time-Again, strong Season 1, but this time around it's just losing steam.

Long Island

SNL-Sure it's all political at the moment, but soon it might find a nice retreat back into the relevant references of pop-culture. Best skit so far was either Bond Girls or Tech Talk.
30 Rock-I'm a fan in every since of the word. I will miss them after this season!
The Office-Dying a slow and painful death...
Community-I am cynical that without Dan Harmon it will be any good, but when done well, this show is pretty close to perfect. Oh...IF IT EVER COMES ON AGAIN!
Parks and Recreation-Thank God for Ron Swanson, Donna and April!
Up All Night-I am really rooting for this one, but I need more Maya and Christina interaction.
Raising Hope-This is so underrated, but it really delivers every week consistently.

Brooklyn

Two Broke Girls-Ok...so this is my "sleeper hit" of the year. My friend Joni was watching and told me to check it out. I fully expected to hate it. It has a laugh track, manufactured banter, and lots of sexual innuendo. And yet, I LOVE IT. The girls are adorable and the set up of the show is clever.
Modern Family-Another consistently strong show.
The Neighbors-Don't judge me...but this show is really cute. Yes, there are aliens, but I have been showing it to my Chinese students and they LOVE it.
The New Normal-Ryan Murphy, creator of Glee, American Horror Story, and Nip/Tuck, kind of took a few characters and plots from a few different shows and mixed them into this one. It's working, but I don't think it will last too long. Still, I like it enough.

That's at least 20 hours of TV a week. I will probably add Criminal Minds, Body of Proof, Gossip Girl, and sprinkle in some Real Housewives (New Jersey and New York) here and there. And I would LIKE to start on How I Met Your Mother, Gilmore Girls, and Downton Abbey.

I guess you could say, I watch TV like it's my job.

How many hours a week do you watch? BE HONEST!

Some Complexities of Hollywood

There's a quote that I love and I recently heard it a few times in one week:

Hollywood is the only place where 

you can die from encouragement.

I heard it the same week I watched a documentary called, The Hollywood Complex, and the drama, My Week With Marilyn. Both are worth watching. 

Stunning.

My Week With Marilyn really attempts to dive into the complex person that Marilyn Monroe really was. With Smash and other mentions of her in pop-culture in the last few years, it's become clear that Monroe was not just the girl with the flying skirt standing over the vent. She loved literature, she was smart, she took her craft seriously, she wanted desperately to be taken seriously. And for every clever comment she had to enthrall the media, she was absent the practical steps to cope with her celebrity.

I happen to love Michelle Williams, even though I find most of her characters painfully tragic. I think she is beautiful and ambitious. I love that her best friend is Busy Phillips and I love that she seems generally respected and even adored in Hollywood. I will always appreciate her from the movie Dick, where she and Kirsten Dunst unwittingly happen upon Watergate. Hysterical. Williams nails the part of Monroe. I actually forgot that I was watching an actress at one point. It's a slow movie, and you must really enjoy drama and story to enjoy it. But it's worth a watch if you have any interest at all in who Monroe really was, and what those around her thought of her, and what Hollywood did to her. Though in this movie we only get a glimpse. It doesn't go into her demise, only gives hints as to how it destroyed her.

Please pick me!

The Hollywood Complex is much more blatant in its handling of what Hollywood does to people. The documentary follows a few families who live at a resort for hopeful child actors. These families come to L.A. during casting season and take classes and network hoping to land even an audition. My mouth hung open during the majority of the movie. I couldn't believe the sacrifice of time and money that these people put into hoping that their child might become one in thousands who are trying to get a small part in even a commercial. The movie also reveals another more substantial sacrifice. That of normalcy, that of family. Many of the kids and mothers live away from their fathers and other family members for over half the year. While it's a fun opportunity for the kids, I can't imagine how it plays into feeling as though they have failed when they are unable to land a gig that will cover the costs of being there. When they hear their parents fight about how long to stay, and when to return home. If you like documentaries, or have ever wondered how people try to get their kids noticed, watch it. 

I Hate Myself For Loving You, Glee

Still one of the greatest logos ever.

For weeks now I’ve been purposefully putting off blogging about Glee. But tonight I finally watched the season finale, and I can’t put this blog off any longer. In my other blog, I have spent too many posts venting about and promoting Glee over the years. Part of the problem with blogging about Glee is that my thoughts are as scattered as the show. Sometimes I love it. Other times it’s on par with Smash: I’m just hate-watching it to keep up.

I guess my biggest beef with Glee over the years is the way it approaches the agenda/issues it deals with. Domestic violence and body image cannot be solved in a single day. And so in some ways, Glee is a throwback to TV in the early 90’s and before where Danny Tanner sat down with DJ after her latest shenanigan and soft music played and they hugged and all was right in the world again. Only, I don’t wanna go back there! 

My two favorite characters. I like divas.

Glee has spent time creating great characters, it wouldn’t kill it to carry a heavy storyline through more than one episode. But then again, the show has spent three seasons with heavy handed preaching about homosexuality. I guess I just want some balance. Treat all of the issues equally. Spread them out and spend some time on them or deliver them all with anecdotal solutions. At least this way there wouldn’t be such a variation between heartfelt authenticity and taking really serious problems way too lightly. The show would come off as more believable, more applicable, and the characters would not be such caricatures of themselves. 

Having said all of that...

DAMN YOU GLEE with your pretty faces and good music. You suck me in EVERY TIME with at least one of my favorite songs, even though it’s usually over-processed and emotionally charged. 

The season finale was no different. I cried five times. I thought it was a great ending. And I kind of thought I would want to pick it apart when I finally wrote this blog, but I don’t. Maybe later this summer when I’m not so heartbroken over the end I will dissect it for sport. But for now, I just want to let it sink in. The hug between Sue and Quinn, Santana’s mom believing in her, the confessional conversation between Finn and Mr. Shoe, and the long awaited image of Rachel walking through New York. 

Pure Glee.

Sigh. I miss them and their issues already.

It's The Final Countdown: How To Leave 'Em Wanting More

One summer a friend of mine and I were working at a camp together. We were given the task to entertain a group of children for an hour. We only had a parachute. She pulled the parachute out began to play with the children. They loved it! But about 30 minutes in, she packed up the parachute and had them play tag, followed by hide and go seek. I was confused. That parachute would have easily entertained them for the entire hour. When I asked her about it later she said something I'd heard a million times, but never really seen in action: "Always leave 'em wanting more!" By quitting at the height of their enjoyment, she could always return with the parachute, it would always entertain them, it would always be successful.

Most fun ever.

It should be that way with television. Each season, we cross our fingers and wait to see if our love for characters, humor, and drama have translated into enough ratings and money to secure a place in next year's line up. This year, the news I was the most anxious to hear revolved around 30 Rock, Parenthood, SMASH (don't judge me) American Horror Story, and Community. All were renewed, even if some of those renewals had conditions such as: Community without Dan Harmon, rumors of entirely new story lines/characters in American Horror Story, and a final season for 30 Rock. I can live with that...just bring them back, I'm not ready to lose them yet!


Listen, no one wants to see their favorite shows cancelled. My cousin and I were the only ones in the world watching Best Friends Forever, and we both understand why it's gone, but are we happy about it? No. Because it speaks to some part of us. We all have our attachment issues, and breaking up is hard to do. But there's one thing that's worse that missing your favorite show....and that's watching it be totally ruined.

I miss them!

There are 2 kinds of show endings. The first is that the creators of the show decide it's time to cut it off. The second is that the network isn't making enough money and decides to cut it off. The most common is the second kind, because the truth is that people don't know when to put the "parachute" away. One notable exception to this is my personal favorite TV show in the history of TV, Six Feet Under. I will fight you to the death about the perfection of Six Feet Under. And here's the amazing thing, it only went 5 seasons. Because creator, Alan Ball, came to the network and said that he felt that the show had run it's course. Yeah, you heard me. He fired himself. But he did it because what he was creating with Six Feet Under was about making good TV. Not about staying on the air as long as possible!


The problem with TV today (wow, I sound old, uptight, and like I know everything. I'm not old.) is that somehow the networks and creators haven't caught onto the fact that for the most part, the generation they are dealing with these days wants authenticity, cleverness, and a sense of purpose. We want it in our own lives, and we want it in the TV characters' lives. And so when a show like ER ends with an entirely different cast than where it started, it doesn't feel real! That's not how we live our lives! It feels desperate and grasping and like this is really all about a paycheck.

Who are these people?

Don't get me wrong, I KNOW it's all about a paycheck, but I don't want to be reminded that it's all about a paycheck. I want to see a story arc come to completion, run it's course. I want to see characters evolve as they face hardship (even if that hardship is a bit too dramatic at times) and come out on the other side. I want to relate to them. And if it's a comedy, I want the inside jokes and one liners that started the show to end with it. Friends was great at this. The characters were strong, they evolved, we literally watched them grow up on TV, and before it was too silly or over the top or they took too many trips out of the country or used too many green screens, it ended. And we still love it today.

Perfect Timing.

But some of our favorites are in danger of going too long. It's time for a few of those shows that we love to consider saying goodbye. Now, don't get upset with me as I name your favorite show for cancellation material, but remember the parachute story. Don't you want to be able to miss it and watch it again without thinking of how boring it got in the end? We are talking quality here, not quantity. I suggest the following shows should go 1 more season and end, securing their places on pedestals instead of falling into the category of "Yeah, I used to watch it before..."

Community-I know. It hasn't been on long enough. But it's been on the chopping block since its inception.  And now, without Dan Harmon, I have my doubts. My friend Amy suggested that the 3 part finale of this season could have served as a great series closer. I agree. But it didn't go quite like that. And so if for some reason, Community actually manages to survive next year, I don't think that it should survive another year after that. Plus, it's community college. They have to leave at some point. And don't even THINK about bringing in new characters.

The Office-Please go away. Not only is it depressing seeing Jim and Pam all married with kids and not nearly as adorable as they once were (a writing issue, not a life situation issue), but Michael Scott was the heart of the show. To try to continue it without him has left me trying to remember why that red headed lady from Florida is in Michael's office and why Andy is acting like a fool. I would be okay to never see James Spader again (the same way I felt about him after seeing The Secretary), and even Dwight's antics can't revive this show. Please, just let it die. Write an ending. Shut Dunder Mifflin Down. Let Dwight and Jim be co-managers. ANYTHING. Just...enough. It hurts to watch.

When it's all over, I vote for a cooking show with Dexter as the host. Specialty: Breakfast.

Dexter-It's finally happened. Deb has finally seen the real Dexter. So, next season it's Deb vs. Dexter. We've always known it had to be this way. But it really has to end this way, and it has to end this season. Deb could go down in history in the Miami Metro Police Department if she turns him in. Is Dexter cold-hearted enough to go after Deb? Can they talk through it? Can Dexter explain and justify his reasons for killing? Will Deb let Dexter go, or will she pull a Sound of Music whistle blow on him and send him running for the hills? If none of the above happen, then we are looking at either the death of Deb, or incest, neither of which we want to see. Kill it off before it's squirming, please.


30 Rock-You know my love for this show, and I've already read that next season is the last. I'm glad. The show has always been a little exaggerated, but within regards to the revolving door of characters, it's been tamed to the love interests of Jack or Liz. This season, bringing on a new page, Hazel, just about killed me. The actress herself drives me crazy, but she doesn't work in the cast. We love Kenneth. But we love him for the role he plays, which is not the protagonist. Liz is the protagonist (though Jack would argue that). The page storyline just gets us off focus from where we really want to be. Tracy, Jenna, Liz, and Jack. So, please. Let Jack call Nancy Donovan (Julianne Moore) and rekindle with her happily in Boston, let Kenneth rise to Jack's position as the new executive, and for the love of God give Liz her baby with her current adorable boyfriend, while she is still happily working on TGS. Let her finally, have it all. 

Grey's Anatomy-You know I love it, but it's time to go. I want to see the characters land. They are grown up doctors now, with grown up relationships. It's time to tie up the loose ends. If Arizona is gonna die, let Mark and Callie live happily ever after. Meredith and Derek have a child now, we want to see them be responsible enough to stay together and raise her after they fought so hard for her. Yang and Hunt are going to get back together and pour themselves into that hospital. Let Bailey have her man. And Alex. Sigh...Alex. Just don't bring in a new batch of residents and get some ER thing going. I don't want this show to be unrecognizable in 5 years. 

Speaking of always leave 'em wanting more...I cannot WAIT!

What shows do you want to see cancelled before they go bad?