Weekly Recaps of ITV's "Love and Marriage"

Howdy, peeps. Been a while, but I'm back with a new show on the brain. It's called Love and Marriage and it airs on the UK's ITV network on Wednesday nights. So far it's a trip. There's a ton of characters (it's hard to keep them all straight sometimes), and many of them have rocky marriages. I'm curious how it'll all play out since ITV's only ordered six episodes. Can they really wrap it up so quickly? We'll find out in a month, I guess.

Anyway, each week I'll recap the newest episode at Pound Place. Comes in handy if you miss an airing, but really the point is to get a conversation going. Don't be afraid to disagree with me! I love to read your comments, so please post your own observations below the recaps, especially when your view contradicts mine. That just keeps it fun. And balanced.

All right, enough introductions. You can read a summary of the first Love and Marriage episode here.

The Five Shows I Couldn't Live Without

Hi there, active viewers! Today is a very special day for me because, well, it’s my birthday. So, today’s blog is a little more personal, as I’m sure the title has already clued you in. The topic of the week will be… (cue fanfare)… the five shows that most impacted my life. These aren’t merely “favorites”—they’re my inspiration. The shows I was born for! So what better day to honor them than my birthday?

5. I Love Lucy

Ahh, the show that began my love affair with the sitcom. Yes, I do love Lucy. Who doesn’t? I was introduced to her by Nick at Nite in the early ‘90s, and her series promptly became my favorite TV show.

Something I’ve always liked about I Love Lucy is how the plot twists and turns in surprising ways before hitting the big, climactic scene. All the classic Lucy moments come from the big payoff, but the buildup is usually just as funny and almost never gives the climax away. Remember the one where Lucy is getting knives thrown at her? Being in a circus act is hardly the “plot” of that episode. It starts off—as many Lucy episodes do—with a bet: Ricky, Fred, and Ethel bet Lucy she can’t tell the truth for a full 24 hours. After a few scenes of side-splitting honesty, Lucy ends up at an audition, where she won’t be hired unless she lies about her experience. And in a turn of events you have to see to believe, she becomes the target in a knife-throwing act. That climax comes out of nowhere! But it’s well worth the wait.

On that same note, since most Lucy episodes are best recognized by their climax, I can’t begin to count how many times I’ve sat through half an episode before it finally hit me which one I was watching. “Oh! This is the one with the giant loaf of bread!” I might exclaim to myself. “But that part comes later.”

True, it comes later. But everything before it is just as funny.

4. Gilmore Girls

Stars Hollow is a magical little world—an unexpected mixture of “real” and “ideal” where even though the characters have their flaws, and personalities often clash, you somehow get the feeling that everything is going to be okay in the end.

But I didn’t always feel this way about Gilmore Girls. Though I loved it in the early years, I stopped watching when Rory went to college and lost her good judgment, as I saw it. It wasn’t until the series had been over for three years that I went back and finally finished it. And I found myself marveling at the writing. The realism behind the characters’ relationships is impeccable, particularly Lorelai and Emily’s strained mother-daughter ties. And the community of the small town, where everybody bickers but deep down would do anything for each other, is quite endearing and hard to dislike. After my viewing hiatus, I still didn’t agree with every little choice Lorelai and Rory made, but I realized that was the point. And that it made the series seem an awful lot like real life.

So why do I see the Gilmore Girls world as hopeful in the end? Because all relationships go through drama. And the most valuable ones survive it.

3. Zoobilee Zoo

Everyone’s entitled to their guilty pleasures. Mine is a Hallmark-sponsored kiddie show from the ‘80s starring adults dressed up in animal costumes. Uh… did I mention this is my guilty pleasure?

I’ve had to explain this series so many times, it’s become old-hat. (Isn’t it strange how no one understands an adult enjoying a children’s program? I mean, really!) Basically it’s a show about art and creativity. Zoobilee Zoo is a fictional little town inhabited by seven Zoobles, each of whom has a special talent—music, writing, acting, inventing, and so on. And with all that talent running around, you can be sure somebody’s going to do something creative in every episode.

The seven performers who played the Zoobles were simply awe-inspiring. In any given show, you might see them juggle, sing opera, do ballet, play the trumpet, tap dance, puppeteer, or lie on a bed of nails. But the characters they played were capable of even more than that. The Zoobles could do anything from writing a newspaper to inventing a time machine. And let me tell you, their world was full of fun adventures.

While I’ve mostly outgrown Lamb Chop, Sesame Street, and Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood, this one still entertains me. The scripts read like a traditional sitcom, only better because there’s singing, dancing, and wholesome lesson-learning going on all throughout.

Good clean fun never goes out of style.

2. The Facts of Life

Back in middle school, Jo, Blair, Natalie, and Tootie were some of my best friends. Together we laughed, together we learned, and together we faced the hardships of growing up.

The series’ message is summed up nicely in its theme song: “You take the good, you take the bad, you take ‘em both, and there you have the facts of life.” That about says it all. Unlike many shows, which take a hodgepodge of one-liners and combine them with an irrelevant plot, this series dared to tackle some of life’s most difficult, relevant subjects before getting to the happy ending—drugs, sex, alcoholism, teen marriage, shoplifting, gossip, etc., etc., etc.

Of course, being a sitcom, the emphasis was always on the good, and they always tried to end on a happy note. But some episodes don’t even have a happy ending. They can’t. When you’re dealing with heavy issues like cancer or having an affair, lasting damage is done to the people involved. The pain doesn’t go away in 30 minutes. As I’m sure the Facts of Life writers realized, when creating a show that’s true to life, certain conflicts can only be addressed, not resolved.

You gotta wonder, how does such an edgy show come off as a comedy for young girls? It had heart. The main characters were like your closest friends—optimistic, pessimistic, naïve, experienced, ready to laugh, ready to cry, and everything in between. This show was brilliant.

1. The Dick Van Dyke Show

I’ve wanted to be a comedy writer ever since I could work the video camera, but that’s not why I love The Dick Van Dyke Show. I love it because it’s hilarious. It’s the life of a comedy writer… as written by comedy writers. Do premises get any more perfect than that? Nope, they don’t.

As usual, part of what I think makes this show great is that it’s realistic. I know I’ve been harping on that idea for a while now, but in this show’s case it’s especially true. Creator Carl Reiner specifically stated when the series began that he wanted these characters and situations to ring true for the audience, even if they were a little exaggerated for added humor. As a result, many episodes were based on real-life situations that had happened to the show’s writers and cast, and they have a certain homey feeling to them.

Honestly, I’m at a loss for further words, so I’ll simply let the show speak for itself. In this scene, Rob and Laura have overheard Jerry and Millie saying unkind things about them, and now, even though they’re both raging mad, they’ve still decided to attend the Helpers’ dinner party.

At the end of the day, it’s not much of a stretch to imagine that Rob and Laura Petrie are real suburbanites living in New Rochelle somewhere, that Rob works downtown with fellow writers Buddy Sorrell and Sally Rogers, and that on weekends they all enjoy card games with neighbors Jerry and Millie Helper.

I kind of wish I could go visit them all.

What Will We Be Mocking in 25 Years?

It may be cliché, but New Year’s Eve is typically a day for thinking about the future. After all, tomorrow will be a brand new year, and the next 365 days are just waiting to be filled with good things.

What’s on my mind today is the future of comedy. More specifically, what the comedy writers of tomorrow will think of the comedy series of today. And the reason I’m pondering this, of all subjects, is because the most successful comedies of the day are drenched to the skin in parody.

The TV parody trend really started gaining momentum around the time The Brady Bunch Movie came out in 1995. Sure, spoofs and satires had been around for centuries before then, but The Brady Bunch Movie, despite being a film, was a significant milestone in TV history.

(The movie takes the Brady family out of the ‘70s and places them in the ‘90s, where they are exceptionally out of touch with reality. Their heartfelt cheesiness and utter ignorance of the ways of the world tend to bewilder the people around them, but the Bradys are oblivious. They just keep on movin’ and keep on groovin’ to their own rhythm, their over-the-top smiles never leaving their faces.)

The film was more than just a playful spoof—it completely redefined the TV show. These characters that Sherwood Schwartz had created with utmost sincerity were so out of place in the “real world,” it made you wonder if the Bradys ever were hip, even in their own time. It gave the audience this idea to consider: Wasn’t The Brady Bunch kind of stupid?

And thus started the craze of mocking old TV shows. A slew of movies followed.

Will the next generation make fun of The Office?

Fifteen years later, mockery and television had formed a different kind of relationship. In light of movies spoofing old shows for taking themselves too seriously, networks started coming out with new shows that spoofed themselves by pretending to take themselves seriously. Confused? I’m talking about mockumentaries—The Office, Modern Family, Parks and Recreation, that sort of thing. I’m also talking about satires like 30 Rock. These programs are all cut from the same dry-humored cloth. They’re written to be spoofs of real life, and none of them takes itself seriously. At all.

So my question is: Where will comedy go from here? The sitcom genre has evolved from cutesy slices of life into sarcastic jabs at life spoken with mock seriousness. And yes, it’s hilarious. There’s no doubt about that. But… where can we go from here?

And what will we be mocking in 25 years? Can we expect a How I Met Your Mother movie making fun of Barney’s catchphrases and Robin’s pop star past… which are somewhat spoofs of themselves already? How do you spoof a spoof?

Will the next generation make fun of Grey's Anatomy?

My conjecture is that in a few decades' time, the butt of the joke will be police and medical dramas such as CSI and Grey’s Anatomy. Sure, people take these shows very seriously now, but I assure you the emotional attachment will have worn off by 2036. Today’s comedies, on the other hand, have already covered their tracks. They’re immune to future ridicule because they’re already making fun of themselves now. And perhaps that will render them—dare I say it?—timeless.

Overall, with this offbeat brand of comedy in the air, it’ll be interesting to see what kind of sitcoms come later. My gut tells me, however, that regardless of what other trends come along, the classic three-camera sitcom will live on forever, sincerity and all, no matter how cheesy it may look to us in a quarter of a century.

What do you think?

Psst... Happy New Year!

Have Yourself a Merry Little Sitcom

With the Christmas season already here and Christmas day approaching fast, most everybody has already commenced the festive holiday traditions that get them into a yuletide spirit this time of year. Typical activities include: keeping the radio at nonstop Christmas music starting December 1st, spending your Christmas bonus at Walmart so none of the relatives will feel left out of the gift exchange, getting sick of Christmas music by the 12th, and of course, hauling an evergreen tree into the middle of your living room, which you adorn with lights, strips of foil, and little glass balls.

Legend has it that holidays of yore also included caroling, roasting chestnuts, and sending Christmas cards, which in this day and age seems to have been replaced by mass texts and Facebook statuses along the lines of “Merry Xmas! #yule.”

But there’s another tradition I uphold that somehow never quite caught on. I’m not sure why—it’s fun, festive, and funny. You guessed it! Every December I watch the Christmas episodes of my favorite TV shows.

Most people bring out holiday movies to get in a merry mood, but not me. This time of year, I always rely on the sitcoms. While they may not be as deep and thought-provoking as the likes of It’s a Wonderful Life, they still achieve their ultimate goal—putting a smile on the viewers’ faces.

A great example is the Family Ties episode “A Keaton Christmas Carol,” where Alex’s Scrooge-like behavior provokes a visit from the ghosts of Christmas Past and Christmas Future, who bear striking resemblances to his sisters, Jennifer and Mallory. This clip includes my favorite scene, starting at 3:15: in the future, Alex is rich, fat, and bald, and his impoverished family ecstatically grovels at his feet.

Another classic is the one and only Dick Van Dyke Show Christmas episode. Written as a holiday-themed Alan Brady Show, it features the cast doing what they do best—singing, dancing, and being funny, all with a holiday twist. Here’s a small taste of the merriment, featuring actress Rose Marie singing her wish list to Santa. What do you think the perpetually single Sally Rogers wants for Christmas? A husband, of course! This song features one of the best holiday puns I’ve ever heard: “Give me an Adam on Christmas Eve.”

But the sitcom whose holiday episodes really take the fruitcake is Family Matters. In its nine-season run, the series had seven shows for Christmas and five for Halloween, plus the occasional Valentine’s Day. And the stories always fit the spirit of the holiday. The yuletide episodes, for instance, customarily included the singing of a hymn and even occasional allusions to the real Christmas story—the birth of Jesus Christ. I’ve seen a lot of Christmas shows, and Family Matters’ just always seem a cut above the rest. Here’s the full episode of “Christmas is Where the Heart Is,” complete with Dutch subtitles, where Carl and Steve get stuck on the El on their way back from Christmas shopping.

So, perhaps this tradition of watching festive sitcoms won’t catch on with the general public anytime soon, but I’ve been doing it for about ten years now and will probably continue for another ten, if not longer. It just doesn’t feel like Christmas without them.

And since you made it to the end of the post, here’s my gift to you—Jo and Natalie from The Facts of Life singing “We Need a Little Christmas” to entertain some inmates. Unfortunately the intro is cut off, but it’s still gobs of fun. Merry Christmas!

TV, Books, and Brains: The Oompa Loompas vs. Marilla Cuthbert

Oompa Loompa doo-ba-dee-doo, I’ve got another blog here for you…

“Don’t watch so much TV,” your parents might have told you. “You’ll lower your IQ.”

Many studies confirm television can have a negative effect on child development. Kids become more violent; their IQ scores are generally lower; their reading skills diminish. I may love sitcoms, but even I have to admit it’s smart to turn off the tube and get outside once in a while. Spending time with a friend, for instance, is far more stimulating to me than a Friends rerun.

But if the little green-haired, orange-faced men from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory taught us anything, it’s that children aren’t perfect. They can have a slew of problems even before they hit their teens. So sang the Oompa Loompas, “If you’re not greedy, you will go far,” and you would “live in happiness” if you took their advice.

Assuming you’re familiar with the 1971 musical, you’ll remember the unfortunate demises of Augustus, Violet, Veruca, and Mike, the four bratty kids who found Golden Tickets along with Charlie. Augustus was too fat, Violet too rude, and Veruca too spoiled. And then there was Mike Teevee, who was so glued to his set that, according to his proud mother, he never once came to the table for dinner. After Mike got himself shrunk and was carried off in his mom's purse, the Oompa Loompas sang:

What do you get from a glut of TV?

A pain in the neck and an IQ of three

Why don’t you try simply reading a book?

Or could you just not bear to look?

You’ll get no commercials

These lyrics reflect a common idea in our society: Books are better for your brain than television is. Now, I’m no psychologist, so I can’t be the one to judge if the claim is absolute truth (my personal belief, supported by these two articles, is that it depends on the content and how you choose to respond to it). But it is widely accepted that novels inherently trump sitcoms. The attitude is if your child is a reader, do not discourage him because nothing bad can come of incessant reading. TV, on the other hand, strains their eyes and inhibits brain development.

However, if the characters in Anne of Green Gables are any indication, the fears we have today about TV-watching are the same fears people at the turn of the century once held about book-reading. Consider this excerpt:

“This is my little girl Diana,” said Mrs. Barry. “Diana, you might take Anne out into the garden and show her your flowers. It will be better for you than straining your eyes over that book. She reads entirely too much—” this to Marilla as the little girls went out—“and I can't prevent her, for her father aids and abets her. She's always poring over a book. I'm glad she has the prospect of a playmate— perhaps it will take her more out-of-doors.”

Mrs. Barry didn’t want her daughter straining her eyes over a novel, and preferred that she go outside and play with a friend. Here is another example, spoken after Anne announced she had started a writing club:

“I think this story-writing business is the foolishest yet,” scoffed Marilla. “You'll get a pack of nonsense into your heads and waste time that should be put on your lessons. Reading stories is bad enough but writing them is worse.”

Thus, Marilla disliked Anne’s reading because it filled her head with “nonsense,” as did creative writing, apparently. To Marilla, fiction had no educational value, and Anne’s time was better spent on schoolwork where she would really be learning something. Books, it might be said, inhibited her brain development.

Isn’t that interesting? These days we tell kids, “Turn off the TV and go read.” But back in 1908, parents were saying, “Put down the book and go play,” or “go study.” What we think of as a stimulating activity today, back then was a waste of time.

But if we had to choose between them, are books better than TV, inherently?

Sorry, I don't have the answer, and I'm not sure it's even a testable question.

But what I do believe is that whether you're reading a novel, watching a sitcom, riding a bike, or talking to a friend, in many ways the constructiveness of the activity is up to you. It can be a waste of time, or it can be beneficial to your growth. It's your call.

That's what I think, anyway, and I certainly invite dissenting opinions.

What do you think?

Are We God's Soap Opera?

Have you ever considered deism?

If not, let me boil it down for you. It’s the idea that God created the world, then kicked his feet up on the coffee table and left it alone. His work is done; now he watches us like a TV show, silently, never intervening to change the storyline.

He’s a couch potato.

Sure, there’s a little more to deism than that, but those are the implications. God doesn’t get involved; he just watches.

What kind of a God is that? If the ups and downs of our lives can’t motivate him to interact with us, he must find us terribly boring. Think about fans of real TV shows. Think about how engrossed we get in the stories, the characters, the world they live in. What Gilmore Girls fan wouldn’t love to vacation in Stars Hollow? What LOST fan doesn’t wish they could go exploring on that treasure-filled island? If we could step through the screen and walk around inside their universe, we would. In a heartbeat.

And then there’s unscripted shows. Shows like American Idol and Dancing with the Stars. Their fans are thrilled to get involved because they know their votes make a difference in how the plot unfolds. It’s like a choose-your-own-adventure that the whole country can participate in. And judging by these series’ consistent spots in the top 10, most of the country does join in.

What about God? He’s got even more of a reason to want to be involved in our lives, because he didn’t just flip to the Earth channel and discover our world—he made it himself. What artist is apathetic toward his art? What parent is apathetic toward his children?

What God is apathetic toward the world?

A Post for October – More Posts On the Way!

Well, it happened. The cares of life got in the way, and I've been too distracted and busy to blog for well over a month. How sad! It's been so long since I last blogged that when I started typing the Active Viewing web address into my browser today, Internet Explorer didn't offer to finish it for me.

But I'm here to tell you that starting in November, the dry spell will be over. More posts are on the way, and I'm kicking off the new month with a real doozy, so stay tuned (and put your philosophical thinking caps on). Can't wait!

In other news, Free Agents, the awful new series I predicted wouldn't last 14 episodes, hasn't even lasted five. It was canceled the first week of October after its fourth episode, and I can't say I'm surprised. May it rest in peace. Likewise, How to be a Gentleman performed so abysmally (compared to its lead-in, The Big Bang Theory) during its Thursday-night premiere that it was immediately moved to Saturdays, where it was effectively canceled after the airing of its second episode. CBS tried to make use of the seven remaining episodes by continuing to air them on Saturdays, but even that idea was nixed after one week. So goodbye, crappy comedies! I anxiously await the premiere and sudden cancellation of the other new show I dubbed as "going nowhere" -- I Hate My Teenage Daughter. It starts at the end of November.

On the flip side, the two biggest hit comedies of the pilot season are 2 Broke Girls and New Girl. Looks like funny females are “in” this year. Zooey Deschanel’s personality is even more magnetic than I anticipated in New Girl, and I’m on the edge of my seat waiting for the one-month hiatus to be over already. Come on, FOX! You snatch away this little gem after whetting our appetites with only three episodes?? Bring it back!

2 Broke Girls, on the other hand, would be exactly as I pictured if only it would tone down the crudeness. Raunchy jokes are completely unnecessary when you’ve got great characters like Max and Caroline to work with. These girls are terrific together! At first I was concerned their friendship would be a carbon copy of Blair Warner and Jo Polniaczek’s in The Facts of Life, but it isn’t. It’s completely original. Max and Caroline go places Blair and Jo never did, like bargain-hunting at Goodwill and scraping money together for a cupcake business. And Max isn’t resentful of Caroline for having been rich—in fact, she’d love to be rich herself—and that’s a breath of fresh air after watching Jo get angry about Blair’s money in episode after episode of Facts of Life. All in all, 2 Broke Girls has consistently ranked first in its timeslot, and despite the crude humor, I think it’ll be around for a while.

Full-season orders are also in for Up All Night, Whitney, and Suburgatory, but it’s still too early to tell what the future holds for Man Up! and Last Man Standing, which have only been on for a few weeks. What we do know is that their ratings drop a little more every week, which doesn’t look hopeful at this point.

But I must conclude by getting something off my chest—I was wrong. (You’re shocked, I know.) Yes, I admit it, I thought Steve Carell’s departure from The Office was a sure sign of its forthcoming demise. But I have been pleasantly surprised by the quality of the series since Steve Carell left. In fact, this is the first season I’ve watched regularly. Haven’t missed an episode. The ensemble cast sustains the show quite well without Michael Scott, and making Andy Bernard the new boss has given it an interesting twist. So accept my apologies, Office fans. I wish your favorite series a long-lasting future.