Ava: The Client List starts season two tonight on Lifetime.
Jim: Ava and C.I. cover TV here and their plan was to cover that show this week. I asked them to grab a documentary instead. Since they're not noting The Client List in a review, I said we'd use it for the illustration and promised we'd get the edition up before the show aired.
Ava: The series stars Jennifer Love Hewitt. She's a mother of two kids whose husband walks out as they're facing foreclosure on their home. She takes a job as a massage therapist but the big paying clients want more than a massage. The show started life as a highly rated 2010 TV movie. Last April, season one of the show began airing. Along with Jennifer Love Hewitt as Riley, the casst includes Cybill Shepherd as Riley's mother Lynette, Loretta Devine as the owner of the massage parlor Georgia, Colin Egglesfield as Riley's brother-in-law Evan, Brian Hallisay as the runaway husband Kyle, Rebecca Field as Riley's best friend Lacey and Greg Grunberg as Lacey's husband Dale. Season two starts tonight.
Jim: I think it's an entertaining show but I'm going to play devil's advocate here. This is a show glorifying prostitution.
C.I.: I don't know that it glorifies prostitution. Lacey's speech to Riley in season one was pretty clear and you've got Jolene who refuses to provide anything other than a massage. I know it's confusing with dumb asses these days who mistake portrayals for endorsements, but I don't know that it's glorifying prostitution. Prostitution exists. Sex workers exist. Some women -- and some men -- are employed as such. I don't know that a value judgment needs to be made on the show.
Jim: What about a message?
C.I.: See we're supposed to love pot so we never worry about the message of Weeds -- Mary-Louise Parker's great Showtime series. Why are we supposed to be worried about the message of The Client List? Do people wrongly think it airs as a Saturday morning cartoon? It airs on Lifetime -- a cable channel whose audience is largely adult women.
Jim: But as feminists, can you endorse the show?
Ava: We enjoy the show. Do we endorse it? Yes, it's well made, it pulls the audience in and it's providing actors with some wonderful opportunities. Weeds really is the perfect comparison. In that show, the mother has to move pot to provide for her family. Riley's got two kids to support and a home she's about to lose. Repeatedly, she's praised for her strength. And she is very strong. Would I choose to be a sex-worker? Not my first choice, no. But my life doesn't have to be up there on screen for me to enjoy it. There's a comedy aspect to the show. You can argue there's fantasy aspect to the show -- as there was with Weeds -- in that it's showing a very up and positive sex worker experience. But it's well written and it's well acted. The women aren't doormats and the women aren't stereotypes. Lacey is a rounded woman, that just makes her sexy. She's all the more appealing to her husband. I praise the show for that. In a TV world of stick figures, I praise them for having a sexy, fun loving character who is not thin. Along with body type, there's the fact that Lynette, Riley's mother, is an important part of the show. Cybill's not comic relief the way Lily Tomlin is on Reba's new show. Cybill's got an active life on the show. She's a grandmother, she works a job outside the home, she most recently fell for Brian Kerwin. It's presenting various women. Is Lorette Devine a little too sweet to be a madam? For some people, she may be. I think she's hilarious and touching in the role.
C.I.: I'd point out that Love is a producer of the show. Season one was ten episodes. That matters because of what I'm about to talk about. Ava's talking about the great show in front of the camera and how inclusive it is. That's happening behind the camera too and Jennifer Love Hewitt and Lifetime deserve real credit for that. Six of the ten episodes were written by women. Four of the ten episodes were directed by women. By contrast, it took Weeds three seasons to come up with four women directors -- three seasons and 33 episodes. Modern Family was on episode 65 when it finally had it's fourth episode directed by a woman. So give Jennifer and Lifetime and everyone involved real credit for those numbers. Also, disclosure, as noted before Ava and I both know Jennifer Love Hewitt.
Jim: Okay, let's move over to Betty. 666 Park Avenue is dead.
Betty: Correct. Usually, it's Stan that ends up blogging about the show or shows that end up axed.
Marcia: Or me!
Betty: Or Marcia. I don't think the show got a fair shot. I think it had problems but it was getting better and it was worth watching.
Jim: You can go back in time and change one thing on the show, what do you change?
Betty: The lead. I'm not trying to pick on her but it's supposed to be a fragile character. The actress, , may have only been five foot-two, I don't know, but she looked tall on camera, Rachael Taylor. I would have gone with someone smaller. The character needed to be seen as fragile. Taylor isn't. By the time we're supposed to be worried that she's cracking up, the question on most viewers minds was probably why she wasn't kicking demon butt considered her athletic body. Taylor was good in the role but I would have cast the part with someone who you physically feared for.
Jim: Now you blog about Whitney. You, Ann and Marcia are the Whitney bloggers.
Ann: That started because of Ava and C.I.'s "TV: The perverts still drool over Shirley Temple." The show was being savaged and we three decided to watch the show and give it a chance. We did and agreed it was as funny as Ava and C.I. said. You had all these men and male-identifying women writers calling for the show to be killed. We didn't think we could save it but we thought we could use our voices to offer a different take and some support.
Jim: That was season one. Season two did not please, did it, Marcia?
Marcia: No. And Betty was saying that before we started blogging it. Finally, Betty reached her blogging point and said she was calling the show out.
Betty: No one was telling me, "Betty, don't!" I just didn't want to.
Jim: What was so awful? Ann, go first?
Ann: Losing Neil was a big deal. There were six characters. One was gone and that wasn't planned. When he realized he was gay, they could have written him off. Instead it was, we still love you, you're our friend. But then season two opens and I guess they don't love him anymore.
Marcia: Because he's gone.
Ann: Because he's gone. And that effected things but that wasn't the only problem.
Marcia: There was the fight. Each episode was a fight between Alex and Whitney. They would argue and get mad and then make up. It was like a special episode of Mad About You. Only more boring. And more predicatable. And with all the emphasis on Whitney and Alex, it really didn't leave time for Roxanne, Lily and Mark to have storylines -- let alone new character RJ.
Ann: It really did get old, every week, a new fight.
Betty: And who wants to watch that. Season one ended with Alex and Whitney unable to get married due to one problem after another. This season started with them deciding to call themselves married. I didn't like that. I didn't like Whitney suddenly becoming her version of a home maker. I didn't like the fact that she had no money and no job -- season one she had a job -- and was dependent upon Alex for money. I didn't like that she solved fights with sexual favors.
Marcia: What Betty's describing? That's not season one. We fell in love with a great show in season one. Season two started off bad and got worse. When did it finally get better? Episode five. Suddenly, Lily got a subplot and they brought back Alex's ex-fiancee which made for funny.
Ann: Prior to that, it was as though the same fight played out for four episodes in a row.
Jim: But the show's found its footing again?
Betty: Oh, yeah, it's a joy to watch once again.
Jim: Mike, you covered Fringe, which just ended, and you still cover Nikita. How's Nikita doing and why no new show?
Mike: Nikita's actually becoming must-see. Alex just got kidnapped by Amanda and it will be interesting to see what happens there. I think Amanda's going to try to turn Alex against Nikita. Michael's stopped moping. A lot's going on.
Jim: I was Nikita, disclosure, and Mike and I talk about it a lot. I need to give Mike credit because after the first episode of this season aired, Mike was convinced that Division wasn't gone -- the agency that Nikita and company work for -- and that Ryan was going to become the new Percy or the new Amanda -- bad guys. I didn't see it. Ryan was too nice of a guy. But as this season has progressed, we've seen he will do anything to 'save' Division. So, Mike, you were right.
Mike: Thank you. I keep getting asked when I'm going to pick a replacement for Fringe. So far, nothing stands out. I don't want a show I have to blog about on Monday because I'm tired on Monday nights. I'm still looking. The CW's new show Cults is interesting.
Jim: Ruth, you used to blog about The New Adventures of Old Christine and that got cancelled --
Ruth: Betty and I both blogged about that show.
Jim: Right. And then you blogged about Cougar Town and ABC pulled it. Now it's on TBS and you're not blogging about TV.
Ruth: I watch. I just do not see the point in blogging. Every time I find a show I love, it gets yanked. If I were blogging about TV right now, it would be about how The Following, last week, embraced torture. Kevin Bacon attacked a bullet wound with his finger to try to force a man to reveal where the serial killer was. I wonder if Mr. Bacon will be savaged by our new media critics at the Center for Constitutional Rights? Somehow I doubt it.
Jim: Trina, you also don't TV blog.
Trina: I watch TV but it's usually news and specials. I'm not a TV snob. I'm just -- I don't know. I guess when you have eight kids -- and a husband -- what's being watched in the home is always someone else's choice. So I really haven't followed TV shows seriously since the start of my marriage. I'll watch TV. My granddaughter and I will watch Angelina Ballarina or something similar on PBS. Or I'll watch something that somebody's watching in the living room just to plop down on the sofa and zone out. But I really don't have any brand loyalty.
Jim: Alright. Elaine, you weren't a TV blogger but you became one with Smash.
Elaine: Right.
Jim: Season two just started airing, any thoughts?
Elaine: I've shared at my sight that it was a mistake to get rid of Ellis. He kept the show going. I was one of the people who complained about Ellis. But then I started noticing how he made things happen. With him gone, there's no one that you love to hate. They need to use Anjelica Huston more. They also need to grasp that Debra Messing is the star more than anyone else on the show. Her character is the heart of the show.
Jim: And Karen and Ivy.
Elaine: Season one was about the two women battling for the same lead in the musical Bombshell. Season two started out as if that was going to repeat. Honestly, no one wants to see season one played out all over again. Either show us something different or cease production.
Jim: Ty was a fan of Smash in season one.
Ty: And they lost me. The show became too stupid. I also don't like the fact that the show's only African-American character in season one got the kiss off at the start of season two. I find season two to be insulting on so many levels including the whole Jimmy The Great Teen Composer. They go off with Jimmy and it's like --
Elaine: Mikey Rooney and Judy Garland putting on a show.
Ty: Exactly! Like Elaine said, there needs to be more of Eileen, Anjelica's character. Derek bores me, Tom annoys me and I feel like I'm watching the same season being reshot all over again but with less energy.
Jim: Alright. Wally and Cedric, you don't cover TV. Do you guys have a show or shows you follow?
Cedric: I watch Whitney every episode because Ann does, so we've got it on and watch it together. I watch sitcoms. I prefer the ones with studio audiences because the single-camera ones are rarely as clever as they think.
Wally: Exactly. And whatever point they think they just made or just scored demands applause not a laugh. The worst sitcom of this season was not the one with the monkey -- Animal Practice, it was The New Normal. So unfunny. Animal Practice had some dumb laughs in it. Like the Thanksgiving episode. The New Normal is just too precious for this world. I can't stand the show and before it started airing, even after the first episode, it was the show I was planning to watch. The only single camera show I really enjoy is --
Cedric: The Mindy Project.
Wally: Yeah. After that, it's Raising Hope when it's about the family. Not so much when its about a bunch of dorks -- at work or wherever.
Jim: Alright, Rebecca, you've got the nightime soaps.
Rebecca: Right. I'm covering Revenge and Scandal.
Jim: Which is the better show and how did you start with them?
Rebecca: C.I. told me to watch Revenge before it started. She swore I would love it. There's a post somewhere at my site where I do a Revenge marathon in the middle of its first season and I love the show. So when C.I. urged me to watch Scandal, I should have just watched. But I waited and waited and finally she gifted me with the boxed DVD set. And then I was hooked. Last season, Revenge was the best show. This seaons it's Scandal. Scandal's become this amazing show that constantly surprises. Revenge has lost its way. Emily's taken a back seat to Aidan and he's gotten on my last damn nerve. We barely see Emily or Victoria.
Jim: Isaiah, how about you?
Isaiah: I'm going to pick one that will have some groaning -- some readers. The Simpsons. It's become fashionable to trash the show as it's continued. But they still offer actual stories. Seth MacFarlane's shows offer movie spoofs, etc. I miss King of the Hill and I'm glad The Simpsons is still with us. I also really like Bob's Burgers.
Mike: I do too.
Jess: Yeah, more than anything, the kids on Bob's Burgers make that show for me. Tina, Gene and Louise are the funniest kids on animated TV these days.
Jim: Yea! Jess spoke. He had said he probably wouldn't. But he did. Okay, let's go to Stan. Stan, you like your superhero shows and they always get the axe. You blog now about The Good Wife and Arrow.
Stan: Arrow somehow managed to be the superhero show that survived. I'm glad because I really like the genre and also becaue it's a really good show. I think it may be the best hour long show on prime time that's come along this season. The Good Wife? I started on that in season one. And I've stayed with it. I do think Alicia needs to leave the law firm. It kind of cheapens the character for her not to react to the fact that she's not really wanted as a partner but it just being used to stop the associates revolt. Arrow airs on The CW and, quick plug, this week is a new episode and it features Huntress returning to be sure to catch it if you're a fan of Huntress.
Jim: Alicia on The Good Wife should end up with Will or Peter?
Stan: I would have said Will through season two. But he's so much less than honest. Does he love her or just want her? I don't know. But Peter, who's not a good guy, does love Alicia. So I would say Peter.
Jim: Alright and Dona's giving me the sign to wrap it up. This is a rush transcript.