TV: Lies and more lies from The Water Cooler Set

Last week, The Water Cooler Set piled the scorn on but not where it was needed.



Friday, NETFLIX debuted DISJOINTED -- it's latest sitcom.

The first episode was disappointing, we don't dispute that.

But that's why you film before a studio audience.

By episode two, the sitcom was on solid ground, timing was stronger, characterization was stronger and episodes two through ten were the stuff on classic sitcom.

Kathy Bates stars as Ruth who partners with her son Travis (Aaron Moten) to operate a pot dispensary.  In the first episode, you can see Kathy feeling around in the role of Ruth, she's discovering and there's a joy in her acting.  When an actress is really enjoying her craft, it doesn't just show, it lifts the project.  Meanwhile Moten's been knocking around for awhile but hopefully will receive the acclaim he deserves.

Ruth and Travis have a complex relationship, there's a lot of bitter poured on the sweet.  It also provided Olivia (Elizabeth Alderfer) with a reason to be on the show.  Again, when you're in front of a live audience, you can adapt.  At the start, there was little reason for her to be on.  Having her move over to a character who admires and likes Ruth gave the actress stronger footing and recognizing the chemistry between Olivia and Travis really put the story across.

Elizabeth Ho's Jenny an Chris Redd and Betsy Sodaro's Dank and Dabby have also progressed nicely. Dank and Dabby might even become NETFLIX's first sitcom spin-off.  We're not saying it should happen -- for every successful sitcom spin-off (LAVERNE & SHIRLEY) there are hundreds of flops (BLANKSY'S BEAUTIES).  Possibly, like Larry, Darryl and Darryl on NEWHART, it would be smarted to keep them on DISJOINTED.

It was especially smart to cast Tone Bell as security guard Carter.  He was good in the second season of WHITNEY bu he was amazing in TRUTH BE TOLD.  Here he has even more to do.  Carter's an Iraq War vet with post-traumatic stress.  DISJOINTED has managed to cover this without ever being preachy or 'very special episode.'  That's a credit to the writing of course, but it's also a credit to Tone who is a natural sitcom star.

In smaller roles, praise also goes to MAD TV alumni Nicole Sullivan (also Holly on THE KING OF QUEENS) and Michael Trucco who's playing Tae Kwon Doug.

And on Tae Kwon Doug, special praise to directors James Burrows and Jon Cryer and writers David Javerbaum, Will Hayes, Brenda Hsueh, Matt Kirsch, Bill Daly, Mike Dieffenback and Angeli Millan for their work on episodes six and seven that really allowed Dougie Baldwin to shine as Pete while deepening the characters of both Pete and Tae Kwon Doug as well as giving Kathy Bates even more to play off of.

Again, we're not claiming the first episode deserved an Emmy nomination.  We agree, the first episode was less than sure footed.

But did the lazy ass and overly paid 'critics' of The Water Cooler Set not catch the next nine episodes?

Because they were pretty amazing and Kathy Bates and the rest of the cast were incredible.  They deserve Emmy nominations as do the writers and the directors.

It's a very funny show.

But just as The Water Cooler Set missed that, they also missed the real lunacy on TV last week.

That took place on CNN.

Specifically, on Don Lemon's show where the guest was James Clapper.

The guest shouldn't have been Clapper.

Clapper should never have been put on the payroll by CNN.

It's a testament to the lack of journalistic (and ethical) standards that CNN hired a man known for lying to Congress.  He knowingly lied to Congress.

As Steve Nelson (US NEWS & WORLD REPORTS) noted last November:

Some lawmakers reacted to the long-expected resignation announcement from Director of National Intelligence James Clapper on Thursday by wishing him an eventful retirement, featuring prosecution and possible prison time.

The passage of more than three years hasn’t cooled the insistence in certain quarters that Clapper face charges for an admittedly false statement to Congress in March 2013, when he responded, “No, sir" and "not wittingly” to a question about whether the National Security Agency was collecting “any type of data at all” on millions of Americans.

About three months after making that claim, documents leaked by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden revealed the answer was untruthful and that the NSA was in fact collecting in bulk domestic call records, along with various internet communications.

[. . .]
Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., who asked the question, rehashed the controversy in a statement Thursday, saying Clapper had presided over a “deception spree regarding mass surveillance” and that Clapper's office had been given the question in advance and then was asked, without success, to correct the record after the hearing.

“Regardless of what was going through the director’s head when he testified, failing to correct the record was a deliberate decision to lie to the American people about what their government was doing,” Wyden said.




Yet CNN elected to hire him as an 'analyst.'

Why?

Because the national security state apparatus controls CNN?

Possibly.

What we do know is that you don't earn trust by putting a known liar on the payroll.





Maybe CNN was the most trusted in 2002.

By 2014, it had fallen to number nine -- one slot ahead of the Ronald McDonald of news: USA TODAY.

Hiring known liars will only allow it to fall further.

So there was Congressional liar James Clapper speaking to Don Lemon, offering his 'expertise.'

On?

Donald Trump's mental fitness.

Wait, we're sorry, is it Dr. James Clapper and has he treated Donald Trump?

No and no.

But there he was doing what he does best: Lying.

It was a huge lapse for CNN.

Yes, tired and mangy Jane Mayer's been pimping the story in THE NEW YORKER.

The old dog can barely manage to walk down the street these days.

She hasn't done a report of any importance since Bully Boy Bush was in the White House.

She's just a tired old hag labeling her political enemies "the other" and ridiculing Christians.

It's annoying when believers of whatever higher power ridicule non-believers.  It's also disgusting when it goes the other way.

But she found a way to be useless and that's why THE NEW YORKER publishes her nonsense.

They won't publish Seymour Hersh.

He wouldn't toe David Remnick's company line that Barack Obama walked on water.

Jane Mayer's published for now.  But David Reminck has a job for now.  With that prissy, ugly face, he's managed to carve out a spot on radio but he can't dominate visual media -- not with that Toni home perm hair.

The uglies like Jane and David will fade away.

Probably CNN as well.  It's not doing well at all.  And the potential new buyer AT&T want to sell it off -- maybe CBS will buy it?  Or maybe like the CIA friend-NEWSWEEK, it will sell for a dollar?  (Somewhere, Jean Seberg is rightly laughing.)


This is the TV moment The Water Cooler Set should have obsessed over but ignored.

So much gets ignored.  So much gets passed off as fact when it's not.

Next weekend, for example, Alec Baldwin sits down with director William Friedkin on TCM's THE ESSENTIALS.

Will we be left alone (again) to note the truth (again)?

Friedkin cites CITIZEN KANE as the film that changed his life.

Fair enough.

But makes the ridiculous claim to Alec that he saw the film eight times in one day.

CITIZEN KANE was released in 1941 (when Friedkin was five-years-old, he'd turn six in August of that year).  The film is 119 minutes.  Basically two hours.

In those days, they didn't just show a film.  They showed coming attractions.  They showed a newsreel, etc.  So at a minimum, each airing of CITIZEN KANE took two and a half hours.  Minimum.

That would be 20 hours.

Do you really think the five-year-old spent 20 hours at a movie house?

Why is TMC doing segments that viewers will realize present 'facts' that are not true?


Let's assume Friedkin did see the film as a five-year-old when the film opened in May?

He didn't see it eight times in a row.

As a child in Chicago, in May he could have seen it at the Palace or the Woods.  But, without getting lost in the weeds, he couldn't have seen it eight times at either theater.  Not even in November when it went to Chicago's less prestigious theaters.


Why do people lie like that?

And why do people let them get away with it?

If an 'expert' tells a lie and a host doesn't challenge the 'expert,' we all suffer.

CNN's 'expert' Clapper is a liar.  Instead of objecting to that, The Water Cooler Set spent last week attacking DISJOINTED which is actually a hilarious new sitcom worthy of tremendous praise.