Monday, December 31, 2018

TV: Does TV ever change?

We know it does because it gets worse -- worse and worse and worse.

3 JESS

We realized that when ROSEANNE was replaced with THE CONNERS.

Roseanne Barr is a comedian.  She goes where few go.  We're not talking about her Tweets.  We're talking about storylines.  She wanted ROSEANNE to matter in its original run on ABC and made sure it did.  The same was true with the revival.

The revival tackled many real issues -- the trouble many Americans have affording the medications they need to take, the economy and the lack of strong paying jobs, the challenging of gender constructs, the opioid epidemic, Islamaphobia -- Go down the list of the topics and grasp that this was in a nine episode season.

THE CONNERS?  That weak-ass, stand for nothing, generic nitwitcom dispensed with reality in the first episode by having Roseanne die of opioid addiction.  With Roseanne buried, so was any social responsibility.

Instead, it was back to the whoredom of TV land where reality never intrudes.  Sara Gilbert's never been attractive and has never convincingly played opposite a man in a romantic relationship (yes, that includes with Johnny Galecki's David) but in the eight episode season so far, there's the mannish Sara attracting not one but two new beaus.  One of them, Justin Long's Neil, is kicked to the curb by Sara Gilbert.  That's a bit of a reach, isn't it?  Cute little Justin Long sent packing by Sara Gilbert?  Next up, Rachel Dratch announces she was dating Antonio Sabato Junior but broke it off because she just knew there was someone even more physically beautiful waiting for her.

In the even more unbelievable world: Jay R. Ferguson Jr.  Not as pretty as Justin Long, but Jay's character of Ben was even more of a joke.

He's Darlene's new boss.  At the factory?  Oh, please, Sara Gilbert's mannish hands aren't going to do any hard work.  She's a journalist!

Only on TV could Darlene, in the year of our Lord 2018, get a job writing for a magazine in Landford.  Lanford -- the hole in the wall.  It's got a magazine that it produces that can afford to hire writers?  In what world?

But there's Darlene not only getting a job as a magazine writer -- because Sara Gilbert, a child actor, has never had to deal with the real world -- but also deciding, after getting the job, that the way to really make a name for herself is to sleep with her boss Ben.  She makes a pass at him, kisses him -- this in the era of #MeToo?

Is there a reason Sara Gilbert's ashamed of being a lesbian, by the way?  The most obvious growth for Darlene is for her to realize that she's gay.  But Sara's too tied into her only claim to fame: Darlene Conner.  If you think it was difficult for Ellen DeGeneres to come out -- and it was -- apparently it's even harder for Sara to let Darlene come out.

Sara is the token female producer of THE CONNERS and it's really important to her that she play a woman who has an ex-husband David who still has feelings for her and a new beau, the highly good looking Neil, that she tosses aside and a new boyfriend Ben, the boss she makes it with -- again, all in eight episodes.

Why is Sara so ashamed of playing gay?

One of the most ridiculous moments on TV took place a little over ten years ago when Sara played Fern for six episodes on THE CLASS -- Fern, the ex-wife of Jesse Tyler Ferguson's Richie.  She plays straight exclusively, apparently.

She played it in real life too.  Her son was six and her daughter was three before Sara could say the words "I'm gay" publicly.  How f**ked up is that?

The year is 2010, the year she finally goes public.  She's lived with her wife for ten years, they have two children together, one as old as six and she can only then come out of the closet?  What a self-loathing lesbian, no wonder she'll only play straight characters.

Darlene Conner is a joke and Sara Gilbert (who defended Leslie Moonves, please remember) is a psycho.

When losers like Sara won't use their power to pull TV into the 21st century, it's really an indictment of broadcast TV.  But then again, so much that takes place is an indictment.

Yeah, we caught Elseworld -- the three episode crossover event of sexism.

If you missed it, you didn't miss much and it's really past time that THE CW seriously addressed the sexism in their 'Arrow-verse' of programs.  It's going to take more than developing a show for Batwoman to fix it.

Did no one notice that Supergirl -- the strongest of the three superheroes -- did nothing on the crossover?

The crossover kicks off with THE FLASH where Barry and Oliver are in each other's bodies -- in each other's bodies -- not into each other's bodies (though that, at least, would have made sense).  Then it moves on over to ARROW where Kara (Supergirl) shows up only to conclude on SUPERGIRL.

The middle episode?  It's nice that they had Supergirl fly through the facility for the criminally insane since they gave her no other chance to show her powers.  There was plenty of Barry and Oliver learning to use each other's powers and there were a lot of action scenes for both men.  Not for Supergirl.

And it got worse on the final crossover when, on her own show, Supergirl is locked away and kept away from the main story -- she's the damsel in distress, you understand.

In the seventies, Jamie (Lindsay Wagner) could, and did, do crossovers with Steve (Lee Majors) after THE BIONIC WOMAN began airing.  And, back then, Jamie could use her powers -- especially during the Big Foot crossover.

All these years -- all these decades later -- we've gone so far backwards that a character with no superhero powers (Arrow) is involved in more action scenes on SUPERGIRL than is the title character herself.

If what had taken place had only taken place on ARROW and FLASH, that would be bad enough but to cow SUPERGIRL on her own show?

And while it's so very easy to point out that only one woman was involved in the writing of the three episodes (and she only did "story" for one episode, not an actual script) the reality is that ROTTEN TOMATOES sports a lot of rotten people which, yes, does include women.  A big hella-hello shout out to bitches (yes, bitches and we use that term to avoid using the c-word) Sarah Fields, Tori Preson, Laura Hurley, Lizzy Buczak, Sara Netzley, Caroline Siede and especially dumb bitch Amelia Emberwing who loved the episode and never once noted that imprisoning Kara and having not one but two Supermans -- as well as Oliver and Barry -- helped ensure that women looked feeble and unable to stand for themselves.

For dumb bitch Amelia Emberwing, it was all about "sisterhood" -- no, we're not making that up.

These are action shows, but dumb bitches who get paid to write poorly don't grasp that removing Supergirl from all the action is retrogressive and offensive.

Don't expect Sara Gilbert to do anything to improve the lives of LGBTQ people without being called out and don't expect dumb bitches like Sarah Fields, et al to ever stand up for women when it's so much easier for them to continue to be useless and refuse to own their own power -- it's always easier to go along to get along.

Which brings us to the liars covering Channing Dungey.

NETFLIX tossed her a job -- out of pity.  And she's being praised for it.

Channing hits 50 in March, this is nothing to be proud of, she's basically a hostess at TGIF.

She has gone from President of ABC ENTERTAINMENT GROUP to . . . what?

She's gone to what we reported she would.  NETFLIX had no opening for her or any need for her.  Susan Rice pulled strings and Channing's got a pity job.  As we reported some time ago, NETFLIX would have to create a position for Channing and it would be one of humiliation.

The press wants you to know they created a vice presidency for her -- excuse us, her friends in the press want you to know that.  A vice presidency at an entertainment company?  That's something you aspire to in your late twenties and earlier thirties -- again, she hits 50 in three months.

They created a vice president title for her.  It has no real power.  Doubt us?  From Joe Flint's MARKET WATCH report:


Netflix Inc. has tapped former ABC Entertainment President Channing Dungey as a vice president of original content, the latest evidence of the growing rivalry between the streaming-video giant and ABC-parent Walt Disney Co.
[. . .]
Netflix created a new position to land Dungey. She will report to Cindy Holland, Netflix’s vice president of original content. 


Did you get that?  Channing is a Vice President!  Of Original Content!  And she reports to?  Cindy Holland NETFLIX's Vice President of Original Content.

Surely, America isn't as stupid as Channing hopes they are.  Surely, America grasps that Channing is in  a position of no power with a meaningless title.  She reports to vice president Cindy Holland.  She's nothing but a glorified gopher -- which, if you'll think back, is what our NETFLIX sources were telling us would happen if she managed to get hired.

From the president of ABC to . . . a vice president reporting to a vice president at NETFLIX.  There is justice.

And Roseanne Barr will be on the winning end of it.  She's now Lenny Bruce.  She was victimized, fired and run out of the business for a joke.  Right?  It had nothing to do with a joke, it had everything to do with her public support of Donald Trump.  Trump will be gone (hopefully, in January 2021) and when he's gone, the rhetoric will hopefully die down.  At which point, the outrageous decision by Channing to fire Roseanne for a Tweet and the mob mentality of so many -- Whitney Cummings, we especially mean you -- will be seen for the injustice it was.  If you watch THE CONNERS, if you're one of the few who do, you can already see what an injustice it was as the show that had something to say about the world we live in morphed into MAYBERRY R.F.D.




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