Overdone in more ways than one

Watching Desperate Housewives usually puts me at ease, allowing me to forget about the stresses and worries in my life and float down Wisteria Lane without much to think about. But after last nights show, (I know, I am very late in writing this blog, please forgive me,) I was just plain annoyed. I’m not going to stop watching though, there are two episodes left this season and I feel they will redeem themselves.

It seemed as though the characters were just a bit too into themselves, and overacted their personalities, playing directly to the stereotypes most characters usually try to gracefully break free and evolve from.

Teri Hatcher’s character Susan always annoys me, but last night really left me wanting her to duct tape her to a tree, as her hiking instructor, Toni advised her to shut up and relax. Toni really was the saving grace for me last night, telling the “dippy brunette from the suburbs” that she was the real reason behind her love troubles with Mike and Ian. Because she loves drama, Toni so eloquently put it, Susan cannot just be happy. Susan becomes insulted by Toni’s dose of reality, and decides to hike up the mountain by herself to find Mike—not a dramatic gesture, whatsoever (insert sarcasm here). And then, like we all didn’t already know it was going to happen, Mike rescues a sprained-Susan and they get back together.

In another all too much like her stereotype storyline, Gaby obnoxiously proclaims herself “First Lady of Fairview” after her fiancé, Victor (John Slattery) is elected mayor. She tears up parking tickets and kicks a cop in the knee. A little heavy on the spiciness there, Gaby. Finally Victor warns Gaby that her behavior is unacceptable and inappropriate—another fine helping of a reality-check.

And finally, usually my favorite housewife, Lynette was much too desperate for me to handle. After becoming mutually attracted to Rick, her restaurant chef, Rick decided to let Lynette know how he feels, prompting her to fire him and dramatically weep over her emotional infidelity to her husband and her family. Each character in the Tom-Lynette-Rick love triangle sub-plot overacted, which is a shame because the Scavo’s are usually the most realistic family on Wisteria Lane, and last night they were more soap opera than sincere.
However, Edie’s situation with Carlos and her son Travers was done just right. Nicolette Sherian’s character is usually so outrageous that she provides the fun on an otherwise scandalously average street.

All of this leaves me begging for the return of Marcia Cross’ Bree. We were reminded last week that Bree was finally taking her honeymoon with Orson (who is the other Sex and the City alum along with Slattery, this show just keeps proving so many critics’ points). Bree is so overly neurotic and obsessive, and the absence of her comedic antics and perfect portrayal of the porcelain housewife are leaving a gaping hole in my love of Desperate Housewives.

Thinking about my dissatisfaction with last night’s episode, I am wondering what I am getting so upset about. This is a dramedy, not reality TV or the lives of actual people, yet I still expect a connection with reality in its episodes—which is probably why I think sci-fi television is a joke, soap operas are boring and The OC was one of the more worse depictions of teenagers in entertainment. It seems as though so many (good) television shows, scripted or not, are showing us something that is real and relatable, and those that aren’t seem no more important than childish cartoons.

Susan and Mike’s love saga has been done countless times before. Gaby is always causing a ruckus to shoot out from her teeny-tiny stature. A married woman falling for a handsome co-worker has been seen. Even though the housewives may not be the most exciting bunch of women in the world, we would at least like to see something that makes us want to reconnect and relate again to the housewives that normally intrigue, not annoy.

Save the Cheerleader, Save New York City!

Although I love this show, I am starting to get a little irritated about the big concept that has been referenced so many times. Everyone remembers when the future version of Hiro came back in time to Peter and said “Save the cheerleader, save the world.” So what does Peter do? He goes and saves the cheerleader. Hiro, in his past version, is all about saving the world and all the heroes themselves are trying to save a bomb from exploding in New York and thus, the world will be saved. Um, I don’t think so. I am sitting her scratching my head and wondering what they are talking about. The whole series, up to this point, is attempting to stop Sylar and to stop a bomb from going off in New York. NEW YORK!!! Even if they fail to stop the bomb from going off, New York is blown up, not the entire world. I fail to see how the world is in peril from the bomb going off nor do I see how saving the cheerleader saves the world. Sylar might get powers to regenerate his wounds if he kills Claire, but it has been proven that Claire can still die. Sylar, in the future, is pretending to be Nathan and therefore is the President of the United States. He still had not killed Claire and yet, he still had the capacity to cause the world problems. Claire is very minor when it comes to the world being in jeapordy and the bomb going off does not cause the world to suddenly be in danger.

So unless, Hiro has seen something happen in the future that has never been revealed to us, I fail to see how saving Claire saved the world from disaster. I think they should be trying to stop the bomb to prevent New York City from exploding, granted, but even that is not going to put the world in danger. It’s confusing, also, how Hiro has to be the one who kills Sylar and that by doing so, the bomb does not go off and New York is saved. Um..once again, that is not true as we have learned from flash back, and Peter admitting it himself, and the pictures painted that foretell the future, that is is actually Peter who explodes. Therefore, killing Sylar is not going to stop the bomb from going off. Also, the pictures have always come true exactly as they are shown and it has been painted that New York is going to explode leaving me to believe there is no way to stop it. If they do, there will be yet another inconsistency in the show. As tight as they are trying to make everything seem and how important they are attempting to make the heroes themselves, they need to be realistic. Even Linderman wants the bomb to go off so apparently Sylar is not the only villain attempting to make sure these disastrous events occur. So once they can manage to save the bomb from going off, if they can, they need to take out Linderman as much as Sylar. Sylar, on the other hand, should be dealt with before he gets Claire or even afterwards as the world is not going to change as a result of either event happening. Instead of saying, “Save the cheerleader, save the world” it really should say “Save the cheerleader, save New York City!”

Do Women Really Look Like That?

Deperate Housewives is made up of four beautiful women.  All of these women were beautiful at the beginning of the show.  But from Season 1 to now their appearance has changed dramatically.  In season 1 they all dressed well and in fairly revealing clothes, especially Gaby.  But from then until now all 4 women have lost too much weight.  Susan is the worst, she looks sick like a person with an eating disorder.  Part of the draw with DH was the fact that they were close to normal women.  Now they are all wearing too much makeup.  They are made up when they go to bed and when they wake up in the morning.  This is not real life and women do not look that perfect at either one of those times.  It does not help women to relate to the characters.  

They also wear very scandalous clothing.  It is all very revealing and inappropriate in the settings that they wear them too.  The clothing is completely out of place in the middle of the street in the afternoon.

We expect more from these women.  We liked who they were.  I think we all look for a little bit of ourselves in characters and they are making it harder and harder for us to relate on any level to them. 

Where are they????

Bree VandeCamp??  Where is she?  Why did they just leave us hanging?  I know that in real life Marcia Cross was pregnant, was it with twins?  But Desperate Housewives had not even mentioned where she had been.  She has just been missing from episodes.  This past week there was a slight mention to the fact that she was on vacation.  When did this happen, where did she go?  People do notice when a main character is just not in the last couple of episodes.  We deserve some kind of story plot about where she is.  Couldn’t they have made that psycho she married kidnap her or something else even more exciting?  I know those fabulous writers for DH could have come up with something that would have kept viewers on the edge of their seats.  Instead they have almost made us forget that Bree is even on the show.

At the same time, they seem to have forgotten about her children.  Did they go on vacation with her also?  Was Susan’s daughter taken also?  And maybe even Edie’s nephew?  I guess maybe they all ran off together. 

Then all of the sudden Edie has a son.  Now that was a shock.  I guess maybe they brought this son in so that Carlos could have the child he had been wanting so badly.  But like Edie needed a child.  She can barely take care of herself.

I think that if we are going to get and lose characters it should be more exciting.  Give us something more memorable.

Lost Podcast

I am pleased to say that Lost has gotten much better in these past few episodes. The show finally got its momentum back. The introduction and development of Juliet’s role has really pumped up Lost and made it even jucier. Last week when we saw her help out Sun in determining her date of conception (D.O.C. episode), we realized that Ben is somehow forcing Juliet to go along with whatever plan he has concocted. It was extra creepy when we saw her go back after the ultrasound and record her findings for Ben. It makes you wonder why they are tracking the survivors so closely and what the purpose could be.

More importantly, what was with the parachuted woman, Naomi, who fell from the sky into the jungle? She knew Desmond’s name and said that there was no way Hurley and the other survivors could possibly have been on Oceanic flight 815 since rescuers found the plane and there were no survivors. That’s extra creepy. However, although it may allude to the idea that the survivors may be in purgatory, loyal fans know that cannot be true since the writers and creators promised this would not happen.

After a little bit of confusion, I decided to log onto ABC’s website and listen to the show’s most recent podcast narrated by executive producers David Lindeloff and Carlton Cuse. They confirmed that the island is in fact not purgatory, though they fail to give much else for an explanation. Possible suggestions are that Naomi is lying (highly unlikely) or that it was all part of a conspiracy so that people would stop looking for them…though they refuse to really expand on anything they add that more will be revealed on this Wednesday night’s upcoming epside, The Brig.

The executive producers know people have been frustrated and they promise to reveal some major secrets in the next couple of episodes leading up to the finale, but of course, as expected not all of them since Lost always keeps viewers guessing even after major secrets have been revealed. We also discover from the podcast that the Other’s interest in children goes beyond women’s inability to successfully give birth to children if they are conceived on the island. Lindeloff and Cuse say that along with fertility issues, the Others are also interested in children who have”special abilities” like Walt for example. They say that is part of the reason for why the Others spent time trying to kidnap him and why they forced him to perform tests and answer so many questions.

All in all, this week’s podcast was not only entertaining, but also somewhat helpful on a small scale. I cannot wait for this week’s episode to air…only a few more left until the season finale which is sure to reveal something good that we have been hoping for all year long. Hopefully the writers will incorporate Jacob (the mysterious man with more power than Ben) into the mix and reveal what’s going on in terms of Oceanic flight 815 supposedly being found with no survivors.

Gray Grey’s

i have watched grey’s anatomy from the beginning. i have seen every episode of every season and haven’t been this disappointed yet. For 3 seasons viewers have been waiting for McDreamy and Meredith to be happy and together. why, after only a few episodes of them being together, are they already trying to pull them apart again? this is the thing about television writers that i don’t like. they love to mess with the lives of our favorite characters. mcdreamy and meredith deserve one season of non-threatening relationship drama. take christina and burke for example, for almost the entire show these two have been together. we have watched them overcome obstacles and fall madly in love with one another. yes they have their drama but i don’t think i’ve watched one episode of grey’s and actually feared that christina and burke might brake up. you just sort of know that they will work out whatever problem they have in the end and surprise surprise they always do. but meredith and derek can’t ever get that kind of a break. i understand the whole dramatic effect that television needs but why not mess with burke and christina? why not give them something worry about instead of meredith and derek all the time. it just gets to the point where it’s not dramatic anymore between them it’s just old. i think it would better serve the writers to focus on christina and burke or even focus more on the addison/alex/mcsteamy love triangle (that only lasted like 2 episodes – there was such a build up of addison and alex and with in like 3 minutes they did it and alex was an ass and that was that). I just don’t like what the writers are choosing to focus on. The battle for chief is a great idea but why put derek and meredith’s relationship in the middle of that. i know it creates conflict but derek is the romance guy. he’s the one that does the right thing, that treats meredith right and takes care of her and suddenly he’s throwing away everything he’s done to get her back in order to be chief? the mcdreamy that i know would never do that, it just simply wouldn’t matter. if it came down to chief or meredith derek would chose the girl – mark would chose chief, even burke, but not derek. it’s just not in his character to do that. so why are the writers doing this to him?
after asking myself these questions over and over again i decided that maybe i was missing something. something from one of the previous seasons that i just didn’t remember. maybe derek was extremely work oriented like burke and i just forgot because i wanted him to be with meredith so badly. so i went back and re-watched the second season. i was right. derek is not the man the writers are making him out to be. yes his work is important to him but they’ve always made it seem more enjoyable for him instead of a job. his relationships were what he put most of his energy into – addison, mark, meredith, etc. but now suddenly he’s all about the job and burke is all about wedding cakes. i dont understand why the writers are messing with the dynamics of the characters but they shouldn’t. they need to let the characters be what they are and create drama somewhere other than meredith and mcdreamy. people are starting to get tired of meredith and mcdreamy and if the show is going to be successful for a long period of time then they have to focus more on the other characters in the cast.
I also have a problem with the izzy george relationship but that would need to be a whole other blog in itself.
I fear the worst for Grey’s. Please don’t ruin a good thing!

The Race for Chief

The scene: we’re in an elevator with Chief of Surgery Doctor Richard Webber and Mark Sloane is standing towards the back.  The elevator stops and a woman steps on.  The elevator starts moving again and the woman comments that Webber is wearing a nice sweater.  That point is when we all needed to pull out an awkward turtle.  Webber starts going on about how his wife got him the sweater and how they are divorced but he’s not a bad guy, and the audience erupts in laughter.  Webber is making it so awkward that the woman gets off at the next stop when the floor she was going to was a few more up.  The best part by far is when Mark offers to help and the Chief says something along the lines of, “so you’re going to get chief by getting me laid?” 

The race for chief has been a tumultuous one that has resorted all the attendings to acting like children to vie for Webber and the Board’s attention (although after last night’s episode, I am seriously wondering if Webber is in fact really leaving).  And I personally love it.  The elevator scene (not the previously mentioned awkward one) where all four attendings and Richard end up in the elevator and can’t figure out what’s different about him?  Priceless.  It’s even better when they all figure out he dyed his hair and the boys start cracking comments and giggling like school girls while Addison tries to get them to stop.  All four of them try to come up with ridiculous plans for the future (I believe it was a ten year plan) when the new Doctor, Colin Marlow, comes in to try to get the position with the exception of Mark.  In every episode there’s been something where the four of them try to out do one another, and I’m sure there will be until something is official.            Now, it is very probable that Preston Burke will get the position.  He has after all taken over the position of chief before and seems to be the favorite. 
Addison is leaving anyway and Derek is out because of Meredith….plus, he’s one of those guys that thinks with his heart more than with his head when it comes to personal stuff, which would lead him to not always put being chief first.  The finally contestant is Sloane, whom I would personally LOVE to see get chief over everyone else.  He is the ultimate bad boy, came to Seattle for
Addison and stayed there for her (up until last night) and he is cocky, full of himself, and tries to bed every girl he meets.  Imagine the craziness that would ensue…and the major fit that Derek would throw!

Heroes Returns!

Heroes returns!  And with it an abundance of answers, yet with those answers, an abundance of questions.  

 Much of Monday’s return focused around Linderman and the revalation that he is not only a nortorious mobster in Las Vegas, but a gifted hero himself.  However, Linderman’s views on how to use his powers are somewhat skewed, doing very evil and deadly things, but all under the notion that he is pushing humanity forward, cutting our losses and continuing the evolutionary process. 

Mrs. Patrelli’s character recieved a little more definition on Monday, as well, but the writers took the character in a somwhat unexpected direction.  Portrayed as more of an adversary rather than an allie, she convinces Clair that she must leave her family and go into hiding if she is to ever have a chance at a normal life. 

The most interesting thing about Monday’s show, however, was the teaser for next week’s episode.  It appears that even though they just came back from a long break, they are going back and using yet another filler episode before the end of the season.  The episode will take place in the future, five years to be exact.  It will revolve around the premise that the heroes fail and Peter explodes in the middle of New York City.  Hiro and Ando explore new New York and look for clues as to how they failed in the past to they can fix their mistakes.  I think that the episode is random and a little unnerving because it automatically gets ride of one option that could have occurred at the end of the season.   I mean, no, I don’t think anyone really thinks that the season would have ended with New York exploding, but now we know that this will definitely not happen because, presumably, Hiro and Ando figure it out and then try to fix the problem in the last three episodes of the season.  With a lot of season finales, I feel like there is always one option that the writers could go with that is completely out of the question, but the viewers always think, “what if?”  What if it did end that certain way that would be catastrophic for the characters.  Well, now, that “What if?” is completely taken away and one door is completely closed.

 Granted, I know I’m taking a lot for granted, but this episode idea was so strange to me.  Its unlike anything I have ever seen, which I give them credit for, but at the same time, I just see it being more humerous and honestly confusing than interesting and plot driving.  I could be, and hope that I am, completely wrong.  I dont want to see the show go down hill so quickly but decisions like this just leave me scratching my head.  I guess we can all find out tomorrow night…

Blurring the Boundaries in Betty

Blurring the Boundaries in Betty

I have to begin by confessing that I have not yet watched the last few episodes of Ugly Betty; with the craziness of the end of the semester, they’re still sitting on my DVR. While this analysis relies on a more general view of the show, one that’s not necessarily dependent on the specific narrative developments of the last few episodes, I just felt that I should point that out as a reason why I may not use the very latest examples.

In my first post on SmuTube, I attributed Ugly Betty’s success on American television to it’s successful blending of telenovela qualities and elements of American comedy. In thinking more about that assessment over the course of the semester while watching the “fresh” episodes of this spring, it struck me that it is not just in format that Ugly Betty blurs the lines – it also does it in characters, setting, and aesthetic style. In blending these areas and “borrowing” elements of narrative and style from different types of television, Ugly Betty is a fascinating example of the postmodern “pastiche” on American primetime television.

While some characters on Ugly Betty are for the most part clearly defined “good” or “evil,” such as Betty (good) and Wilhelmina (evil), more than shows like The Sopranos, lines are blurred along several other axes. Take Betty, for example. As the title of the show blatantly claims, she is “ugly,” although merely in terms of her physical appearance. But the show is constantly reminding her and viewers that she is “beautiful” on the inside. And viewers are arguably very aware that the actress that plays her, America Ferrerra, is beautiful in real life.1 This sense of obvious “acting” for Betty alludes to elements of camp within the show, although not necessarily playing with the lines of gender. That does happen with other characters very clearly, however. As discussed briefly in my last post, other characters on the show are presented along blurred gender lines as well, notably Marc, the teenage boy who likes musicals and high fashion. In addition, Alexis (formerly Alex), who underwent a sex change operation to become a woman, also presents several blurred lines of gender both within the diegetic world of the show and in real life. Characters in the show, especially Daniel, struggle with ways to accept Alexis’ change, not knowing how to react or relate to her. Other characters in the show, such as Betty, constantly confuse the pronouns of “he/she” and “him/her” when referring to Alexis, presenting the diegetic struggle with the lines of gender in Alexis. However, Alexis is played by an actress, Rebecca Romijn – a woman pretending to be a woman who used to be a man. Talk about queering. But does the fact that this former man is played by a woman, one that America has previously accepted as a beautiful woman even before her role on the show, make it easier to accept the character as a woman?2 Does that actually serve to lessen the blur of gender lines? I’m not sure of the answer, but it is definitely a great example of questionable categories.

The physical world within the show is also breaking down certain lines as well. In the offices of Mode magazine, walls are made of clear glass, serving to visually open up lines and barriers in the office. Betty’s post outside of Daniel’s office contains no walls, and and allows her a perfect view into Alex’s office at all times. Even Wilhelmina’s office is made of clear glass walls. The locations in the New York setting of the show also embody breaking down of lines. Betty is constantly identified hailing from Queens, denoted as the working class location, while working and spending time in Manhattan, identified as high-class. The characters venturing back and forth between Queens and Manhattan presents not only crossing lines of location but also of class. However, in some cases, these lines are sometimes not presented as blurred as much as they are crossed by some of the characters awareness of the stark definitions of these lines. For instance, when Daniel comes to the Suarez house for Christmas, Marc points out the irony in Daniel spending Christmas in Queens, which in some cases serves more to point out the fact that Daniel is out of place in the working class location.

Ugly Betty also plays with this blurring in its aesthetics and style. The opening montage of the show, with the face split into three sections that move between different people’s eyes, nose, and mouth, quite literally serves to blur lines in sense of beauty and overtonally in terms of identity. This part of the opening montage, along with the loud colors and large font taking up the whole screen seems to be an example of postmodern pastiche as well, borrowing from other genre styles outside of the United States. However, for younger audiences (myself included), it’s sort of a simulacra, because I know I’ve seen that loud style with big font before, but I just can’t put my finger on exactly when or where. Clearer versions of pastiche within the show are brought in other ways that not only “borrow” from other genres, but also serve to blur lines between media texts. In Ugly Betty, the Suarez family is always watching a telenovela on television, one that exhibits the prototypical elements of the genre in Latin America, including dialogue in Spanish, dramatic music, and overdramatic acting and narrative. In another interesting blur, Salma Hayek, Ugly Betty’s producer, actually plays a character in the telenovela, appearing as an actress in a tv show within the show that she’s producing. In addition, there’s also a “FashionTV” show that the characters watch within the show, namely Justin, whose content comments on events going on at Mode magazine. In this way, Ugly Betty not only “borrows” this element of high fashion tv (with a queered tv host presenting celebrity news), but this pastiche also serves to progress the narrative of the show by providing narration for actual events within the show (like Alexis’ return and Bradford’s arrest). These are both fascinating examples of postmodern pastiche and concurrent boundary blurring in terms of television texts.

It is this constant blurring of lines and playing with definitions of beauty and identity that keeps bringing me back to this show. Despite the fact that Ugly Betty presents somewhat conflicting ideas of ideology (another postmodern characteristic) in that while presenting alternative ideas of beauty and identity in Betty and other characters, it also at the same glamorizes high fashion magazines and life within the world of material beauty, I am still drawn to watching the show and rooting for Betty. These overlapping ideas, definitions, and locations, to me at least, are indicative of our real lives, where we women are constantly negotiating several different lines and categories at once.
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1 – Ferrerra’s appearance on the Emmy’s and the SAG awards presented her as dressed up and beautiful, not to mention the wealth of coverage in the popular media about Ferrerra’s process to become “ugly” on the show.
2- Rebecca Romijn is a well-known model in America, who’s been featured in Sports Illustrated Swim Suit issues (2006), and has been identified by FHM magazine as one of the “100 Sexiest Women.”

Grey’s Anatomy Gaining Speed

The writers finally started eating their wheaties again and it showed. The show’s idiosyncratic parallel plotlines with underlining themes was back in this episode. Although Grey’s did not invent this method of having a narrator who ties each plot line together, they did do it eloquently and with their own twist. For instance, Carrie Bradshaw did this in Sex and the City long before Meredith came to Seatle Grace Hospital. The reason it works in Grey’s anatomy is because of the eclectic cast. No one really cares about Meredith all that much. This is one reason why this episode was better than recent ones with bad ratings. The writers finally stopped focusing on Meredith so much. The show may be named after her, but she’s no Carrie Bradshaw. The writers were smart to focus on other characters this time.

Furthermore, viewers weren’t so much mad that the show was focusing on Meredith during the “limbo” episodes but because of the content, lengthiness, and the shift in style of the episodes. No one wants to watch Meredith die and come back to life. Yes, Grey’s is a Medical drama, but viewers tune in for the social drama. It is important, just like any other show, to proliferate other story lines through the characters. However, the thing that sets Grey’s apart from other medical dramas is the social drama. In other words, viewers of Grey’s are more likely to go to the bathroom during the action scene than the sex scene between Meredith and McDreamy. Every other aspect of the show should remain secondary to the social drama and they shouldn’t experiment so much. I’m glad that the writers finally realized this with last weeks episode because after all.. if it ain’t broke don’t fix it.

They did, however, fix the the show making it more like the “old Greys.” The rhythm, characters, and tone were the same again. The main focus was on Izzy and George which are characters that audiences usually respond well to. Callie is a character that people either love or hate, but I think most people do not see her and George’s relationship being realistic. So, I think viewers probably like it that their marriage is not working. At first when George and Izzy got together it seemed absurd, but after seeing “Time After Time” it was aparent that maybe there are true feelings there. I think this was a bold move for Greys to do. It seems too easy to set up two friends and people probably want to see more characters develope. However, the Izzy and George thing actually seems real. I could see them having a “Chandler and Monica” relationship.

I am finally happy again with the way the show is going, but only with one episode. If the writers continue to keep the same style and stick with the juicy plotlines, they should end up being marathon runners. So, while Greys is gaining speed..I just hope that they can continue to do that time after time.