There are things in this world I don't understand. That may surprise you, I admit, but I do not understand simultaneous equations. Or the enduring popularity of Bob Marley. Or why snails have shells and slugs don't. Or why Knight Rider was revamped. Or why NBC has decided *not* to cancel it.
Now, here in Atlanta it's on at 8pm on Wednesdays. That puts it up against my beloved Pushing Daisies (not getting the ratings, apparently), The New Adventures of Old Christine (funny enough but do you know anyone who watches it?), re-runs of CSI, and the latest season of Bones. I can understand why it's getting such low viewing figures: it's because it's terrible. It's like they took the original 80s scripts out of a trunk and decided to make them, only this time with less capable actors. Maybe it's because when the world is in the grip of a fuel crisis, the last thing we want to see is a show about a car.
So I will continute to watch Bones and DVR Daisies (or vice versa) and scratch my head and wonder why NBC haven't had a night of wins since Friends and The West Wing hung up their...whatever it is tv shows hang up.
Maybe one of CBS's eighty crime/detective shows can help with that one.
Thursday, November 20, 2008
The Untouchables
I'm just gonna spit it out: Pushing Daisies has to continue. If for no other reason than it is completely unlike anything else on any network. Indeed, almost like nothing else anywhere, unless you open Tim Buton's noggin like a boiled egg and pour all his yolky-strangeness out into a TV show. For weeks the show has been "about to be cancelled", but the makers have finished the order of 13 episodes that ABC commissioned. So maybe we'll see them all.
Daisies is something we don't see on TV much anymore. Gentle, funny, intelligent and, though you may disagree, edgy. Yes, I said edgy. No, it doesn't have huge theatrical explosions; no it doesn't have graphic sex; no, it doesn't need to be edited for language. So why do I say edgy? Only because you can look anywhere on TV between 8pm and 11pm and find all of those things. And when something is everywhere, it's the thing that is unlike the others that is edgy. It's daring. Risk-taking, at times breath-taking, and unapologetically, heart-breakingly romantic. Daisies dares to not offer you sex and guns and violence and intense social dilemma. It doesn't need those things. It takes Hepburn and Tracey and puts it in the blender with Tim Burton and Mike Hammer. The result is something you can actually show your kids without worrying that they're being desensitized.
Not only does it have the boyishly handsome Lee Pace, perfectly cast as Ned, it has something for the guys too, in the imported Anna Friel, who's come a long way from Brookside Close. Their awkward romance is endearing and, for them, literally untouchable. If you haven't seen the show, watch this trailer:
Now, I'm not an advocate of committees and organizations that want to sanitize tv. Not at all. I'm in favor of a lot of explosions and sex and cussing on the tv. But Daisies offers something for us to marvel at, like the first time we saw a giant Christmas display in a department store, or the first time we saw fireworks. And when there is so much tabloid tv, so much "unscripted" tv, how can ABC be contemplating letting this one get away?
Daisies is something we don't see on TV much anymore. Gentle, funny, intelligent and, though you may disagree, edgy. Yes, I said edgy. No, it doesn't have huge theatrical explosions; no it doesn't have graphic sex; no, it doesn't need to be edited for language. So why do I say edgy? Only because you can look anywhere on TV between 8pm and 11pm and find all of those things. And when something is everywhere, it's the thing that is unlike the others that is edgy. It's daring. Risk-taking, at times breath-taking, and unapologetically, heart-breakingly romantic. Daisies dares to not offer you sex and guns and violence and intense social dilemma. It doesn't need those things. It takes Hepburn and Tracey and puts it in the blender with Tim Burton and Mike Hammer. The result is something you can actually show your kids without worrying that they're being desensitized.
Not only does it have the boyishly handsome Lee Pace, perfectly cast as Ned, it has something for the guys too, in the imported Anna Friel, who's come a long way from Brookside Close. Their awkward romance is endearing and, for them, literally untouchable. If you haven't seen the show, watch this trailer:
Now, I'm not an advocate of committees and organizations that want to sanitize tv. Not at all. I'm in favor of a lot of explosions and sex and cussing on the tv. But Daisies offers something for us to marvel at, like the first time we saw a giant Christmas display in a department store, or the first time we saw fireworks. And when there is so much tabloid tv, so much "unscripted" tv, how can ABC be contemplating letting this one get away?
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