I asked you a simple question! Do you love her? YES! But don't hold that against me, I'm a little screwy myself!

Wednesday, May 23, 2007

Eulogy for the Recently Cancelled

The last two Tuesdays have been teary nights for me. I've had to say goodbye to two of my favorite shows, Gilmore Girls and Veronica Mars. My weeknight of witty women is no more.

For Gilmore Girls, my tears were all nostalgic and happy to see it go out well after a disappointing few seasons that I like to call Those Blighted by Logan Huntzberger, That Smug Ridiculous Frat Boy Who Somehow Managed to Become Rory's One True Love by the Power of Persistence. It's a long title, but appropriate, I think you'll find.

For Veronica Mars, I was sad. It ended on a sad episode that was good, but not intended to be the series finale because the CW is horrible and would rather be known as the Pussycat Dolls network than be in any way associated with quality television.

So, yeah. It's hard out there for a TV lover. You take a chance on a show, get to liking it, start to depend on it to shape your weeknights and then find out that, just because you're in a minority, you don't get to have it anymore. You know, or, the show has been on since you were in college (undergrad, not grad), and it needs to be put down before any incidences with sharks and waterskis.

Regardless, you end up sniffling at your TV set, a generally embarrassing proposition. I don't love any show unconditionally, but I loved these enough to mourn their passing, even after a fairly rough season for both. What was there to love? What is there to miss? Well, I'll tell you.

First, Gilmore Girls:

1. The quirky dialogue on Gilmore Girls emulated the speed and wit of my favorite 1930s comedies. If anyone has ever given Rosalind Russell a run for her money as the premiere fast-talking dame, it was Lauren Graham.

2. Rory reminded me of me when I was sixteen, always carting around a huge book and academically serious. It was nice to see a smart teenager on TV, someone who was aiming high and working hard to get there. (Of course, you could argue that Willow from BtVS came first, but when I first started watching GG, I wasn't yet all that in to Buffy.)

3. Gilmore Girls was about relationships, but very rarely did it fall into the soapy doldrums of concentrating solely on the romantic sort. One of the most consistently compelling relationships driving the show was the touchy, sometimes disastrous one between Laurelai and her mother, Emily.

4. There was one romantic relationship that fueled the series and it was expertly done for the first 5 seasons. Luke and Laurelai were constantly aware of each other but never quite connected over those seasons, building a mountain of sexual tension. When there was an actual relationship to speak of between them, the momentum of the series floundered a bit, but was brought nicely back together here at the end.

5. There were townies. There was Kirk, the odd-job guy; Taylor, the prickish "town selectman"; Miss Patty, the lascivious dance teacher; Babette and Mory, the neighbors with much cat love and a somewhat imperfect knowledge of the principles of TMI. Stars Hollow had a troubador. In fact, at one point, it had (rather contentiously) two troubadors. There was a troubador festival. The antics were always a bit crazy, but balanced out the show's more dramatic tendencies.

6. Paris Gellar. She started off at Chilton frightening all of her academic rivals into submission and ended the series by going off to scare everyone on the Indian subcontinent. You just had to appreciate a girl with drive.

7. Lauren Graham and Kelly Bishop. There are a lot of good actors out there but I've never believed that two women loved each other and just could not get along more than when these two actresses played them.

8. It was the first big break for both Jared Padalecki and Milo Ventimiglia, who have gone on to be exponentially hotter on Supernatural and Heroes, respectively. (The flip side of this distinction is that it was also the first big break for Chad Michael Murray who has gone on to be a blonde blight on society.)

9. Much has been made over the implausibility of Laurelai and Rory's relationship, but I always found it to be both entertaining and believable. You could see the parenting cogs working in Laurelai's head every time a difficult situation came up and the unique informality they had with each other made those situations much more unpredictable and therefore entertaining.

10. Finally, just like its characters, Gilmore Girls was smart. References weren't dumbed down or spelled out for slow viewers. You either got the reference and the joke or you didn't and the show plowed right on.

And now, Veronica Mars:

1. Veronica Mars, while just as witty as Gilmore Girls, took on a darker tone that emulated film noir classics. In Neptune, CA, everyone's moral compass was pointing in a southerly direction and vengeful little Veronica seemed fated for a hard-luck life.

2. It was a high school show, but the matters and manner in which they were presented were entirely adult. That made it hard to sell to people I was trying to get to watch it, but it also made it great. Murder, adultery, theft, kidnapping, rape--Veronica solved them all.

3. Veronica had great friends and she got them in great ways. Her best friend, Wallace Fennell, she met when she cut him down after he was duct-taped naked to the school flag pole. She met her Q, Mac, during her investigation of the scandals surrounding online purity tests. Veronica outed the people posting fake scores, but only later realized that Mac was the mastermind behind the test, fleecing the rich kids out of their allowances.

4. Veronica was the champion of the underprivileged with a heavy chip on her shoulder about the over. But it was never as simple as her being a little blonde Robin Hood. Her sense of fairness prevailed, even while her regard for the law remained... flexible.

5. In a similar vein, Veronica was always a bit bruised and angry, even after the turmoils of the first season. And that anger made her kind of a bad-ass, in the best sense of the word.

6. For the most part, the mysteries were great. They were well plotted and foreshadowed without being obvious. I'd usually be pretty surprised by the big revelation, especially in the season-long arcs of seasons 1 and 2. And after every long arc was resolved, I'd marvel at the feats of continuity that they'd managed.

7. The show just dripped with moral ambiguity. Good people would do things they shouldn't and bad people had moments of redemption until everyone was shaded a touch gray.

8. Logan Echolls and Eli "Weevil" Navarro were two characters who were unpredictable and whose relationships with Veronica were always in flux, dependent on recent events. It was fascinating to watch them interact, with Veronica and with each other.

9. Keith Mars. He was corny, he was lovable, he didn't let Veronica get away with deceiving him. Their spy vs spy games were fun but even more enjoyable was to watch them solve the cases and punish the guilty together. I'd have voted for him for sheriff.

10. Veronica Mars had, bar none, the best freshman season of television that I have ever seen. The Lily Kane murder case was incredibly well played out. It was personal and emotional for Veronica, which made her movements unpredictable and heart-wrenching. Everyone was a suspect and no one could be trusted. The case had everything to do with the decisions that Veronica was making in her life in the present. It was compelling stuff.

Goodbye, girly TV shows. You were too good for your network.

Monday, May 14, 2007

Everything I Need to Know about Love I Learned From...

"The Notebook"
Starring Ryan Gosling and Rachel McAdams

1. Chicks love Walt Whitman. Quote Walt Whitman, and you're guaranteed to get the bloomers.
2. If your one true love leaves you for another man, the best way to get her back is to renovate an old house and refuse to sell it.
3. Lying in the middle of the street is romantic and not at all a way to get run over by a Model T or a tractor trailer.
4. If you're a 17-year-old girl, the best way to convince your parents that the local lumber yard worker is the man for you is to fly into a rage and scream, "But I love him! I do! I love him!" while tears stream down your face. Then your parents will take you seriously.
5. What's more, if your boyfriend gets out of line and tries to break up with you, kick his ass. He can't hit you back, and he'll be able to count the ways you love him by the bruises on his head, arms, and chest.
6. Save the sweet love-making for a rainy day. The sex can't be hot unless your outfit and hair are completely ruined.
7. Ryan Gosling should always have a beard. (And he should call me.)
8. You know it's true love when you see each other after seven years, and you're both "different"... but "the same." Ya know?
9. When you're lonely, there's always a war widow ready to ease the pain of your solitude (if you know what I mean). Don't be too nice to her, though. She's not your one true love.
10. Your attraction to clever lumber yard workers is hardly your fault. Your mother had the same problem, and your grandmother before her. It's up to you to decide if you're going to stalk him after you marry a millionaire--or live with your hot lumber yard worker for the rest of your natural life.
11. Get rid of all your platonic friends. Once you've found your true love, you don't need anybody else. The best way to get rid of your only friend is for both you to fight in World War II. He's not leading man material, so he won't survive.
12. While ducks add to the romantic boat ride, use caution when tossing those bread crumbs. Poor aim can turn this tender moment into an Alfred Hitchcock classic. Nothing ruins a sexy scene quite like killer ducks.
13. If you are beginning to suffer from dementia, spend your remaining units of brain power writing a glorified romance novel for your husband to read to you. Leave out the parts where you graduated from college, had children, and painted masterpieces. These details are but distractions from your beautiful lurve story.
14. True love is patient, and true love waits, but most of all, true love arranges a time for you to die together at the rest home.

Wednesday, May 02, 2007

Rise of an A-hole

Jon Stewart likes to torture me.

At the end of every episode of the Daily Show, he conducts either a jovial, joke-filled interview with whatever actor has a movie coming out this week or on rare occasions he invites some obscure scholar to plug his book or he invites someone he disagrees with so that they can have an awkward, slightly antagonistic head to head while I cringe at home. Monday night was a sort of combination of the last two categories with the added punch of me realizing about a minute in that I already hated the guy.

The guy was Christopher Hitchens, there to plug his new book God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything. More on that little gem later.

Why do I hate this guy? It all started here. That is, where he took it upon himself to argue that women are somehow biologically formed or sociologically conditioned to be less funny than men. His proofs are plenty sketchy, from the Stanford medical study that he misinterprets to the literary sources he quotes (all men from about 50 to 100 years ago, by the way) to his own experience of social interactions, which have to be pretty one-sided when you're such a blowhard that you can't keep quiet long enough for Jon Stewart to throw in the occasional joke. I mean, no wonder women aren't lining up to try and make him laugh.

It seems almost demeaning to actually detail and refute the claims of this article. I mean, seriously? This kind of 19th century misogyny pseudo-science article is still around and getting published in Vanity Fair?

Then I began to notice that one of my regular-read sites, Slate, has been publishing this guy. I found myself reading an article called "The You Decade" that blathered on and on about some sort of cultural shift in advertising terminology without ever coming to any sort of discernable point. This was when I recognized his name and starting wondering why this guy was so successful.

I looked him up on Wikipedia. According to that august publication, he's some sort of extremist political flip-flopper with denial issues about it. So, how did he end up on my TV, plowing over my beloved Jon Stewart?

Here's where we come back to that new "provocative" book he's shilling. It is just what I would expect him to write. Put alongside his Vanity Fair article, you can see him angling for all the attention he can get out of being contrary. From the book's cover design (with "God" uncapitalized and overshadowed by the towering capitalized "great") to his stated objective of attempting to devalue belief as a virtue, you can tell he's trying to get a rise out of the majority of the American public. I mean, what other possible motive could he have for parading around the "newly-discovered" loopholes in the Bible? Athiesm is not a novel thing. It's been around. Plenty of people who don't believe are doing exactly what plenty of people who believe are doing. That is, quietly living their lives and respecting other people's convictions without feeling the need to get in their faces with an age-old argument.

Which leads me back to my ultimate question. Who is this guy? Why is he so popular? How has he managed to invade my liberal stomping grounds with his pointless caveman campaigns? Because, you know, Jon Stewart said it best. Christopher Hitchens is an asshole.